I have been a fan of Soap Operas for a long time. I was raised on them. My mother and aunts watched every single one on all the networks (CBS, ABC, NBC). I was the kid who started off being sent out of the room because I was too young to watch them. As I got older, I was allowed to stay in the room, and I got to watch all of them and live in the excitement as we tried to guess what would happen. In 1999, when Passions debuted, I remember being so excited because, as a teen, it felt like I was getting my very own Soap Opera for my generation. Learning that another new Soap Opera is coming makes me feel that excitement again, but this time for a different reason.
On March 6th, CBS announced that, in partnership with Procter & Gamble and the NAACP, they are developing a new Soap Opera titled The Gates. The official description of The Gates is that it “Follows the lives of a wealthy Black family in a posh, gated community.” Read that again. The Gates is a soap opera about a wealthy Black family. It has been 35 years since a Soap Opera featured an all-Black family at the center, and that was Generations, which debuted on NBC in 1989 and ended in 1991. Please let this sink in as well. It has been 35 years since a Soap Opera featured a Black family. That is mind-blowing and quite sad.
As I have mentioned before, the Soap Opera genre is very unkind to Black people. But specifically Black women. One only needs to look at the current state of Soap Operas like The Young and The Restless, which just saw several of their Black female characters (Elena, Amanda, now Lily) cheated on and replaced with white women, and General Hospital, which has sidelined their young Black heroine Trina Robinson (yes, we said heroine because that’s what she is. She saved the town of Port Charles and the entire world from a deadly pathogen) in the wake of the presumed death of the love of her life Spencer Cassadine. I could go on and on about how General Hospital has done a disservice to the character of Trina Robinson. She and several other Black characters on that show are not being written for in the same way their white counterparts are.
“This series will salute an audience that has been traditionally underserved, with the potential to be a groundbreaking moment for broadcast television. With multi-dimensional characters, juicy storylines and Black culture front and center, The Gates will have impactful representation…”
Sheila Ducksworth, President of CBS Studios NAACP venture
Because Black women are one of the highest demographics who watch Soap Operas, you would think that Executive Producers, writers, etc., would make sure to showcase them in a better light and write for them, but that’s a pipe dream—or at least it was before the announcement of The Gates. George Cheeks, the president and CEO of CBS and chief content officer for news and sports at Paramount+, is paying attention.
In an interview with Vulture, he said: “When we hired Sheila Ducksworth to run the NAACP venture, she and I had multiple meetings talking about what different genres she was going to lean into, and we talked a lot about daytime. One of the things that the data made very clear to both of us is that daytime soap operas over-index with Black women. Yet when you look at soap operas, it’s usually sort of a white-led family with supporting characters that reflect more of our society. So, we just thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to flip that and make the core anchor family a Black family, and then make the other characters reflect more the broader scope of society?”
I could not agree more with this statement. It’s about time the Soap genre started to realize we want diversity. All you have to do is look at the popularity of mixed-race couples like GH’s Spencer and Trina, AKA Sprina, or Days of Our Lives Johnny and Chanel. When we turn on our TVs, we want to see people who look like us and see them in good stories. Don’t just have them there to fill a quota to say, “Oh, look how diverse we are. Just look at the cast!” That’s not what matters to me. What matters to me is what are you doing with those diverse characters on my screen. Are you giving them equal airtime with meaningful storylines? Are you writing them as real people with real emotions? As a friend said, “Write for the character but incorporate the culture.” That’s what we need. And The Gates sounds like it’s going to give us exactly that.
The Gates will be written by daytime Soap Opera veteran Michele Val Jean, who will serve as executive producer and showrunner. I can tell you this is one of the most exciting pieces of news. Val Jean is a Soap aficionado who has written more than 2,000 episodes of daytime television and won multiple Daytime Emmy awards for her work on The Bold & The Beautiful and General Hospital, two of the three remaining daytime soaps currently on television. That brings me to my next thought on this news.
The Soap genre has been a dying one for some time now. With the increase in streaming services, where we are getting to see the things we want to see and have instant gratification, it has been difficult for them to keep up. With the ones that remain on our TVs, it seems as if there has been a sort of complacency. Some Soaps, like General Hospital, seem to think they can continue with the same formula they have followed, but it’s not working anymore. That’s why I hope The Gates offers some healthy competition that makes General Hospital and the rest of these soaps on our screens, wake up and realize they need to do better. Soap watchers, especially Black female soap watchers, are tired of the same old. We’re tired of Soaps refusing to recognize that diversity is essential and ignoring that it is not sustainable.
At this point, we do not have any information as to when The Gates is coming or who else will be involved. What we do know is that those involved are doing everything in their power to ensure that they deliver something ground-breaking, and I can’t wait to see it.
This is well said. This also says some things that need saying.
It’s worth noting that they are (so far at least) planning it as an hour soap, not a half hour. Why does that matter? An hour yields more potential profit for the production companies & the network. So, you might say, okay, but why does that matter? And it’s because as businesses in the business of making profit, the more profitable the project the more likely they are to continue to be motivated to invest in it. And, literally, to do things right!
Also Sheila Ducksworth, who will be one of the EPs, and Michele Val Jean, were together Producers of “Ambitions” a Jamey Giddens project which was produced in Atlanta. Those 3 people are all POC. Two of them have histories in the soap world.
And Michele Val Jean not only wrote the best catfight ever in soap opera existence but she hangs out on social media & connects with fans!