Sorry, sounds like she’s rewriting her own history. Most rapes on soaps are cut away from. So that’s not innovative. And it doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape.
Tony said it was always rape. Genie played it as rape. Her clothes were torn and Laura looked like any wounded, traumatized rape victim afterward and in the park. I recently finally saw the hospital scene, and it’s disturbing. Laura looks like she’s out of her mind, and Luke looks alarmed that she’s acting like nothing happened. But that didn’t last long, because in later scenes she was angry and she called it rape to his face. Bobbie doubted it was rape, and then Luke set her straight and said he’d raped Laura as brutally as any woman had been raped.
It was rape until the irresponsible sailboat seduction scene. It’s obvious that either the writing team had changed or Gloria was inserting her seduction crap. And the rewrite was complete when Laura told Luke in 1981 that the disco was the first time they made love. Again Tony played a Luke that looked mortified. And then they never discussed the rape again, not until 17 years later when finally a responsible producer and set of writers revisited the original story and corrected Laura’s delusional behavior. And I’m glad they did.
In September 22, 1998 SOW. Gloria said that she helped
to create the scene and she directed it, but didn't write it.
She says, "I refuse to call it rape. Someone told me that
sequence would never fly today because women are different, and
they would object to it. That's nonsense." She said she
intentionally directed it to have what really happened to Laura
vague in the audience's mind. "You heard her scream 'No, but we
cut away before. You didn't know what ultimately happened,
except that they had sex. I wanted the audience to wonder, 'was
it a rape?'" She says the truth came out later in more subtle
scenes and THOSE are the ones she wrote, rather than the rape.
She says that these later scenes were overlooked.
"After the seduction, Luke went to see her in the hospital. He
brought flowers and she smiled and said, 'Thank you,' and, most
importantly, she accepted the flowers. She acted as if nothing
had happened. She could have looked at him the way that she did
and accepted the flowers, if she thought that what had happened
was a rape. The night of the seduction, this man had one day to
live. He was going to die. She came into the disco, and he kept
telling her to go away. In an emotional sequence like that, if
she had started running out and he caught her and dragged her
back, then I would also say it was rape. But if the man says,
'Get out, get out, please leave,' and you stay. . . then you're
crossing the line."
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