GH: Guza SOD Interview

[Toups]

Here's an excerpt from Carolyn Hinsey's interview with Bob Guza.

Carolyn: So, whose idea was shooting Michael? Yours or the replacement writers? GH fans are very upset.

Bob: Yes, we need to address this. They should be upset. It's a very upsetting thing -- and it was my idea.

Carolyn: Was it in the works before the strike?

Bob: We knew we'd do it at some point. Let me preface this by saying that this show had long been [accused of] being too violent, and of glorifying violence. Let's take them separately, because they are different issues. In terms of being too violent, that's fair. But we are a show whose central characters are mobsters and have always been mobsters. Tony Geary's character came on this show Frank Smith's runner from the mob. So this is not something that started with me. Is it too violent? Yeah probably. But it is the nature of the characters and the stories you have to tell. But the question of glorifying it is a different issue, and you and I have talked about this a lot. We work very hard around here to show the consequences of violence to our characters. We want to say, "If you choose this lifestyle, it is going to come back to haunt you." Sonny is arguably one of the more haunted characters in all of daytime, precisely because h doesn't die but the people around him do. We've been ratcheting up the mob stuff for a long time, trying to come up with the single worst thing we could do to Sonny, Jason and Carly. The ripple effect is enormous.

[DevotedToAMC]

This guy is just a hack and needs to go

[dragonflies]

Luza needs a frosty mug of STFU

Seriously STFU

It may NOT have started with him, but he had NO problem "glorifying" the mob and the violence

[Toups]

But wasn't Luke trying to get out of the mob, running away from the mob???

Having mobsters as part of the show? No. Having mobsters as glorified heroes? Yes.

Yeah, because YOU write it!!!

[Vee]

He's been making these same excuses for almost ten years and it's so tired and so old and so outdated.

This show has NOT always been about the mob, there are NO real consequences shown because each of the mob canvas heroes just keeps on living and loving, there is NO sense of social responsibility, family, history or commitment to anything but stunts, action and overpaid, over the hill airhogs, and Guza has NO hopes of ever getting the cable, primetime or film gig he so desperately wants to get...which is why he keeps inserting his crushed cinematic dreams, his sub-Sopranos, amateur Puzo/David Chase crap onto daytime. Forcing us to live out his smashed ambitions.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

He seriously needs to stop giving interviews, it makes me hate both him and the show even more than I already do....

[AddictedToSoaps]

I just can't believe him. He needs to go.

[Ryan]

...............wow...........just wow..............

::no words::

[R Sinclair]

He's right. Robert, Anna, Felicia, Frisco... all perpetual mobsters in the 1980s.

True... but hasn't Luke undergone several transformations since 1979? Or is the last 29 years irrelevant because of his being a runner back then?

[SOAPSFOREVER]

The point is, GH doesn't HAVE to be about the mob. It was once a story about a HOSPITAL, the people who worked there, the patients, etc. No one holds a gun to Guza's head and says: "Continue to write about the mob, give us more violence." It's a choice he makes as headwriter. He could just as easily choose to write a story of Sonny's utlimate realization that violence only begats violence, bringing tragedy to the people he claims to love. He could showcase Sonny's struggle to extricate himself from the mob (Jason, too, for that matter), and his ultimate redemption. It could be a story of internal struggle as well as external. It could be riveting, heartwrenching, and a story that touches the lives of many people on the current canvas. You know, the stuff GOOD soap opera is about. Instead Guza, along with most of the current batch of headwriters, take the EASY WAY OUT. They think murder and violence will bring in an audience. Time and again they go for shock and awe, not substance. Ultimately, the core audience dwindles away, one by one, out of disgust and fatigue, their minds numbed by the callous treatement of human life. Our lives, our REAL lives, are flooded daily with REAL stories of violence, killings and unspeakable horrors. Who among us in their right, sane mind wants to watch this day after day, week after week, year after bleak year on programs that are meant to "entertain." We the audience want fantasy, romance and a peak into lives we rarely have a chance to see and know in our own. We want to feel, really FEEL, for the characters. But IMHO, the vast majority of headwriters and network execs who feed this garbage to us, are completely burned out. They should have left the soap medium years ago, but instead they devote less time to their shows, or to developing intiguing story and characters, and opt to go back to same murderous well, somehow expecting to keep an audience engaged and rivted to their shows if there's a high enough body count. Does Guza get it? Yes, he gets it. He's not a stupid man. But what he doesn't get, just like most soap headwriters and network execs don't get, is that the audience isn't stupid either. They know when they're being pandered to, condescented to. What else could possibly explain Guza's lame excuses for the mess that is now GH? He takes no responsibility. Is GH too violent, he's aked. "Yeah, probably," is his response. And my response would be Ada McGowen's response: "So change it!" (Ada McGowen from "Another World," responding to her daughter Rachael bemoaning about the state of her life and how life hadn't treated her fairly.) It's that simple, Guza. "Change it." And if the network brass tell you you can't, you tell them why you SHOULD. And why it's about returning to the roots of good soap opera, if there's any hope of saving the genre. Again, it's that simple. But it takes a commitment, and a passion for what good soap opera is all about. The audience can tell you what it is. They've BEEN telling you and the network honchos for years. You say you listen, but you don't HEAR. There's a huge difference.

