The gay couple on The Bold and the Beautiful just got themselves into a hot, hot mess
Deke and Remy might be on the rocks, for a weirdly annoying reason
Mark
The CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful may have been running for 37 seasons, but that doesn’t mean they can’t dig up fresh controversy when the occasion calls for it. And it’s seldom that the occasion doesn’t call for more drama.
Back in September, viewers were introduced to a Harrison Cone’s Deke Sharp, an aspiring designer who quickly boos up with out actor Christian Weissman’s Remy at Forrester Creations. Fans were thrilled to see the show get its first bonafide gay male couple, but now—in true soap opera fashion—it seems like there’s a twist no one saw coming.
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In the past, Remy was in love with Forrester siren Electra, before conveniently transforming into a gay man in later seasons.
Now, it seems like Remy’s significant other Deke may also be falling for Electra, because there’s nothing more dramatic than having every character in a soap opera be potentially bisexual.
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Of course, there’s a problem here, because the gays don’t like to be given a show’s first gay couple only to have said couple ripped apart by a hetero storyline.
While bisexual representation is always important, in a soap opera context, it often comes off as disingenuous. Sure, it’s possible that Remy and Deke are just two chaotic bisexuals who found each other, but it feels pretty random for Deke to also be possibly falling for Remy’s old crush.
Viewers aren’t pleased, and they’re calling out the twist for what it is.
Then again, some viewers feel like something bigger is being set up between Deke and Electra, and that it’s not romantic at all. I guess that’s the problem with soap opera storytelling—when everyone’s exchanging burning looks, it’s hard to tell who’s trying to dig up secrets, and who’s just trying to bone.
If the show is already trying to transform Deke into yet another love interest possibility for the show’s female characters, it wouldn’t be the first instance of using LGBTQ+ characters to advance the drama, rather than create meaningful representation.
Years ago, The Bold and the Beautiful introduced its first trans character, Maya Avant (played by Kara Mosely), a formerly incarcerated woman in search of the daughter who was taken from her years ago. But the disappointing “twist”, of course, traded on Maya’s trans identity.
Avant is eventually revealed to have been assigned male at birth, and while the situation was handled somewhat tactfully, the choice arose not out of an authentic desire to show viewers a trans woman of color working in fashion, but to get viewers gasping.
Executive producer Bradley Bell said at the time: “I wanted to present [Maya] with something very dramatic, something timely and topical, and I wanted her to have a secret and I thought about if she was transgender from the very beginning and I got very excited.” Maya Avant became the third-ever trans character in a mainstream American soap opera, but that achievement was obviously secondary to the shock-and-awe factor the show was going for.
As for Deke, we don’t know whether or not he identifies as bisexual, or if the show is setting up a more complex relationship between him and Electra that has nothing to do with romance. In the meantime, we’re enjoying Cone’s portrayal of Deke and his fascinating array of cardigans.
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