JarrodMFiresofLove

That's a nice supportive post. I think her comments about characterization are very interesting, but when she goes off on those racist-related comments, I find her remarks extremely didactic. Some of it feels out of place on a soap board. It would be more appropriate in my opinion if we were talking about a storyline that was about race, like Lisa's problems with Jessica and Duncan. But to take a story about rape and label that as racist, it seems to me someone may be just trying to stir up trouble. It seems obsessive for someone's whole approach and perhaps their whole life to be about race. Just like a gay man or lesbian making their whole life about their sexuality. No, people, there are other things that define you and there are other things that define soap characters and stories. Don't approach it so one-dimensional. Don't find hatred and persecution where there is none. Stop looking for villains where there are none. Set the individual hang-ups aside and look at the big picture more reasonably. That's what I'm saying. And I'm not going to feel wrong for saying it.

Yes, Stringfield was younger...but in my opinion seemed a little more butch in the role. I liked Dennehy but something about her didn't fit the character. I think Keifer was the best, though admittedly Keifer was better at the domestic scenes than the business-related stuff. Keifer didn't have the strong writing that Dennehy and Stringfield had under Pam Long.

I think recasting also helped them make Blake look more like Roger & Holly. Stringfield and Keifer shared a physical resemblance to Garrett and Zaslow. Elizabeth Dennehy, who was cast before it was decided that Blake would turn out to be Chrissie Thorpe, looked like she belonged in a different family.

I think you're in attack mode again. Why can't you allow a white person to weigh in on how whites are supposedly causing blacks to be misrepresented on soaps? The poster with the geeky Sharon Case photo opened this can of worms. She's been using this forum as a pulpit for months to spout a lot of nonsense about how white people have it in for black people and I was sick of her ridiculous comments going unchallenged.

I think you're splitting hairs and being argumentative again. From the blurb posted by the other poster, I gather she started as an under 5 on Guiding Light. Nobody said she remained an under 5. And I don't think you understand the Hollywood star system very well. Of course 'crumple up' was just a figure of speech you seem to be attacking, but if Julia Roberts suddenly found herself out of work and was only being offered an under 5 on a soap, she'd probably want to crumple up and die. It's a massive thing for a star's ego to take that they have been reduced this low in the pecking order. Some of them flip out when they can no longer play a lead and have to go to supporting roles. Many of them feel soaps are way beneath them. So the point of our discussing Warrick is to commend the way she didn't just give up and how she totally reinvented herself on soaps. If you can't agree with that, then you are choosing to be argumentative again.

Thanks. I vaguely recall those scenes.

Love your post. Well worded!

Did we ever learn the name of Alexandra and Alan's mother? That was a whole part of the backstory that went largely unexplored.

They don't want to move on because they are having too much fun being unfriendly, piling on and bashing my posts. Also I wonder if they can't handle some truths. I do think the woman with the geeky Sharon Case avatar uses the board as a platform for her racially motivated politics. When she said a black character became a rapist so a white writer could kill him off and not have a popular black couple on the show, THAT seemed bizarre. What about all the white characters who have been rapists on soaps over the years and were written out. Why wasn't anyone crying racism about that? Then she says stories about women loving their rapists no longer occur on soaps. WRONG. In 2007 Days of Our Lives had E.J. DiMera rape Sami Brady, and he ended up marrying her twice. In an episode from just last month, Sami was going on about how E.J. was and will always be the love of her life. It's convenient for her to only state "facts" that allow her to play the race card or the feminist card...and to ignore all the other facts that expose her comments for what they really are, a flimsy attempt to play up victimization of black people. And why isn't she letting black men speak for themselves? She's the one who seems sanctimonious to me. I feel empowered calling someone out on their racially motivated soap discussions. I got sick of it and took a stand. If she's going to keep going on about black representation, then I don't see why another person can't discuss pro-Aryan representation. As for the others I consider myself smarter than them. So what if it's ego, I feel it's true. LOL

KANE was still considered an important film in the 1940s. It ran into trouble because of Hearst, but to some, that would give it a distinct advantage. Warrick was in some hits in the 40s. SONG OF THE SOUTH was probably the most commercially successful film she appeared in during that time. But other films, made at Fox and Paramount were hits too. She didn't become a highly sought after lead actress, but did establish a reputation as a lead in B films, and as a supporting player in A films. Many of them went to New York to do work on TV anthology shows. People bigger than Ruth Warrick, like Mary Astor who started in silent films and had earned an Oscar in 1941. Film roles for these women were drying up in the early 50s, but continued employment could be found on television.

Thanks for the correction. I don't remember Geraldine Court on ATWT in the late 80s. She must not have done many episodes. Does she have a credit for this on the IMDb?

