All: TIME: "Sex an Suffering in the Afternoon"

[brimike]

THAT'S MY BOY!!!

:D

And I didn't necessarily mean you specifically, JP. I just meant younger soap fans in general, who grew up with a much faster-paced approach to soap storytelling.

[MarkH]

I am a dyed in the wool 70s and early 80s soap watcher. By the mid-80s, life took over, and I've basically been down to just Y&R (with a bit of B& ever since. (Although, these last weeks, OLTL and AMC are calling me back, because they are so good, and so rich with veterans, respectively).

So, I should love soaps the way they used to be, right? But when I watch old clips of my show (Sony mini-sode network or Youtube)...or whole episodes (sob...I so miss WOST, it isn't even funny), I often find them slow...they don't capture me like I thought they would.

I think modern pacing, dialogue, music, production values in general are a good thing. What is missing is the emotional resonance of the past eras. Soaps used to be driven by "secrets and lies", "misunderstandings". The cliffhangers used to be emotional ("will John find out that Jill is also romancing Rex?" or "will Snapper be able to let Chuckie go home without revealing that he is Chuckie's dad?" or "will Kay come back from her pretend-death in time to stop Jill's wedding to Derek?"). If we could get back to THAT storytelling, with modern pacing/dialogue...we'd be home free.

The problem is that nobody believes that hidden paternity or secret lovers or such not is still enough to drive story. Take Nuke on ATWT (admittedly an odd choice, since both protagonists are gay...but it is the ONLY traditional romance on ATWT now). Rather than let that story be a tale of thwarted love, secrets, conflicted desire...we needed a murderous father and a girl from Iraq with immigration problems. Plot-based obstacles, not relationships and character. If they could just trust that the traditional stories, with modern packaging, would be enough...all would be well.

[IMissAremid]

For once, I understand how my grandpa could have been an All My Children fan back in the day.

Thanks for posting!

[DaysFanatic777]

IMO, Days and ATWT were the two best soaps of the 70's. Both balanced social relevance and romance, and family relationships, with ease. It's hard to believe that Days, the most character driven and emotionally charged soap on TV for it's first 15 years, turned so campy. Days was brilliant back then.

Seriously, all soaps had it going on during this era, but maybe because I like Days so much, it feels the furthest off coarse from it orginal vision.

[EricMontreal22]

Nah. AMC actually wasn't really beloved by the soap industry (I think many objected to it focusing more on young stories, etc when it started) until it became an hour show--even then many soap books from the 70s claim its mix of social issues, young love, and great campy characters like Phoebe is a bit too "all over the map" compared to what they were used to but it was as an hour that it really came into its own--prob ditto Another World to give one other example

[JackPeyton]

i think the best things soaps could do is go back to half an hour and cut the dead weight of the cast.

filler for the hour became the star.

[EricMontreal22]

But it really didn't--many soaps flourished with an hour. Besides networks wouldn't allow it--cutting to 30 mins leaves them with 30 mins to fill, and it's cheaper to fill an hour with one show than an hour with two shows--that's why they were so eager to allow them to expand.

[Sylph]

Well, thank you! I really love your posts and I hope you continue this way. True, there weren't exchanges/discussions between us here on SON, but that doesn't mean I don't read your posts!

[EricMontreal22]

This is an AWESOME article--thanks Sylph! I've always wnated to read it. Do we have the side column that rated each soap with tear drops? I know Days got the most and World Turns the least...

I have some probs with the article--I think some of the things may be exagerated--was a character really pregnant for 2 YEARS? maybe on radio soaps but even in the tv era? Some othert details not given to a specific show sound liekl hyperbole.

What I do like about it though is it doesn't stigmatize soaps as something that poor housewives who don't know any better are almsot tricked into watching because of their patheticness. They do say that to an outsider soaps are very *weird*--and I'd actually I'd agree with that wholeheartedly. They also give them credit for tackling issues primetime wouldn't and for their acting and quality of roles. Also they point out that the audience for soaps is basically anyone who is home in the daytime--not merely "women" who hardly know what quality is... Again before recorders and women in the workplace as much as men, this was of course spot on.

I'd love to reade more major soap opera articles like this. the only equivalent fromt he time or earlier I can think of is Thurber's great New Yorker profiles of radio soaps (though he is condescending as well--something I think it was hard for "serious" journalists to drop altogether). Unfortunately only excerpts are on New Yorker's free site http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?quer...amp;submit.y=-1

But the full things were in the GREAT coffee table book Worlds Without End that was released to go along with the late 90s Museum of TV and Radio Soap exhibit.

[Sylph]

[MarkH]

Oh my goodness, I didn't realize there was a BOOK from that. I so wanted to see that exhibit...but was nowhere near.

So, I checked out "Worlds Without End: The Art and History of the Soap Opera" by Ron Simon on several online booksellers...and it is available to be had at very low cost.

I guess I'm buyin'...

Thanks for mentioning this.

[marceline]

What strikes me is that everything they exalt about soaps in the article is exactly what primetime offers now. It's almost as if all the "drama" in daytime drama moved to primetime and left a big hole behind.

[Deb6_2000]

TC Greene, thank you for finding and bumping! It was a fun read.

[Kstaff]

Heck, no. With this day of DVRs and FF'ing, by the time you cut the commercials, there wouldn't be much left. Course, it depends on the show. Give me an hour of Dansea of Stax, and yeah, I could only handle 1/2 hour. Give me OLTL, and I want more, more!!!!

[JackPeyton]

B&B is half an hour and does very well both in american and other places.