[CarlD2]

GH got a great deal of acclaim for their handling of AIDS, Monica's breast cancer, BJ's heart going to Maxie. AMC and OLTL for their stories involving homosexuality. And many other stories on soaps which have gotten awards and attention.

Are there any social issue stories on soaps you felt did not get enough praise? Or which you feel have been forgotten and people now don't remember how good the stories were?

[Sylph]

I think social issues need to be banned from daytime. It's either patronising, preachy or under-researched. Mimi Torchin said it nicely when criticising Latham's epilepsy, deafness, meningitis, what else did she serve? and illness-of-the-weak stories: this is the 21st century, people are going to find much more information, and much more accurate, elsewhere. "Raising awareness" is a pathetic excuse for these soaps to serve undercooked stories.

[CarlD2]

I kind of think that the "they can find it elsewhere" almost makes these stories more important, because the thought of someone going on a random Internet site for major medical advice can sometimes be a bit frightening. I'd rather they get it from a well-researched soap story than from Suzanne Sommers. But I agree most soap social issue stories in recent years have not been good.

What were your underrated social issue stories on past soaps?

[Sylph]

CarlD2, on 06 February 2010 - 05:29 PM, said:

What were your underrated social issue stories on past soaps?

Latham is who I'm looking at. That was just... Awful.

Here's the excerpt from Torchin's SoapNet column, I had to dig through a pile of documents:

Quote

Disease or Topic of the Week

I have always appreciated the soaps' ability to disseminate information about subjects of social relevance. Before the days of cable television and 24 hour news channels, Discovery Channel, the Surgery Channel (well, there's something like that), the 400 other cable channels and the 4000 million zillion sources of information on the Internet about everything, soaps really did help people learn about things like breast cancer, pap smears, AIDS and all kinds of illnesses, social problems and conditions. And I believe the soaps are still a powerful dramatic tool for helping people to learn to accept or understand things beyond their own front door of experience. But soaps are drama, not polemics or instruction manuals. It seems like every few weeks there's something new to learn on Y&R (meningitis, deafness, Cochlear implants, Temporal Epilepsy, online gambling addiction and Rosh Hashanah for example). The problem with this is that we get thrown a lot of information that sounds like someone is reading it right out of Wikipedia. It's just not very dramatic. I was also amused at how everyone in Devon's family learned near-perfect sign language (including Devon) almost overnight when he lost his hearing.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Well, look at Lily's breast cancer story on Y&R currently from the hacks Maria Arena Bell, Hogan Sheffer, and Scott Hamner to see how horribly it is being done...

This post has been edited by Y&RWorldTurner: 06 February 2010 - 10:47 PM

[CarlD2]

Sylph, on 06 February 2010 - 05:40 PM, said:

Latham is who I'm looking at. That was just... Awful.

I agree, but were there any decent social issue stories on soaps you don't think got enough credit?

[Sylph]

But I think this is a good thread.

I am really interested to read the pros of why social issues need to be done even today.

[CarlD2]

Sylph, on 06 February 2010 - 05:47 PM, said:

But I think this is a good thread.

I am really interested to read the pros of why social issues need to be done even today.

For me it's more about people talking about past social issue stories on soaps which they liked. I don't disagree with you about the current soaps and their way of telling social issues. Whether they need to be done, who knows. I think there's a way to tell a good social issue story which also entertains, but these days that's too much to ask for.

[Sindacco]

Sylph, on 06 February 2010 - 11:47 PM, said:

But I think this is a good thread.

I am really interested to read the pros of why social issues need to be done even today.

Because people can relate to them. But most of us can't relate to baby switchs, serial killers, mobsters, supercouples, etc.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The Australian soaps used to do the best job at balancing realistic social issues with outrageous soap stories. Shame no one has been able to do that balance effectively in years.

The British soaps were often seen as too gritty and depressing, and the American soaps were seen as outrageous camp. The Aussie soaps seemed like something in the middle, though not anymore, of course.