Interesting comment. To go from the heights of CITIZEN KANE to playing an under-five nurse on a daytime soap...other actresses would've crumpled up and died. But she rebounded in a big way and ended up reinventing herself on daytime television.

Both actresses were friends of Marland's, and both were on GL at the same time. I think maybe the reason Geraldine Court wasn't on ATWT during Marland's tenure there is because she had already played a character on that show back in the early 70s. Jennifer Ryan had been recast and then killed off. Jennifer's daughter Barbara was front and center, however. Anyway, ATWT seldom brought performers back to play different roles.

I think it's easier to call you out on your pro-racism agenda than to stomp off anywhere. You keep repeating that you are offending me because you want to offend me...somehow in your mind you've convinced yourself the rest of us are racist if we don't agree with your views. It's irrelevant to me if others like your posts. I find many of your posts quite predictable and extremely one-dimensional especially when you try to play the race card so often. I also find it odd that you have used a white person's photo as your avatar which makes me wonder if you want to be white. I've never encountered that before. I'm used to black people who are proud of their heritage and do not see it as one wrapped up in victimization and bigotry at nearly every turn. And your view on this is supposed to matter to anyone...because...? As if anyone of us needs to check ourselves because you've told us to do so. Check yourself first then we'll talk. Thanks.

I think you're a smart person and certainly an interesting writer but I find a lot of your posts alienating because you persist in playing the race card. It's like the one thing you have to cling on to, instead of being more proactive in your criticism of stories and characters. When you're not playing the race card, you're playing the feminist card, or trying to play both cards at once. I don't feel attacked by you and I am not defensive about anything. Though I think your ongoing view of victimization, where you cite extreme examples, could suggest you feel attacked and act defensively on behalf of your race and gender. I don't see other people pushing the race debate as much as you do, which makes me think you are obsessed with the topic. You barely go a week without some racially loaded comment in this thread. I find it peculiar that if race was and is such a big issue for you why you wanted to watch ATWT and didn't focus on Generations or Passions, which used more African American characters. But what's worse is how you try to justify your approach. I think it's people like you who keep racism and stereotypes alive with such a reactionary point of view. If you spent that energy playing up positive portrayals it would go so much further in advancing the cause. But you prefer to look at the negatives. And if someone intelligent like me comes along and calls you out, then you start accusing us because we either (in your mind) are part of the ongoing problem or don't identify with your outdated victimization and tactics. Just saying. Also you have no idea if I am multiracial/multicultural. Or others on this board. We are not shoving our ethnic heritage front and center in the majority of our posts. I think you get a weird satisfaction from going round and round in circles about race. I am not against a good dialogue about race, but you have to start saying something new, something different, not beat the same old drum all the time. It alienates others who would likely be on your side because they believe in progressive issues as a whole. I feel sorry for black people who over identify with being black; I feel sorry for white people who over identify with being white; and with gay people who over identify with being gay, etc. It's only one part of who you are. Stop narrowly defining yourself and clinging to victimization. Be truly progressive and move yourself forward. The second A in NAACP stands for advancement. Advance yourself, stop pulling yourself back and allowing yourself to be defined by one part of yourself that you can't even be positive about, a part that on some level must seem like an inescapable curse. On another note I don't think you had very adequate graduate courses in writing if you were told that characters can't cross a line. Drama comes from crossing the line, it also comes from crossing back and learning from mistakes. In the soap format characters have to do extreme things that they can grow from and bounce back from. Or else Barbara Ryan would have been killed off, and John Dixon would have been killed off, and Lisa would have been run out of town back in her early days. A good writer sees the sacredness and the evil in all his/her characters and pushes them in a way that challenges the characters and the audience. I think Hogan Sheffer did that with many of the characters. He wasn't always successful, but his stories always gave us something to ponder, even the most outlandish plots and character "deviations." Finally I find it odd that you are trying to lecture about the changing mores of women in society. I would say most of us are aware of those changes, regarding the roles of women AND men in American society. But there are still women in the 2010s who stay with their rapists, and there are still rapists who are trying to atone for what they've done. To borrow that ironic phrase, nothing is entirely black and white.

