There's No Cure For Soap Fans

One thing you should know about a true soap fan: they never really give up on their shows, not for good. I can't count the number of times that I've felt like I did when I wrote my last post. It's a valid feeling, because the entire genre is in a sorry state, and you can't fault those who are tuning out for good.

But there's just something in a true soap fan that never really lets go, no matter how bad things get. Even if you tune out for months at a time, you know deep down that you're just waiting for things to get better, for the show to be something other than painful to watch again.

The great thing about soaps is that they go on. Day after day, week after week, year after year. They outlast meddling network executives and disastrous head writers and can rejuvenate themselves time and again, because the characters and the rich history are still there, waiting to be utilized.

A true soap fan knows this, and that's why they never really give up. It's also why, in spite of meaning everything I wrote the other day, I know that I'll be tuning into soaps for as long as they or I exist. They can get better, they can become meaningful entertainment again. Will they? Right now, it doesn't seem very likely, but the potential is there, waiting. We need a new generation of Douglas Marlands and Agnes Nixons to come along and for the networks to let them tell their stories.

That may never happen, but as long as there is a chance, soap fans will keep tuning in. If not tomorrow, then next week, or once a month, just to see how things are going with those familiar faces.

The End of the Line?

There isn't much to write about when it comes to glbt soap characters at the moment. On As the World Turns, Luke Snyder remains more or less in limbo. He's popped up a few times to lend an ear to his cousin Jade, but he's still got no storyline of his own. I doubt very much that he will until it's time for the debut of Noah, his future love interest, at the end of May.

On All My Children, lesbian character Bianca and transgendered character Zoe are both being written out later this month, exiting the show on the same day and leaving it with no remaining glbt characters.

Passions has become disturbing, as Vincent continues to blackmail and taunt Chad to the point where Chad actually began to beat his lover up, only to have it turn into a sexual situation. Yes, violence as foreplay! Just what we were missing!

To be honest, I'm feeling very detached from the entire genre. I've spoken before about how much I love it and how relevant I think it can be if done correctly, but the truth is that it's just a mess. It would be one thing if the genre remained entertaining while lacking relevance. Then it would be a guilty pleasure, at least. But there really isn't any pleasure here at this point, at least not for this lifelong viewer.

There isn't a show on the air right now that isn't insulting its viewers' intelligence or trying their patience. Even when they embark on stories that should be important, they do them badly or drop them mid-stream.

Soaps today have become a very bad parody of their former selves, and I'm just about ready to turn them off for good, even though I've been watching my entire life.

The networks and the people creating the storylines just don't seem to be willing to change, to try and fix this badly broken genre. Its been dying a slow death for over a decade now, and no one in the industry seems to grasp that all their 'solutions' are what is behind the condition to begin with.

Soaps should be about well crafted, multi-layered stories and multi-generational characters the audience builds relationships with. Instead, we get inane 'ratings stunt' stories that come and go quickly and often sacrifice characterization to ridiculous plots.

It's a genre stuck in the past in the worst ways (the characters are mostly white and straight, with some token minorities who often don't have much if anything to do) and stuck all too much in the Entertainment industry's idea of the present in other ways (anyone over 45 quickly begins to vanish or become a prop to younger characters, and no 'potentially offensive' topical stories touching on things like the war or anything to do with any social issue is ever really explored).

Oddly enough, the best soap in the old tradition of soaps that is on the air right now is a prime time soap, Brothers & Sisters. It's a show that centers around a multi-generational cast, with some actual diversity (gay brother Kevin has a love life that is explored just as fully onscreen as his straight siblings' love lives are), and they're not afraid to be topical and political.

I wish daytime soaps could still be like that, but at this point, I don't think it's going to happen. There comes a point when the quality of life outweighs the quantity. I wouldn't want to linger on to 100 years old if I had to spend the last 15 or 20 years of it bedridden and on life support. Daytime soaps aren't going to die out next month, but the quality of their lives makes me think it would be kinder to pull the plug now and save us all the suffering.

I'm still going to keep an eye out, especially on Luke's summer romance, but it's going to take something really special to win me back at this point.

Which means, I guess, that I'll have to find a new topic to blog about!