In a curious overlap of two audiences which, I am told, don’t often overlap to a large degree, Julia Quinn’s novel The Lost Duke of Wyndham is featured in the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest because the cover features Norwegian actress Ewa da Cruz from As the World Turns. Several SBTB readers pointed that out when we discussed the cover awhile back, which I never would have known, as I don’t watch soap operas. The article in the Digest is part interview with da Cruz, and part review.
Which brings me to my next question: how many of you who are romance fans also follow a soap? I never got into them, though I admit to being totally enthralled with possessed Marlena with those freakass creepy contact lenses on Days of Our Lives all those years ago. But I’ve never been a big soap fan. I went to college with a large core of viewers who would tape them and watch together at the end of the day, but I couldn’t stomach the fact that anyone who earned a happy ending wouldn’t stay blissful for more than 2 episodes. There would be a fireside lovemaking scene with the L-shaped sheet (covers her from clavicle to thigh, but barely covers his manly pelvis, ahem), and a really opulent wedding, then, commence angst, drama and unhappiness! I just couldn’t take it. Are you a soap fan? Which one?
And where can I get some of Marlene’s freakass creepy contact lenses?
I have, in the past, watched various soaps. Unfortunately, a lot of the ones I liked went off the air (I seem to be the kiss of death for any show I like).
I watched Dark Shadows when it was new. It was incredibly popular when I went to college – since we didn’t have Tivo or VCRs then, you had to watch when it was on. Since it came on in the afternoon, right in the middle of labs, fans who had a lab would leave one person to watch the lag and everyone else would traipse up to the nearest dorm, commander the TV, watch the half-hour of Dark Shadows, then go back to the lab.
Toddson- amusing we were thinking the same thing right then, isn’t it? Being the kiss of death is what happens to any good show on TV that I like. Moonlight? Blood Ties? New Amsterdam? See. I quit watching new shows.
Esri Rose welcome to the Erica Kane fan club! I like to watch actors on soaps, especially long term. The challenge of playing the same character, every day, for YEARS, in different situations and circumstances, fascinates me. There’s an interesting tension (in terms of “character development”) between keeping a character consistent over months and years (even when you change the actor!) and having him/her change, learn, grow, adapt over time. Some actors do it better than others —some writers, too. It’s always a shock when writers take a character “in a different direction,” with or without accompanying amnesia/multiple personality/possession/long-lost twin to explain it. For me that’s part of the fun, but I know lots of people find it silly.
To weigh in on class and race: most soaps start with one rich family and one working class family, and one of the early plot lines is a “wrong side of the track” romance between the son of one and daughter of the other. In the 70s, some soaps worked to add racial diversity, with varying results. There was a lot of segregation within the story, but there were also interracial romances (like Duncan and Jessica, the marvelous Tamara Tunie, on ATWT). And you did, and do, see cops, doctors and lawyers who aren’t white, and a lot of construction workers and waitresses who are. If you mostly watched prime time soaps, you’d get a very different experience.
All My Children had the first abortion on television—not televised, but in the story line—as well as a pretty good Vietnam protest plot. They also featured a lesbian storyline before such things were at all accepted on prime time. Other soaps have pushed various other social envelopes, despite daytime’s reputation for being safe and boring. I was writing a book about this, once upon a time.
Randi – If you say I need to expand my reading selection, then I can pretty much counter with you needing to expand your viewing selection. It’s an argument that can only go round and round and will get neither of us anywhere.
As I said, personal taste is personal taste, but generalizing about soaps and their poor quality is the equivalent of making the same broad judgment about romance novels, and I didn’t mean to say that you, specifically, were being disingenuous. Rather, it’s the entire incredulous tone from several posters here, who are glancing at soaps askance, like it’s an embarrassment to admit to watching them.
Soaps are just as varied and diverse as books. You’ve got your Nora Roberts equivalent gold standard (The Young and the Restless), you’ve got your romance author who somehow veered off into action thriller territory ala Sandra Brown and Iris Johansen (General Hospital), you’ve got your OMGWTFBBQ! Emma Holly-Cassie Edwards hybrid in Passions, etc.
SonomaLass: fair enough. I clearly did not catch those particular episodes (though I was born in 1974-not old enough to watch soaps in the 70’s). But now I’m curious: have you seen cultural moves in soaps form the 70’s? Or more specifically: If, in the 70’s, soaps were branching out into various socio-economic and racial story lines, did you see that trend continue in the 80’s and 90’s? Or, did you see a different trend in the 80’s and a different trend in the 90’s, and also, what do you see happening now in soaps?