I doubt it was deliberate. I think it was more objectionable that a self-confident professional woman like Jessica was reduced to a target, to victimization. Yes, I know that happens in real life. But Jessica seemed a lot smarter, like she would have extricated herself from any situation where it ever seemed as if it would go in that direction. The storyline harmed her character more than it did them as a couple. Other soap couples dealt with rape, where the two still managed to love each other and remain connected in meaningful ways (GH's Luke & Laura and GL's Roger & Holly). So if they were truly popular or driving up the ratings, then his character would have atoned and they would have stayed together. Trying to imply the producers or writers were racist is a conspiracy theory in my opinion that makes things too black and white again, and seems like a narrow minded political agenda. If anything, I'd say they designed the story to give Tamara Tunie some Emmy-worthy material to play because they trusted in her abilities as an actress to deliver the goods. They also knew Rucker was strong enough to convey the volatility that was required for the story to work. If they didn't have confidence in the actors, they wouldn't have given them a frontburner story and Marshall would have left quietly like so many others before him. Almost anything on a soap can be undone....rape, murder, various other crimes. The audience will forgive a transgression if they still manage to like the character, regardless of what a storyline is having them do. Barbara Ryan remained popular and she did a lot of heinous things under Sheffer. Nobody said, "he's destroying her character because she's white and he's trying to make powerful white women look evil." He was devising dramatic scenarios that he believed the performers could handle, and usually they met the challenge. Incidentally I don't agree with the comment that daytime is necessarily behind other forms of television in the handling of ethnic characters. It becomes box-ticking if someone is shoved on to the front burner in a story devised to raise social awareness. But if there was a reboot and we saw Andy's daughter Hope, it wouldn't be box-ticking to include her if the idea was to have her reconnecting with her grandmother Kim, and reconnecting with her father, because she's part of the family. But of course she'd be different from Kim's other grandkids (if Chris or Sabrina had children for example). So she'd be included not to tick a box but to remind viewers that she's Kim's granddaughter, and a side benefit would be that Oakdale is place where there is diversity and race is no longer an issue people need to obsess over. I sometimes think African American people are so unable to break away from a discussion of race because it was thrust on them by society but also because they refuse to let some of it go, so they let that part of society get the better of them. I think LGBT people also have the same struggle, they are over-defined by their orientation to where it consumes them and becomes a lens that distorts how they see the world. If I wanted my enemies to suffer forever, I'd throw some phobia or weird construct on them, then make them go their whole life dealing with it. But my enemies should be smarter than me and see the construct for something phony, to disengage from it and create more meaningful proactive discussions that have nothing to do with those old views and labels.

Yes, Josh's son would have been a Venezuelan version of him, with charisma and a libido to match. I agree that Alex would have found Reva's relationship with Josh's son a fascinating one. She would have been grateful that Reva never lusted after her sons.

Thanks. I agree that Sonni wouldn't want Reva shagging her son, but I think Solita would have gotten off on it, and then Solita would have had Josh, under the guise of pretending to be Sonni. So there are a lot of ways the triangle between Josh, Reva and Josh's son could have rippled across the canvas. Also, since Marah and Shayne are blond and very American looking, Josh's son with Sonni would have to be a bit more ethnic looking, black hair, dark eyes, where he looks a bit more exotic and sexy in a way that differs from Josh. A character like Josh's brother Billy could be used as a Greek chorus, commenting on how Reva had H.B., had Billy himself, had Kyle, and of course had Josh and now Josh's son. The fact she worked her way through the men in one whole family would not be lost on Billy.

I think the best way to evaluate them, in hindsight, is to see how integral some of them became. A lot of AA characters were not integral, just like a lot of Caucasian American characters did not become integral and were written out. This applies to any ethnicity on the show, or any category. Yes, some groups had more opportunities, but ultimately it came down to how the audience bonded with the character and performer, which meant in that regard, they all had an equal opportunity the minute they showed up in a scene. And of course race is much more than black and white, because Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and other groups count too. Sometimes I shudder when black people AND when white people engage in a talk about race and make it all about black people and white people; it seems incredibly narcissistic, as if other races count less. I also don't like it when all blacks are lumped together when someone tries to make a point in a discussion, or all whites are lumped together. There are many variations among the sub-cultures of Caucasian Americans. Whites of British background or Australian background have different issues than whites of German background or Scandinavian background. Just as a black from the ghetto of south central L.A. would have a different background and different issues from someone descended from royalty in Ethiopia who now lives in America. So the issue is much wider than the shades of skin color. If someone were to do a reboot of ATWT, they'd have to decide which characters from each group were integral to a modern version of the show. To me a character like Bonnie McKechnie would be one of the first I'd include. She'd be a new version of Lisa, running various businesses, maybe having been given one from Lisa, who was her godmother. That would build on the history of when Lisa had initially rejected Jessica's relationship with Duncan. Now the child from that union has ironically become the one to carry forward Lisa's business goals and ambitions. I would also bring on a young adult version of Andy's daughter, Hope Maynard, though I'd call her Hope Dixon to reinforce the fact she is descended from John Dixon. She would be integral, because of her family ties, and also I think her relationship with Andy was largely unexplored, since Andy wasn't on the show much in the 2000s. I'd have Lien, now middle aged, basically in Tom's old job, with Tom being retired. Lien would have a husband and teenage kids with problems. But Lien's career would take priority over domestic crises, giving her added dimension. I would even bring in some Vietnamese cousins of Lien's to show that although she's now living this integrated American life, she still has ongoing ties to her Asian family and culture. Of course some other people would need to be added to inject new blood on to the show. And in terms of the white characters, only the ones who were most integral would be used. Paul Ryan would be an essential Caucasian character, carrying on in the tradition of James and Barbara. Lily Snyder would be essential-- she'd have to be a new version of Lucinda, and her brother M.J. is one I'd use, because it would re-insert Iva, who would be a voice of reason when Lily gets to acting too much like Lucinda did. You get the idea. It has to be about characters that can carry the show into a new age, but also link up to its past, while at the same time demonstrating a plethora of multi-cultural (not just multi-racial) diversity.