[titan1978]

Since the late 1970's there has been danger and mob/terrorist storylines running on GH. I will give Guza that.

Frank Smith

Cassadines

WSB/DVX

Mr. Big

Jerome Family

Faison

Frank Smith again

Joe Scully

The difference is that the show had balance, and the good guys were present. Laura saved Luke from the mob. Anna, Robert, Frisco and Felicia helped Duke bring down the mob, even though it cost him his life in the end. Sonny and Luke bonded over getting rid of Frank Smith once and for all.

Joe Scully was presented as the "bad mobster", and Sonny was not as bad then. Alcazar was pretty much just like Sonny. Why root for Sonny when he was after Alcazar?

Labine started the Sonny storyline, but she wrote that also while Bobbie and Tony's marriage was collapsing, Monica was fighting breast cancer, Stone was fighting for his life and Robin was losing the love of hers, Lucky met his best friend Emily, Lucy was growing out of being a selfish bitch, the Ward family was protecting their neighborhood, Laura was having a baby girl and setting down roots, and Lois was falling in love with both the real Ned and the Q's. The Mob wasn't the only storyline, and even that one was focused more on Sonny's relationships with Luke, Lucy, Brenda, Stone, Robin, Mike, etc.

Does any of this sound close to Guza since his return? He may not have started the ball rolling, but he ran it and several good characters into the ground for nothing. He is killing the show, and the ratings prove it. Enough with Sonny/Carly/Mobs! Either finish it, kill them all and let Sonny's demons claim him, or back off from it and give us something else. It's time.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Even during the action/adventure-packed Monty years, the center of the show was still the hospital. Amid the Luke/Laura stuff and later on the spy stories, the hospital (and its doctors and nurses) was still a huge and vital presence. Say what you want about Monty, but she never lost sight of that. I get the feeling that these days the hospital is nothing more than an afterthought. You could almost hear the conversations in the story meetings..."The hospital stuff is boring, sure, but the name of the show is General Hospital, so I guess we gotta keep the set around and a handful of doctors and nurses." And I can tell you this, if not for the popularity of Grey's Anatomy, we wouldn't have gotten Scrubs or any hospital-related stories.

[MarkH]

This is just a terrific post. The _only_ thing I might disagree with is this: It seems that Sonny/Carly/Mobs could continue if the show were as you described in the "Labine started..." paragraph. In other words, if the mob were 1/6 of the show or 1/8 or 1/4...if there were relatable human drama in the other stories.

It is sad. GH was once really, really terrific, and so different from anything else on the air. I watched from the mid-60s to the mid-80s, and then drifted away (from the whole ABC lineup...mostly because life intervened). But I'd say the show had merit through the end of Wendy Riche's reign.

But step by step, the show has lost its' humanity, and its grounding in stories about relationships. Life and death drama are fine...but there must be MORE than life and death drama.

I hold on to optimism, though, that there will eventually be "regime change".

[CassieFan]

Guza is a jerk.

[NYC123]

Figures.......Micheal's shooting was all his idea.............................

Does this man know what he is saying?