GH: Does The Mob Help Or Hurt?

[shawn Perez]

i Agree on some level of this post. but talking realistically here. if Sonny/Jason were glorified as bad on GH. they wouldn't last long. IMO guza does a good job with making them good that kill people and saving their loves ones life. rather then have Sonny/Jason be port charles enemy and everyone wanting them gone. everyone knows that villains on soaps don't stay on the show forever...with the exception of helena cassadine. do you actually think Maurice Bernard or Steve Burton woulda lasted on GH if it wasn't for their popularity? when Sonny first introduced himself in 93. he was a pretty layered and complex character..so was Steve Burton in the 90's. back then they were considered villains. but their popularity being so huge. the writers took their direction in making them equal mobsters with romantic pairings. love interest.."etc"..and as they do that,. we see occasional shootouts with mob rivals to keep things exciting. it's like this. Jason/Sonny are good right? well the bad mob hates Sonny/Jason and wants to takeover their territory. you bring in a new mob family. and BAM you have awesome action scenes whenever a mob war is brewing. plus you can still root for your favorite characters. imagine if Sonny/Jason were bad...who would we root for if both competitors were evil to the core? i know I'm in the minority when i say this..but in my eyes. Sonny/Jason are bad. we have seen them kill in cold blood before. not just for protecting the ones they love. but also when it comes down to Sonny orderiong Jason to do something. he does it. regardless if that person is bad or good. killing is killing. theirs no good quality about that. yeah Sonny/Jason are my favorites characters. I'm just saying in my book. they are not good like some people see them.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Sonny and Jason were never painted as "villains." When Claire Labine created Sonny, she created a charismatic man that had a dark side, not a villain. When Bob Guza had Jason lose his memouries and turn to Sonny, he still painted him as a hero. The only major difference was GH was a lot better then....

[emilyq]

I actually found the character of Sonny interesting and intriging back in the 90's and Claire Labine did a great job of giving the character layers to work with. But the writing was so powerful then. I will never forget the scene when Lucky 'died' and Laura called Sonny and Jason murderers. Powerful stuff. Do you think we would see that today no. Because they have become one dimensional cartoonlike characters.

A lot of people like GH and more power to them. I loved she show for a long time but finally tuned out when they killed off another legacy character and no consequences for the mob. Just another cheap sweeps stunt that flopped miserably. I would love to see Sonny get shot and debilitated and see him deal with that. To me that would be a great story. How about paralysis. Let's see some real consequences for their actions and quit killing off legacy characters and say there is an impact when the screen says different. How about Jason for once paying for a crime and going to jail. remember Duke Lavery. That was mob but HE died for Anna and Robin. How about seeing Jason, Carly, or Sonny - one of these 3 die.

[brimike]

I don't know... when he ran the strip joint Karen worked in, Sonny started off pretty one-note, didn't he? I think Maurice brought a lot of humanity to the character that Claire immediately jumped on (and rightfully so) as they fleshed him out.

But I do remember Sonny being pretty villainous in those Jagger/Karen months. Once Brenda crossed paths with him, that's when we saw the charismatic side.

Or maybe I'm WAAAAY wrong on this one. It's been a long time since I've seen those episodes. :-)

[shawn Perez]

fair enough. IMO GH is still awesome. i like the mob. and like the danger that they bring to port charles. that being said. Sonny/Jason are killers. of course they kill the bad people. but nonetheless. they kill. are they villains in todays GH? maybe not. but like i said in my upper post. i rather them be good mobsters that kill people then bad mobsters makng everyones life a living hell.

[shawn Perez]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

You're right, but I still think he was more a "gray character," not necessarily a full-on villain. Needless to say, the character wasn't taken in a direction befitting of a villain for very long. It was the Brenda relationship that showed a more compassionate and warm side of Sonny, in fact, I'd argue that if it weren't for Brenda, Sonny would've never lasted on the show and wouldn't be there today.

Neither Sonny nor Brenda were fleshed out characters in the beginning. Thankfully Claire and Wendy Riche saw potential in them.

This is what Claire listed as the best storyline she got to tell on GH in one of the September 1998 issues of ABC: SID:

http://simplysonnyandalexis.bravepages.com/labine.html

[shawn Perez]

everybody has their opinion if it hurts or helps. i think in the long run it helps because we have to face reality that whatever ratings our soaps currently have. most of the older viewers will die slowly. therefor ratings Will decrease. GH has to keep the mob so that it can attract the younger audience. soaps nowadays have to make a change before it's to late. most of them anyway focus way to much on romance and not exciting S/L's. which is why the majority of stereotype people out their are always making fun of soaps. i love GH because it has more action and less romance. and the dialogue doesn't come off as soapish.

[Wales2004]

IA with you that soaps eventually lose viewers due to attrition. There are probably older viewers who tune out before they die.

