OLTL:Carlivati I'm calling you out!!

[JackPeyton]

awww, i miss sami & austin.

and yes she raped him. and no i dont care.

[Vee]

Bit of a lame duck issue for you, then?

I always felt, even as a kid, that DAYS handled Sami's "funny rape" way too lightly.

[JackPeyton]

My issue with this todd/marty is NOT that he raped her and her falling for him. it isnt. i dont care. thats good soap, IMHO.

My issue is what is the fallout for Todd going to be? I *know* there is fallout for Marty, but *i* do not like her. So i dont care for her fallout. I care about Todd.

[Angela]

I don't want to see that.

I think Todd has been impacted by Marty in a very profound way since he grew a conscience, that's why Blair is irrationally jealous of Marty - when push comes to shove, she's kind of his conscience. I'm talking purely from a SH/RH perspective, I haven't watched all that much OLTL since early 1996. Sometimes the brilliance is in never really going there - never really playing with it - and just keeping the strong unspoken of connection there.

This feels like a passive aggressive way to play out a Todd/Marty "romance," (I glanced at the TV screen the other day and saw Marty smiling at Todd carrying her around, I mean come on...) and to give Marty a personality. Marty's personality has been relatively weak and grown progressively weaker since the rape and rape trial storyline ended (her rape storyline). They could have gone about this reintroduction in a less "skanky" way.

Blair and Marty, that's where the gold is at. I would have loved to see Marty entangled with one of the younger Buchanan men and the Buchanan's in general. I miss the only Marty I really liked pre-or-after the rape storyline, the one that was around for the 2-3 months before the rape.

[Jess]

So Jay, are you an M.D. Doc? I got my Doc the easy way -- with a dissertation :lol: .

I do not watch OLTL so I do not know what is happening with Marty and Todd. I can say that rape is brutal crime and that I really do not like stories that make rapists heroic leading men or women, or who make the victim and the gross obnoxious piece of crap that does it lovers. It goes to the root issue of redemption and punishment. Also, I think it plays to stereotypes that rape really isn't that bad. I don't easily accept arguments that well, it's classic soap operas, when it involves black and white questions of right and wrong. From this thread, it sounds like Todd is mind-raping Marty at the least Tsk Tsk.

Luke and Laura, they were the perfect soap couple IMO. Whoever wrote that story oh so many years ago, never made the story black and white and it is not black and white today. But Luke did pay a price. Yeah, I know that is a justification on my part.

[rhinohide]

I gained a new perspective on this story when talking to some friends tonight about the Guiding Light "couple" Roger Thorpe and Holly Lindsey(?). I think Todd and Marty have much of the same dynamic that Roger and Holly did, and there was a rape involved there as well, but it was marital rape. Still disgusting on every level, but there is an element of even greater betrayal in marital rape IMO. I mean in that particular case, this act of violence is committed by someone you love, and who supposedly loves you, and it twists the sexual act from something that is loving and intimate in a marraige or a relationship, to an act of violence. So for me it's even darker and more damaging than date rape, or random sexual assault.

But the intricacy of this from a strategic storytelling standpoint is that Roger and Holly remained bonded for many years. It eliminated that plateau that all writers seem to reach after all the sexual tension and build up is over and the couple is actually a couple. They had all these deep feelings for each other for many years, they remained drawn to one another because at one time they did love each other and they shared a child, but they could never be together again because of the rape. Holly hated Roger because of the rape, but on another level, she never really stopped loving him either. It was a relationship that transcended almost every other on that show and survived for years.

I can see that perhaps that is what Carlivati is trying to create with this Todd and Marty story. If in fact they do fall in love with one another and the audience gets to see this develop in a way that makes sense, we will know that on every level, the rapist and his victim cannot have a sexual relationship (and I hope they don't carry it that far). But when Marty inevitably regains her memory, she will still have those memories of loving Todd as well. It will create a new dimension to this complex relationship that could not have been developed any other way.

I guess my point is, I can see a purpose behind this story that I didn't see before. I am not yet sure if I like it, but I think I can understand it and buy it.

[Sapounopera]

Exactly. I don't care either.