This post has been edited by Y&RWorldTurner: 06 February 2010 - 11:10 PM

[CarlD2]

I know there was a rule on Australian soaps, wasn't there, that you could not use the word "rape"? Is that true?

I agree that sometimes the British soaps were too depressing. Other times they just went too much for shock value. Corrie, back with a sensationalist producer in 2000-2001, told a story about how a woman learned she had advanced, terminal cervical cancer because her pap smears had come back with inaccurate results. This was criticized by doctors, and by the actress herself.

This post has been edited by CarlD2: 06 February 2010 - 11:12 PM

[Y&RWorldTurner]

CarlD2, on 06 February 2010 - 06:12 PM, said:

I know there was a rule on Australian soaps, wasn't there, that you could not use the word "rape"? Is that true?

I know Home And Away has done a ton of rape stories, and yes, they often shy away from using the word "rape" and use "forced upon" or "sexually violated" instead.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I remember reading that the only time Home And Away used the word "rape" was during a "date rape" story. It involved Tammin Sursok's character Dani.

What's funny is that her rapist, or date rapist, ended up marrying Dani's sister.

[CarlD2]

Neighbours did a decent story over the past few years about Susan Kennedy having MS.

[marceline]

I personally like a good social issue story but now it's kind of a catch-22. Being on daily, soaps are uniquely positioned to tell detailed stories and show the type of slow build and that a lot of these stories need, especially the health-related ones, and they can show the fallout and they effect on multiple people. The problem IMO is that soaps no longer do slow build or fallout. Plus its impossible to take a story about breast cancer or AIDS seriously in the same genre where you have numerous people in town who have returned from the dead multiple times and people who forget giving birth.

[alphanguy74]

I don't have any problem with social storylines. Lily's cancer SL would have come off quite nicely if a decent actress was playing her. it's not ALWAYS the writing, there have been TONS of opporotunity for Kahlil to kick that story up a notch, but it never happens. Look at how Walton and Cast can take virtually ANYTHING and pull it off. But as far as the most underrated? The Bill Foster Euthanasia SL. That was some heavy sh!t. That was SO ahead of the curve, and even today... it would still have relevance.

[CarlD2]

I'd like to see more of the Bill Foster story. Imagine Julianna McCarthy being given such an opportunity on a soap these days.

As trite as it was, I thought the story on B&B with Stephanie losing her memory and becoming homeless also had some good moments, and I liked that for a year or two they tried to maintain some ties between Stephanie and the people she'd met.

[Dion]

CarlD2, on 07 February 2010 - 11:12 AM, said:

I know there was a rule on Australian soaps, wasn't there, that you could not use the word "rape"? Is that true?

Its all to do with the rating...a G soap can't, but a PG soap can.

Y&RWorldTurner, on 07 February 2010 - 11:22 AM, said:

I remember reading that the only time Home And Away used the word "rape" was during a "date rape" story. It involved Tammin Sursok's character Dani.What's funny is that her rapist, or date rapist, ended up marrying Dani's sister.

I don't recall them using the word "rape" during Dani's storyline but then again I was watching sporadically at the time so I may have missed it. They did use the word during the rape storyline last year though.

The reason why Home and Away I think always used other words instead of rape is because for so long they were trying to hold on to their G rating, but eventually a few years ago they decided to give up that battle and have most of their episodes rated PG. Neighbours on the other hand has to stay G rated because it's on before 7pm.



Back to the topic at hand, I do like it when soaps tell a good issue storyline, but too often the story is either over too quickly, poorly researched or let down by bad performances.

And as for an underrated storyline, yeah I agree that the Stephanie being homeless story did have quite a few good moments.

This post has been edited by Dion: 07 February 2010 - 01:06 AM

[MichaelGL]

I've always heard about the story on AW involving Paulina's battle with weight and her taking diet pills. How was this recieved by the press and fans? I wasn't watching much of AW at this time.

[Amello]

Why would the show want to KEEP a G rating?