Sonoma- I love All my children and esp Erica Kane. they have had the best story lines and some of the best man titty going for years. Jackson, anyone?? I need a bib.
I’m not SonomaLass, but I’m glad to see the points she brought up. There has absolutely been a trend since the ‘70 to continue dealing with issues of race and class in daytime. From shows like Generations, to GH’s current spinoff, Night Shift. I just wish they’d get a better handle on their gender issues!
Gotta ask: what does the BBQ stand for in OMGWTFBBQ? I can figure the rest out but the BBQ has been driving me nuts for a while. I assume its not barbeque. 😛
I can’t watch soaps. If I start watching I’ll get hooked on a story line and frustrated beyond belief because it’s just so SLOW and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS – except that one time I’m unable to watch. I’d rather spend that time reading. I’ll take books over pretty much anything on TV – ever. The more I watch, the less time I have to read. The more I watch, the less sleep I get.
That said, I sometimes like me some latin emotion in the form of a telenovela. The culture is so different, the emotions so big, some of the women so full of plastic (silicone, whatever) it’s unbelievable, and the macho, macho men who don’t take no for an answer… kind of like the heroes of bodice rippers. 😀 That’s entertainment! I’m lucky to have a friend who watches regularly so I don’t have to, I just get an update once in a while.
time54. No time for everything I want to do, must prioritize.
I’ve watched all of the ABC soaps (All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital) off and on since I was out of diapers. I have my complaints and I’ve done my share of cursing out the TV, but I just can’t seem to give them up completely for any length of time. I even went through a phase where I was a groupie and went to soap events and to Super Soap Weekend at Disney.
LizC…Jax rocks! He deserves a woman like Alexis, doesn’t he!
Not since Another World went off the air, but even then it wasn’t the same since Anne Heche left. You could see the crazy in her eyes even back then! It sucked you in!
Malin, I think BBQ does stand for barbeque. It’s added in as a joke, because OMGWTF already has enough letters, we might as well add a few more. I could be wrong, since I first heard about it here at Smart Bitches (along with a few other choice phrases).
Glad to know I was not the only one hooked on Dark Shadows. Barnabas Collins rules! Or sucks? I don’t know…
I love soap operas, they are just hilarious! Unfortunately, we don’t get many good ones in Germany; so currently I only watch a German one when I’m at home at the time it’s broadcast. The characters look funny – at least those that portray “cool” teenagers – and the way they can be a bar owner in one month, a teacher next month and work at a advertising agency after that always cracks me up. Also, nobody ever needs training or a university degree to get a fabulous job and earn tons of money. And almost all of the actors are incredibly awful! I used to love Guiding Light; especially the first episodes shown on German tv, which dated probably from the late 70s/early 80s. The drama of it all! The hair! The dresses! Mexican telenovelas are even better, especially the one that had an eeeevil grandma (I think) wearing a plaid eyepatch. I wish they would show that one again.
Ummm…read a hot romance with a HEA or watch somebody else’s never ending drama over and over and over again…just kill me now. I’d rather die with a good book in my hand:)
I got hooked on the ABC soaps in college, thanks to my roommate at the time who is a major All My Children addict. I already had a soft spot for All My Children though due to my parents’ college addiction when it was brand new and because of this little nugget: A Wrinkle in Time author Madeleine L’Engle’s husband, Hugh Franklin, played Dr. Charles Tyler, the patriarch of AMC, from its inception until his cancer forced him to retire in 1986 or 87 (I’m fuzzy on that date).
I’m with Chicklet on the respect for the writers. It’s a crazy job, and great training for TV writing. People always looked at me like I was crazy when I said that was an ideal job. It’s like bootcamp for television writers. Plus, Whoopi makes it look awesome in Soapdish, still one of my favorite movies ever.
Sigh – Melissandre you have given me proof of the generation gap. I used to be on YOUR side of the canyon. I REMEMBER when Dark Shadows first aired on TV. It started around the time of my 13th birthday – 1966 -and I LOVED it. The throes of outraged puberty + sensual (for then) show = me very confused and needy LOL. Unfortunately, the show aired when I got out of school and I always missed the first 15 minutes. Would watch ALL the re-runs during the summer so I could catch up completely. When I started driving in 1969, I MADE my mother watch it so she could tell me what I had missed. Only at the next commercial – if I happened to get home while the show was on NO TALKING was allowed until commercials aired. She was great about that because she absolutely HATED the show!
