I'd like to start by thanking Martha, who wrote me with some kind thoughts about the member of my family who was in the hospital when I last blogged. I really appreciated that.
I'm glad to say that, while he is going through treatment at the moment, the prognosis looks excellent at this point. The cancer was caught early and hadn't spread, and the doctors seem certain that they got it all, and that this treatment will prevent it from recurring.
It's been a difficult time. As I noted in my last post, I lost a family member to cancer when I was young, and once you've had to live through that it's impossible not to fear the worst in the face of the same diagnosis for someone else.
But, things are looking very positive at this point, so I'm thinking good thoughts and leaving it at that.
I return to the blogging world today with a coming out of sorts. You all already know that I'm gay, of course. This, however, is something that I tend to keep in the closet. Not that many people know this about me. It's a guilty little secret.
Okay, I'll say it. My name is Seth, and I watch daytime Soap Operas.
There. I've said it. Perhaps it fits some sort of stereotype you have in mind of gay men. I had one e-mail referring to me as a 'lisping gay boy' because of the title of my blog (Seth in the City / Sex in the City. Get it?) and no doubt the author of that e-mail is saying to himself "I knew it!".
The number of gay men I know with a lisp? Zero. The number of gay men I know who watch soaps? Well, zero, unless they're in the closet about it, too! However, if you go to ANY soap chat room or message board online, you'll soon realize that gay men are a HUGE part of the soap audience.
Soaps have a bad rep, and more and more these days, it's probably one that is deserved. When people think of soaps, they tend to think of over the top, badly written and acted storylines, with people coming back from the dead every other day.
If you tune in to either of the NBC soaps, Days of Our Lives or Passions, you'll find these stereotypes confirmed. That's because they're both written (and in the case of Passions, created by) the same person, James E. Reilly. Reilly takes all that has ever been said in a negative fashion about daytime soaps and glories in it. He makes everything that gives soaps a bad name a reality on his shows: nonsensical, inconsistent storylines with characterizations that go out the window for the sake of a current plot; storylines that drag on for months on end with no real forward momentum and dialogue repeated day after day; characters who return from the dead at least once a year, in some cases; history that is re-written or ignored on a daily basis. It's all very cartoonish, to put it mildly.
Now, Days was the show that got me into soaps. Like many soap fans, I got hooked because a parent watched. My mother was a Days fan, and so was her mother. I can vividly recall scenes that had me on the edge of my seat when I was four or five years old. One of the best thing about soaps is that they never really end (unless of course they're cancelled) and you can follow characters for literally decades. I grew up with many of the characters on Days who are still on the show today, and in a world without James E. Reilly (or JERk as he's dubbed by longtime Days fans) I'd probably still be watching, still be invested in the characters. As it is, I'm just waiting for the day that he's shown the door and a new headwriter comes along. In the meantime, I've turned to the CBS soaps to get my soap fix on.
Soaps haven't always been this way. In fact, there have been many times where soaps have been incredibly socially relevant, and I think they still could/can be.
Back in the day, All My Children featured television's first legal abortion and took on the Vietnam War. One Life to Live featured television's first interracial couple. Traditionally, Soaps have not been afraid to take risks in telling stories, and they have been unique among all television genres in the ability to allow such stories to unfold day after day with all their repercussions explored.
But, that was then. Where is the social relevance today? None of the current soaps even mention the war, with the one hideous exception of Days of Our Lives, which turned the entire thing into a cartoonish plot involving the show's super villain capturing a character in 'the war zone' (the word Iraq was never actually mentioned) and holding him prisoner until other, non-military characters from the show hopped on a private jet and flew to 'the war zone' to save him. Huh?! Don't expect anything to make sense on Days. Meanwhile, none of the characters expressed any doubts about the war at a time when the rest of the country was talking about little else!
Part of the problem today is that all of these soaps are written by the same group of people over and over. It's all rather incestuous. Headwriters are fired from one show and promptly show up at another a short time later, recycling their own tired storylines over and over. The genre needs fresh blood in the writing department in a major way.
The real root of the problem, though, is network interference. Once upon a time, soaps were really the vision of the people writing them. Soap greats like Agnes Nixon (creator of All My Children & One Life to Live) and Douglas Marland were allowed to create a vision for a show and tell their stories. Today, the networks execs have a hand in just about every story that airs (and reportedly kill many more before they reach the air) and the ever falling ratings reflect the poor quality which results from this.
For instance, over at All My Children, the powers that be have decided to create an 'exciting' new storyline wherein it is discovered that Erica Kane, the show's lead character, has a long lost son. Okay, sure. Long lost relatives are a soap staple. In fact, just over a decade ago, Erica's long lost daughter was discovered! It must be a coincidence that the same woman, Megan McTavish, was head writer then and is back as head writer now, right? There's that environmental friendly plot recycling again!
But, that's not the worst of it. A decade ago, they explained the long lost daughter by making her the product of a rape when Erica was a teenager. They're explaining away the long lost son by undoing one of television's true milestones. According to this current storyline, the child that Erica believed she'd aborted back in television's first legal abortion is alive and well.
What the hell?! It seems the doctor simply removed the embryo and implanted it in his own wife. Fast forward three decades, and you've got a long lost son.
This is truly criminal. Not only are they messing with soap history, they're messing with television and cultural history as well.
It comes at a time when the legality of abortion itself is at risk, and because of that it couldn't be more irresponsible of whoever is making these decisions. Indeed, many are questioning whether or not the fact that ABC is owned by Disney has anything to do with this storyline. How much is the parent company's politics playing a part?
With a woman's right to chose in question, the soaps of old would be telling realistic stories about this very issue, touching on every angle. But don't hold your breath. Along with Erica's non-abortion, we only have Days of Our Lives giving us their take on the issue:
Last year on Days, the character of Mimi Lockhart found out she was expecting. Mimi was a young college student in a committed relationship with her boyfriend, Rex Brady. Rex and Mimi planned to marry and have a family some day, but Rex had made it clear that they weren't financially ready for that, since Mimi was still in college and Rex was employed as a bartender. The two lacked the trust funds that many soap characters seem to have, and for once the show seemed to be making a relevant point about not being able to afford having a family.
When Mimi found out she was expecting a child, she decided to have an abortion because of the very reasons listed above. Of course, this being a soap, she did so without ever telling Rex she was pregnant. After many months of hiding the truth, it of course came out and Mimi lost Rex because she hadn't been honest. The truly disgusting part, though, is that Mimi had to be suitably punished by the writers (and the network?) for having had an abortion.
Mimi soon found out that because of the abortion, she could no longer have children. Months of guilt and anguish on Mimi's part ensued, until finally she was visited by an apparition of the Virgin Mary and forgiven for her sin. The message? If you have an abortion, you'll lose your man and your ability to have children, but if you feel bad enough about it and repent, God will forgive you.
No, I am not kidding. This storyline unfolded in 2005, not 1955.
So, that's how soaps today are dealing with this issue at a time when it's very much an issue we should all be focusing on.
How much of this is the responsibility of hack-ish headwriters and how much of this is the network execs making 'creative' decisions?
Daytime soaps have been a slowly dying genre for the past decade, ratings wise, and decisions like this are going to continue to strangle the life out of the remaining shows. Soaps today seem unwilling to truly tackle any controversial social issue in a meaningful way, or take any real risks with storylines.
There could be some hope left, of course, and my next post is going to focus on the issue of gay characters on daytime soaps, an area where the shows seem to be slowly taking some steps forward.
days of our lives
passions
all my children
one life to live
soap operas
No comments:
Post a Comment