I don't agree that GH has to keep the mob to attract a younger audience. I don't agree that romance is mutually exclusive of exciting stories either. It's probably the case that viewers have more of an affinity to the main two mob characters than they do to the mob itself.

I've never encountered anyone who mocked soaps because of their focus on romance. The complaint I've heard most often is that they don't progress and people would say that you can tune out for months and even years and tune back in to the exact same plot. The other common complaint I heard was that the stories were too outrageous.

While there probably are people who don't like romance on soaps, since the essence of soaps is romance and that's probably why most people got hooked on them, it's kind of hard to diminish it on a soap and not expect to lose viewers.

[emilyq]

I may not like GH anymore but I actually agree with part of what you are saying. But I still say good smart writing and storytelling trumps everything. As a low 30 something female, I actually would welcome more romance and balance on the show and would love for them to stop killing off compelling characters for the purpose of shock value and ratings stunts. GH had action, adverture, violence along with the family and romance on the show at one time. Go back to the 90's when Sonny was actually a compelling and interesting character. He and Brenda clicked and I would agree with another poster that if Brenda had not have happened, Sonny probably would not have lasted.

It just seems to me they focus all their energies on writing for sweeps and ignore the show the rest of the year. Sept/Oct/Nov/Dec(when I finally tuned out) were 4 of the most boring months I have watched on the show since I started watching. There was only one story remotely interesting and it layed a big egg. But time will tell I guess.

[SoapQueen89]

GH needs to pull a Bobby Ewing and go back to 1997 before Port Charles became a town in Sonny's World and not a town in upstate NY. Where this show went wrong was to have the entire show centered around ONE character, Sonny Corinthos. It's like let's play 6 degrees to Sonny Corinthos and usually you can reach him by 3 degrees or less. It's insane. No one character should be the live all, die all, and end all. I don't care what soap you are watching.

Hell even the sweeps stories are about Sonny, when was the last time we didn't see a sweeps event directly involved with the mob? Port Charles fire? Oh wait, that was Zander, he worked for Sonny .... let me think .... the Virus? Uh no, Jason was the hero in that stunt ... um, Luke and Laura get re-married? Uh no, there were explosions and JaSam on the run that was more important then the wedding of the super couple..... now wait .. the Summer of Sleaze .. oh wait that was the end of JaSam ..... wait .. the trainwreck in Nov 'o5 .. oh no that was mob related cause that was all due to Manny and his psychotic mind .... Nov 2004 ... Rexis got married .. oh wait Kristina's cell story and duh! Sam's baby died ... wait 2003? See a pattern forming?

It's Guza's way ... more mob all the time ... it's never ending and hasn't in the last 6 years. I see a problem with this picture, don't you?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's true, the seeds were planted as far back as 1997 for GH to become The Sonny Hour. However, it was still an ensemble show, which I think was due wholeheartedly to Wendy Riche. We still saw Alan, Monica, Bobbie, AJ, Felicia, Mac, Robin, etc in front burner stories. I noticed when Wendy Riche left at the end of 2000 and was replaced by Jill Farren Phelps, the show became MORE Sonny-centric, and eventually Sonny BECAME THE SHOW. I think this is what Guza wanted all along, but Riche was there to stop him from going overboard. With the addition of Jill and then Frons, they all shared the same mob-centric vision and thus the way the show is what it is now...

[MichaelGL]

[applcin]

For me, personally, it hurt the show because I stopped watching after a number of years of Sonny & the mob dominating the storylines...and making the police look like Keystone Cops all the time. It was one thing when the mob was simply a part of the show (mostly before Jason Morgan), but then there were too many characters whose stories or actions revolved around Sonny...be it as lovers, friends, enemies, other mobsters...basically the characters were divided into pro and anti-Sonny..who was sleeping with him, who was plotting against him, who went to work for him, etc. I simply got bored with it. I've only gone back for a few spurts to see the returns of Genie, Tristan and Finola.

Anyway, my viewpoint is from someone who remembers better days and doesn't define "classic shows" by SoapNet's definitions (i.e. Brenda Barrett and Carly #1). That's not a diss to those characters or actors...just a reminder that GH had some pretty great shows and stories long before.

As for whether it hurts the show...I guess it depends what demo they are pandering to and what that audience thinks. Maybe they measure success by how many fans scream in the audience at the Daytime Emmys.

And just a remark from my mom, who maybe the last time she saw any of GH was in the Duke Lavery days...she said whenever she's flipping channels at that time, all she ever sees is "that mafia guy."

[AddictedToSoaps]

I think it does both. GH can pull off some great stories that are mob related, but at the same time the mob is just degrading the show. It just drags the show down to new lows and destroys characters and their history. Overall, it hurts a lot more than it helps.