The Story of Soaps

This was a special on ABC the other night; I didn't hear about it until after it aired. Luckily, it was available on demand. Now I'm writing my first post in seven years about soap operas.

The show was pretty good. For me, the biggest takeaway was Genie Francis discussing how General Hospital finally addressed the horrible rape story of Luke and Laura. She said something like she didn't have to defend it anymore. Francis had once called it date rape, and I criticized her.

I enjoyed interview segments with Susan Lucci, Erika Slezak, and Bryan Cranston especially. I enjoyed hearing some of the historic social issues that soaps covered: antiwar protests, abortion, gay rights, eating disorders.

I didn't like the last half hour focusing on the decline of soaps. It had to be addressed: the number of soaps has dropped from 13 to 4. Many said the OJ Simpson trial was the death knell of soaps. Yes, his trial interrupted the daily shows, but so did the Watergate trial. I guess OJ was sexier than Nixon. I thought Andy Cohen had too much screen time. The Real Housewives are not a good substitute for soaps. (Full disclosure: I've watch both.)

I wonder if soaps would be better if there were more of them that aired for less than one hour a day.

***

I want to gripe a bit.

What ruined All My Children for me were the characters of Babe and Krystal Carey.  They started as grifters but somehow became heroines. One character, the unaborted abortion Josh (yes, that is ridiculous) called Babe a walking miracle after they had sex in a kiddy pool.

Krystal (with a K) ended up married to the classy Adam Chandler and had a child with Tad (I don't remember the details, but she was married to Adam at the time) and the show made her a victim.

Fuck the Careys.

Back to unaborted Josh. Erica Kane had one of the first legal abortions on TV. I didn't watch then, but it was a historic moment. But the show decided she really didn't have an abortion. The doctor somehow rescued the fetus who came to Pine Valley.

Let's move on to One Life to Live. When All My Children went south for me, One Life to Live  became my new fave. But OLTL had its share of problems. I hated how Rex ended up as a Buchanan. (So many people ended up as Buchanans--it was ridiculous.) Rex started out as a fairly interesting, kind of shady, minor character.  Then there was Ford, another character the show attempted to rehabilitate from a sleazeball to a hero.

Writing this, I see a trend. It's not that I only like one-dimensional characters or that I don't like when characters grow and change. But the changes have to be earned. And the shows need some bad guys.

Retconning of stories, such as Josh, became a real problem on soaps, especially all the characters returning from the dead. Death had no meaning on soaps.

Why did I watch?

I've written about my feelings before.

Real life is strange, sometimes stranger than the soaps.

There's an immediacy about soaps. You never to have to wait for a new season.

There's a familiarity about soaps: if you spend five hours a week with people, you feel like you know them. Just in this post, I cursed out fictional characters.

Sometimes I think about tuning in General Hospital or The Young and the Restless. I watched both at one time. But I don't think it will be the same. I miss the golden age of soaps.