SBTB – love your site. Thanx for doing the work for the rest of us.
I’m with you for basically the same reasons. I LOVE the show that can make an HEA interesting and work—it’s the reason (I think!) that the J.D. Robb series has such a big following. Because watching Eve and Roarke MAKE IT WORK is so much more entertaining than watching Eve break up with Roarke in order to date Feeney, McNab, Trueheart, the Chief, and that one guy she bunked and left before she met Roarke, before they get back together for another two and a half sessions of L-shaped sheet sex!
I’m a big fan of Hollyoaks and Verbotene Liebe (a German soap). I watch the clips on youtube (thank god for youtube). I don’t really find the american soaps to be all that attractive as the acting and scripts seem so much worse than their British/German counterparts.
Then again, it might just be the accents. I’m a sucker for accents.
What???? They were fake? Oh holy-disappointment!
My fav memory as a kid was at my friend’s grandma’s house one summer afternoon: The gran came down the stairs in her Sunday-best floral-patterned dress with a flower pinned to her shoulder….. to watch a wedding on one of her soaps. Honestly. She cried. We gaped. My mother stayed an hour after her work to hear all about the “wedding”……. I don’t know, soap operas can’t be bad if women who were that good really loved them.
submit word: single46. I Wish.
I love Dark Shadows! My mom and I used to watch it together when I was younger, and then I picked it up again in college when SciFi was showing it. It had just enough of everything to keep me hooked, including the cheese factor.
I’ve also watchd Passions and Sunset Beach, both, again, when I was in college. Both were completely absurd, though Passions moreso. WTH was up with Sheridan being Princess Di’s bff? Passions was one WTF moment after another. As far as soap time is concerned, I remember one year when the Sunset Beach folk were stuck on an island (Terror Island?) with Ben’s crazy twin brother or something. That and all the kidnapped baby drama!
Now I watch Y&R;and B&B;when I’m on break. The appeal of B&B;is that it is completely insane with all the marriages, the accelerated growth of the children, and completely unbelievable hook-ups. While Y&R;‘s Victor has been married numerous times to the same four women, for some reason, I find that more believable.
Mala, I’m going to agree with Randi on the race issue. Maybe it’s changed in the past four or five years, but as I recall, one of Passions‘s few positive traits was its diverse character pool. They started out with, if I’m remembering correctly, two white families, one black family, and one Latino family. Interracial relationships were practically the order of the day, and rarely (except when a particularly trollish character was being trollish) were they ever even discussed as such.
As far as I know, that level of integration is rare on soaps. I’d be happy to be wrong—but I want concrete examples. One black character does not a diverse cast make.
Well, no, snarkhunter, one black character does not always a diverse soap make, just as a genre driven by and large by novels about white aristocracy and white parents of white secret babies with a few interracial romances scattered in isn’t diverse. Them’s just the breaks.
Race issues and soaps are actually something of an ongoing cause of mine. As such, I would definitely cite Passions as being healthily mixed, as well as General Hospital: Night Shift (the parent was doing well for a while, but not so much lately). All My Children has won back points it lost during its very white past few years by having the entire Hubbard family (four members), an additional black teen, and his father on the show. One Life to Live had a solid mix of both blacks and Latinos through the years (waning lately), and The Young and the Restless has had the core characters of the Winters family for a very long time. Unfortunately, despite the upper middle class, white gay teens, As the World Turns is driving the Epic Failboat in the racial diversity department, as is its sister show Guiding Light. The Bold and the Beautiful just brought in a black character, and considering it’s a cast of 12 people, most of whom are related, that’s not bad odds.
Soaps are trying. Sometimes they’re failing, but they’re trying.
I’ve watched soaps on & off since I was in junior high or high school. I’m currently unemployed so I have at least a passing notion of what’s going on with most of the current crop. I can never watch any one show for very long though because I can’t invest in the characters when it’s a given that no couple can have a happy ending unless they leave the show or one of them dies.
In terms of race & class on soaps I always think of Santa Barbara. At least when it started it was focused on the rich white family, the poor white family & the Latino family. The focus & racial mix shifted a lot over the years, but it started out trying to be diverse and to have a slightly realistic view of class. Of course, that was the only realistic thing they tried. There was some serious WTF? on that show. I happened upon some clips on YouTube a while ago & it was even more insane & cheesetastic than I remembered.
