Days of Our Lives: Will Horton's Big Gay Kiss

I never got into soap operas, except Dark Shadows, but I remember a thousand summer days when my mother called us in from play, sat us down at the formica table in the kitchen for a lunch of fried baloney sandwiches and potato chips -- nothing tastes better -- and then rushed into the living room, where an impressive baritone voice was intoning: "Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

My mother has heard those words -- the theme to Days of Our Lives -- almost every day since 1965, the problems of the Hortons and the Bradys providing a warm, reassuring stability as the days and weeks and years pass with lightning speed.  I've watched only at my annual Christmas visits, when the characters are giving each other presents and saying "I hope the New Year will be better."  It never is.

But now, at least, gay people are participating in the angst.

Soaps first began to display gay characters during the 1980s, but Days of Our Lives, rather on the conservative side, waited until June 23, 2011, when gangster grandson Sonny Kiriakis (Freddie Smith, left who previously played a gay character on the evening teen soap 90210) tells his friend Will Horton (Chandler Massey) that he's gay.












But the real coming out story is for Will, a Days of Our Lives legacy, grandson and great-grandson of long-term characters.  As with most soap opera storylines, it takes over a year.

1. When Sonny reveals that he's gay, Will (left) is shocked, but eventually says he's ok with it.
2. He breaks up with his girlfriend Mia, arguably because he's into her ex-boyfriend Chad (Casey Diedrick).
3. He gets a new girlfriend, Gabi, but he rebuffs her sexual advances, and they break up.






4. He goes to a party and kisses Neil (Jesse Kristofferson). He tells everyone that he was just drunk.
5. In March, he tells his grandmother Marlena that he's gay.  She's ok with it.
6. He tells everyone else in the cast, one at a time.  Their reactions are all positive.
7. By the summer of 2012, he is dating Sonny.









8. He's outed in the media, and experiences homophobia.

9. He befriends Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell, previously a Disney hunk with credits on The Wizards of Waverly Place and Sonny with a Chance) who murdered his stepmother and was raped in prison.

Soap buzz is that they may be the next DOOL power couple.