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"History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images."

― Anselm Kiefer

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1947: On Lora Lawton, Lora (Jan Miner) continued to worry about Peter. The Frank and Anne Hummert radio soap opera ran from 1943 to 1950 on NBC.

1954: On Portia Faces Life, Portia (Frances Reid) was busy taking non-stop phone calls.

1966: On Dark Shadows, Bill Malloy (Frank Schofield), manager of the Collins Fishing Fleet, warned Elizabeth (Joan Bennett) that Burke wanted to take everything the Collins family owned.

1971: On Another World, when Alice (Jacqueline Courtney) returned to Bay City, Steve (George Reinholt) was...

1975: Ryan's Hope premiered on ABC."All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut."

― Anne Brontë in "Agnes Grey"

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1947: On Lora Lawton, Lora (Jan Miner) continued to worry about Peter. The Frank and Anne Hummert radio soap opera ran from 1943 to 1950 on NBC.

1954: On Portia Faces Life, Portia (Frances Reid) was busy taking non-stop phone calls.

1966: On Dark Shadows, Bill Malloy (Frank Schofield), manager of the Collins Fishing Fleet, warned Elizabeth (Joan Bennett...

ABC’s What Would You Do? has successfully mined content from public reaction to gay issues for years. They use actors to set up some sort of Lgbt scenario, then they film the public reaction. Many times, it’s so much better than you expect. And other times it isn’t.

This time out, Wwyd travels to Vicksburg, Ms and has two actors enter a restaurant and pose as an affectionate gay couple. (One of the actors is Hunting Season‘s Ben Baur) The reaction isn’t pretty. Some patrons quietly quote the Bible while claiming they don’t want to get involved, even when encouraged by an actor plant. Others giggle and make jokes, loudly. And the planted staff even go so far as to ask Ben and his boyfriend to leave because they’re disturbing other patrons, which is perfectly legal in Mississippi. Especially when cloaked in religious freedom.

Patti Smith is busy turning her life with Robert Mapplethorpe into a movie. But who could play such iconic cultural figures? Patti says that one idea she had was Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. I'll just let that sink in for a minute.

Espn anonymously surveyed athletes in the NBA, NFL, NHL, and Mbl for their attitudes on a variety of subjects, including same-sex marriage. Overall, the results were positive, except in the NBA and Mlb, who oppose it by a slim margin. The NHL, home of the You Can Play Project, was 92.3% in favor.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $250,000 to the Maryland campaign to preserve marriage equality. Bloomberg has a lot of faults, but he's been remarkable on marriage.

Peter Berg, the creator of Friday Night Lights, is not happy that Mitt Romney is using "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" from his show in the campaign. "Mitt, we...

Hunting Season is Logo's provocative new web series

AfterElton: We’re talking with Jon Marcus, the man behind Hunting Season, the new web series airing on Logo and it’s based upon one of my favorite blogs from the early 2000’s, The Great C*ck Hunt. Jon, how did we get a 2003 era blog into a web series in 2012?

Jon Marcus: I’m so glad that you were a fan of the original blog, that makes me really happy to hear. I too was a fan of the blog. It started in ’06 and then continued through, I believe, ’08, and in the middle of that period, somewhere around 2007-2008, there were three gay television networks that all started out. Logo was one of them, obviously, and one called Here! and one called Q. Seeing as how I was working in television at the time I decided that one of these...

It was bound to happen sooner or later: An update of Sex and the City that delves into the sexual exploits of gay New Yorkers. The new web series Hunting Season features a group of friends, many of whom are gay, as they navigate their love and sex lives in New York City. It’s based on the blog “The Great Cock Hunt,” which from 2005 to 2008 chronicled the love life of hot gay stud “Alex.” The site was followed up with a novel in 2008 about Alex’s college days. In Hunting Season, Alex is played by actor Ben Baur, who...