As far as African-American families are concerned, The Young and the Restless has the Winter family, with Neil, Lily and Davon. They used to have Druscilla and Olivia, but they have both exited the show since then. A few years ago Davon was introduced in a story line with his mother, an addict, and he had since been adopted the Winters. Now his aunt and cousin have been introduced, but I haven’t seen in the past few days to figure out where that’s going. And there’s Neil’s girlfriend, whose name I don’t remember.
As far as the introduction of Marcus on The Bold and the Beautiful, he’s also related to the characters. He’s the long-lost son of Eric’s new wife, Donna Logan. They’re all related on that show. I don’t think they know how to move out of the gene pool.
B&B; is the whitest, most inbred, representation of Los Angeles I have ever seen. It’s kind of hysterical! But Marcus is a great addition and the best part is that no one has blinked an eye at uber-blond Donna being the mother of this handsome young black man. They’re more like, “She’s a golddigging slut who had a secret baby! OMG!”
The summer I turned 14 the woman I babysat for introduced me to General Hospital and Barbara Cartland romance novels. She had every (I mean every) book ever written. When we were first married, my husband would tape GH and we would watch together (true love). Somewhere along the way, I gave up GH and never read another Barbara Cartland, but never stopped reading romance novels. Oh yeah, still married to the guy who would set the VCR so his new bride wouldn’t miss GH.
OMG SusiB! I used to watch that telenovela with my mom. 😀 You’ve brought back some good memories, thanks… And if I remember correctly, the evil granny always coordinated her patch with whatever dress she was wearing. I always wondered if she had an eye patch size hole somewhere on her dress.
Baranbas sucked so good he was baaadddd…….
and I am glad the Hubbard family is back on AMC. I always loved Jesse
mala, I totally agree with your summary of B&B;!
I hardly watch that show for it’s quality. Instead, I enjoy the absurdity of the entire thing, the constant bedhopping, and the fact that it’s only half an hour long, which is plenty long enough for that show. It’s about time that someone new was introduced on that show. What really creeps me out is how they could justify Phoebe and Rick being together, even if he wasn’t really her uncle like everyone thought because… oh, never mind. 🙂
As I recall, the Brady family on DOOL (I can’t use that acronym and not think of Joey on Friends!) own a pub and because the parents were Irish complete with accents, it was implied that they were “common folk”. John / Roman were cops. Not everyone was rich.
I was always interested in how soap opera fans were mostly loyal to a particular network and set of shows. (It was always DOOL and AN for me, though I did briefly watch GH when Luke and Laura were getting married.) Too much trouble to change the channel?? (Of it could be, especially if you were taping it)
I don’t like soap operas. They’re boring to me. I prefer to make my own drama if that’s what I want.
I watched Days and Passions religiously with my mom when I was little (as did my little brother). For years I would plan my summer days around the 1 and 2 o’ clock hours. Once Passions was over, that meant the best part of the day was, too. It was nice because it was a show we could talk about. I also used to watch Y&R;with my grandma, but I stopped ages ago. Now that I am in college, and my mom works, its not the same anymore and I can’t watch it, the storylines just changed too much for me to keep up. But I’ll always have a softspot for them.
They were my first guilty pleasure, and one my mom let me watch, even though romance novels were off-limits. Oh, and Soapdish is one my favorite movies ever. The posters here have good taste. 🙂
He so does rock. And Alexis is certainly better for him than Carly. The only other one of Jax’s wives I’ve even enjoyed him with was Skye. Before they decided Skye was boring and relegated her to bit appearances. How Skye Chandler Other Last Names Quartermaine could be boring, I do not know but they did their damnedest to make sure she was.
Thanks for the examples, Mala! I am really glad to hear that soaps are getting more diverse…gives me hope for the rest of television.
I made a mistake in my comment last night—I meant to agree with Randi only on the lack of diversity in soap operas, and NOT on the greater diversity of romance novels. Because this: just as a genre driven by and large by novels about white aristocracy and white parents of white secret babies with a few interracial romances scattered in isn’t diverse is totally, totally true. Although how common are secret babies today in non-categories?
I’ve watched soaps for as many years as I’ve had a television. I also write romanctic suspense. There were many years when I had a day job that I might’ve only seen them when I was off for sick leave or vacation.
