The Tuesday De-Briefing: Rex Balsom or Someone He Used To Be

This is not the ordinary de-briefing of an actor, which means that perhaps the young man should be seen more than he is. This is the de-briefing of a character. One Life to Live in its auspicious past as noted here had no problem in relating the coming out story of Billy as portrayed by Ryan Phillipe. During the regime of Gary Tomlin, out Gay Executive Producer of the show, when the character of Rex Balsom was created, he was intended be gay, but gay of another stripe -- a flawed, manipulative gay teenager with a dysfunctional upbringing. Somehow that didn't happen. The pious gay viewer may guess at the circumstances of the sudden change in the sexual orientation of the character. The good news is that Rex Balsom was created by a very talented young actor, John Paul Lavoisier. JP can take Rex to a lot of places. Unfortunately the powers that be did not permit the character to speak the love that dare not speak its name.



While All My Children seems to be going all over the map with sexual orientation, neither of the ABC-TV shows appears to want to allow the existence of a viable gay male as part of a core family. While it would be more than satisfying to de-brief JP Lavoisier, it would be much more so to de-brief or actually allow to appear the original conception of a young gay man on the landscape of a daytime continuing drama. Are Dena Higley or Megan MacTavish watching Brothers & Sisters? It's on the same network.