I think the ABC soaps were better at writing for African American characters in the 80s, especially AMC, which is where the actress who played Heather Dalton wound up a bit later. I liked Roy and Heather, but have to admit I enjoyed Jessica and Duncan much more. Jessica was one of my favorite Marland creations. So losing Heather didn't exactly bother me. With all soaps, some scribes write certain ethnic characters better than others. I thought Marland did fine introducing Lien and assimilating her into the Hughes family. Simone, as we already mentioned, had potential but was cut short by Marland's untimely death. For all his faults Hogan Sheffer brought Jessica, Bonnie and Lien back in the early 2000s. Plus he put Ben, the African American doctor, into a few storylines. What I liked about Sheffer's version of Lien was that almost no reference was made with regards to her race, or if it was ever mentioned, I don't remember it. She was just brought back mostly as Tom's now adult daughter, a woman who had a successful career. She was quite integrated, which is how it should have been. I really tend to dislike talking about race on soaps, or talking about LGBT representation on soaps, since it sometimes becomes a box-ticking exercise. It becomes more about the number of these portrayals rather than the quality of them. To me, a community like Oakdale was a place where they could all find a home, maybe not blend in completely, but still fit in for the most part and be productive.

Johnny Bauer had cancer in late 1987.

Yeah, I think Cassie should have been Hawk's daughter, not Sarah's. It fit the idea that Hawk was a drifter and probably had been with many women during the times he strayed from Sarah and the family. Plus Cassie could have been a Shayne, there didn't need to be a new last name (Layne). If there was never a desire to bring Roxy back, then she should have died in the institution. And that would've happened right before Reva learned about the existence of another sister, thus compelling her to reach out and "save" the new sister, to make up for how she had lost Roxy and couldn't save her. Were there ever any scenes between Rusty and Cassie? He did make guest appearances a few times-- in 1998 and in 2006, according to Terrell Anthony's IMDb credits. The first time would have been when Laura Wright was in the role, and the second time would have been during Nicole Forrester's stint.

I like Turner from the movies I have seen her do...but I am almost afraid she's going to be too dominant, too witchy...I just love Harrold's delivery style, it's a very nuanced, finely balanced performance she gives with each episode in which she appears. I am definitely interested in seeing how Zimmer does, since i'm so used to her as Reva and Echo.

The story with Simone was an example of how progressive Marland was as a writer, since this involved environmentalism and tribal rights. Things other soaps just were not covering. I think there must have been more planned for Simone, but she was axed when Marland died and the next head writers didn't know what to do with her. She could have turned into an important long-range character. But she didn't have enough time to interact with the other families or develop a substantial romance with anyone in town. I sincerely doubt Marland was only going to use her for this oil drilling stuff then forget about her. She could've turned into a good friend for Lien Hughes, two gals with highly unique cultural backgrounds who started as outsiders and found their rightful place within the Oakdale community. Sometimes I wonder what Marland would've thought about Lily & Holden's son being gay. Luke's coming out would have been a story I'm sure he would like to have told. Would Marland still have been head writer in the 2000s? Fun to speculate about that.

Yes, it would have worked best if it was a child Josh had with Sonni, a boy. He could have come to Springfield in the 2000s with a huge chip on his shoulder against Josh. To get revenge, he could have seduced Reva. Then there would have been this great new triangle of Reva with two Lewis men again (father and son) which could have referenced the earlier stuff with H.B. and Josh. So she would have slept with grandfather, son and grandson. That would've been wild. If they could have brought Sonni back, even better-- with her pushing her son to seduce Reva, so she (Sonni) could get her hooks into Josh again. Then you get the other two, Marah and Shayne, reacting and playing off all this.