Male soap actors are some of the hottest guys on TV and believe me they must have a functioning cell or two because they typically have 30-60 pages of script to memorize daily. I record my faves daily and I can watch them (ABC ones) after I reach my daily writing goal.
I think I’ve seen bits and pieces of most of the current soaps, and some of the defunct ones.
The soap I watched longest was General Hospital, from the era of the weather machine (the show’s response to a writers’ strike – they hired comic book writers) to February 2002. The writing of it had gotten so bad that I couldn’t take it anymore.
I watched As the World Turns second longest, from about 1984ish to 1995 – the Doug Marland era. I’ve checked it out periodically since then, but it hasn’t grabbed me. I think part of their problem is that they don’t USE their veterans (although that is better than some soaps, who have fired them mostly). People who haven’t watched in a while, who might be drawn back in, usually care a lot more about the veteran actors and characters, whom they know and love or love-to-hate, than they do if it’s all new characters and actors.
My grandmother was addicted to Loving. She started watching from the beginning, because a friend’s nephew (or other random relative) had been cast in a minor role. She kept watching long after the role had been recast! It was her only soap, though.
I went to college with friends down the hall who were addicted to The Young and the Restless, which I watched with them sometimes.
I’ve watched All My Children and One Life to Live on occasion. (I described them once to my sister-in-law, who is from Japan, as “the one with Erica Kane” and “the one where everyone has multiple personality disorder.”)
I think I last saw Days when Marlena was being possessed.
Ryan’s Hope and Dark Shadows I’ve seen and enjoyed in reruns, on SoapNet and SciFi respectively.
I think I saw once a tape of – I want to say As the World Turns – from the 1960s, where the heroine’s big dilemma for the episode was finding the rent money. It was the episode cliffhanger, even!
I don’t watch them these days, but I’m open to it in the future. I do miss the newsgroup “rec.arts.tv.soaps.abc” which had some great snark about the ABC soaps, especially All My Children.
Which time was that? I don’t even watch Days regularly but I’m pretty sure she’s possessed at least once every 5 years.
This is so true. Jason Thompson is totally dreamy.
Marlena’s been possessed by the Devil more than once?
Oy.
That would be the first time, in the early 90s, then!
Marlena’s been possessed by the Devil more than once?
Well I don’t know if it’s always by the Devil. Someone more knowledgeable on Days history than I will need to back me up but I know I was watching a few years ago during a serial killer plot and Marlena ended up being the serial killer only not really because she was possessed or mind-controlled or something.
Sheesh!
Lori, I think that’s true, but note the term “happy ENDING.” It’s THE END, and in soaps, stuff doesn’t end, it goes on. So unless someone dies or leaves the show, they don’t get an ending, they get an on-going. And ongoing relationships get tested, and sometimes the relationship makes it and sometimes it doesn’t. For example, Joe and Ruth Martin on AMC have been together since almost the beginning; it’s a second marriage for both of them, and he had one affair that I can remember, but they are still married and happy. Sometimes the “true love” stories in soaps remind me very much of romance novels (two people are just meant for each other, you can just tell), but the conventions are different, in large part because of the difference between a limited story arc and an open-ended one. Most soap actors will tell you that they are afraid when their character is happy, because happy means lacking conflict, which soon means lacking story. Once in a while a show manages to pull off a story with a happy couple facing challenges together, but that’s hard to maintain over the long term. The couple either tends to fade into a secondary role or to face challenges that pull them apart, sometimes permanently.
Randi, I don’t think that daytime pushes the social issues as much as it used to (although even those were rare events, that they got away with because so much of the rest of the plotting was more comfortable). When they do address issues, they do it pretty well, though; they have dealt with various addictions, with drunk driving, with incest and abuse, with rape, with the issue of having a child solely to provide a donor for another child who has a medical problem, all in very realistic ways. And several people in this thread have mentioned the gay teenagers on ATWT. Those are just the ones that come to mind; when I stopped working on the book, I made a conscious effort to quit keeping track of such things. And my examples are almost exclusively from As the World Turns and All My Children, because Doug Marland and Agnes Nixon established atmospheres at those shows that encouraged the exploration of social questions, very different from other soaps, especially the Bells’.
Mala, I agree that daytime dramas have some gender issues. You did see women as doctors, lawyers and cops in daytime earlier, more frequently and more easily than in prime time, but you also see a lot of bad gender stereotyping. I have a half-baked theory that some of the gender issues in daytime drama are related to the emphasis on romance, and that they are some of the same issues that we find in the romance novel genre.