The ABC comedy series ‘Soap‘ ran from 1977 until 1981, courting controversy for most of its lifetime. Central to this was the fact that it spoofed traditional television soap operas by featuring outlandish characters and storylines.  So much so that the TV station received nearly 30,000 letters of protest before the first episode had even hit the screens!

Along with the stories of murder, infidelity and alien abduction was that of Jodie Dallas, deemed to be one of the first regular gay characters on an American TV series. Unsurprisingly, the mere presence of a regular gay character triggered massive protest from the religious Right. However the way the character was portrayed also raised a few concerns within the LGBT community too. Part of this came from the producers initial representations of Jodie (played by Billy Crystal) as some hybrid of gay man, transvestite and transsexual. It seems they didn’t understand the difference between ‘parody’ and ‘ridicule’.

After intervention by various LGBT groups, assurances were given that the character would become more realistic. In practice this seemed to mean turning him into a heterosexual whilst still calling him a gay man. Thus, at the beginning of the series he’s in a relationship with a professional football player and enters hospital to have a sex change so that they can legally marry. But before the surgery takes place, the football player ends the relationship and Jodie attempts suicide.

Needless to say he survives but then embarks on a series of extraordinary relationships – most of which are with women, despite his constant assertion that he is gay. He fathers a child with one of them and, at a later point, even tries dating a lesbian friend to see what happens!

Whilst the story lines themselves were bizarre enough, the story of the show is pretty strange too. The fifth season was cancelled at very short notice, leaving most of the story lines unresolved. This included the progress of Jodie who, by that stage, was engaged in a custody battle for his daughter and undertaking therapy to prove he was in love with a (female) private detective he had hired to track down his daughter (who had been kidnapped by her mother)! And, for some reason, his therapy had left him believing himself to be a 90-year old Jewish man!

As they used to say at the start of each episode, ‘Confused? You will be!’

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