I love Todd and Marty's. And an amnesiac woman falling in love with a mystery man who takes care of her and then realises that he is her rapist sounds like a very exciting story.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

I've been thinking about why this situation disturbs me so much and I think you hit on it. They are going there with Todd & Marty but are aware that they shouldn't be so they're trying to weasel their way into it by pulling this passive-aggressive "but she doesn't remember him or know what he did to her so it doesn't really count" angle and it just doesn't fly with me any more than any of the numerous "gray area" rapes we've been so shamelessly subjected to over the last ten years. I also find it hard to believe that Todd & Blair divorcing right now is just a coincidence.

I also hate the fact that ever since the rape Marty has been pretty much defined by it as a character. Yes, it will always be a part of her and shouldn't be forgotten but that night and Todd have been at the epi-center of everything that's happened to her ever since. She hasn't been allowed any other identity and her return is no different. She's Todd's victim. She's at Todd's mercy. Wherever she is, it's always tied to Todd somehow, someway. That in and of itself is indication of where writers have been tempted to take this almost from the start.

When rape=seduction or foreplay actually started burrowing into soap writers heads as a viable story angle, I don't know, but it was probably because of Luke & Laura. I liked Laura until she became stupid enough to actually hook up with that scumbag Luke. Portraying women as becoming romantically entangled with their rapists was sickening and insulting in 1980 and it's even worse now, especially since we all know that Todd Manning never has to truly pay for anything he does and we all know he won't pay for this either. Something as traumatic as being gang raped by a psychopath like Todd Manning and his loser friends while helpless to defend yourself and then getting stalked by him for having the courage to report what happened and try and obtain some justice can't be glossed over, forgotten, or fixed with a few stolen glances and I'm sorrys.

As for Roger and Holly on GL, even though they had known each other for years and were married when the rape occurred, Holly knew how dangerous Roger was and that he was capable of horrible things. She was even trying to leave him the night he attacked her, so there was really no shred of trust left between them by the time he raped her. And while always harboring feelings for Roger, Holly never really trusted him again and was never able to be in a real relationship with him, even twenty years later. Roger and Holly were never supposed to walk off into the sunset and they didn't. Their relationship was always portrayed as dysfunctional and self-destructive. The writers never tried to convince us that there was a gray area to what happened, that it was some sort of seduction, or that love could fix Roger Thorpe. Holly was also allowed an identity outside of being Roger Thorpe's rape victim while at the same time we always knew that the attack was an important event that shaped who she was.

[Dan]

I agree with the poster a few pages back that it's time for Todd to die in a wonderful whodunnit mystery. And not the "Days-of -Our-Lives-dead-until-we-need-you-to-save-the-show-a-few-months-later dead" either.

He really is not needed much anymore.

[Wales2004]

To comment on the Luke/Laura rape: I believe I saw an interview with Gloria Monty some years ago where she said that Luke was meant to be short term but because they liked him, they had to figure out what to do about the whole rape plot and the solution was to refer to it as a seduction. It wasn't that their intent at the time it took place was to have a full blown relationship with Luke and Laura. I think the reasons that it may have been easier to get away with is that they used the excuse of a desperate man in love who thought it was his last night alive coupled with the fact that Laura had a crush on him. Viewers of that era probably only had surface discussions about tv shows so the whole horror and brutality of rape probably never came into play.

I've never been for Luke and Laura as a couple because of the rape and I know I would never fall for any couple where the rapist and victim are paired romantically.

I don't care whether SH and TSJ work well together since I can look beyond the actors and still see victim and rapist as horrible. What I could buy is that a victim for the sake of her own mental health, finds a way to forgive her rapist and in situations where they may have to interact, that they might find a way to be friends but that a certain level of discomfort always exists.

If they want to write some sort of psychological twist then Todd would have amnesia and Marty would be the one faced with a dilemma since they'd be stuck out in the wilderness somewhere to make such a thing work. But having Marty as the victim once again is plain twisted and there's no opportunity for any real progress for either. Everything she's doing is because she doesn't remember her life and everything he's doing is because he's bent on revenge. Even if he has any moment of remorse it's wasted since he entered into this with eyes wide open and to say he suddenly realized that revenge was blinding him to doing the right thing is no different from all the other times he came to some sort of similar conclusion.

[dragonflies]

Yep I see it the same way, it's kind a roundabout way of doing it without really doing it, if that makes sense.

Memory or not, IMO it would have made more sense for Blair to have found Marty, then decided if she wanted to keep her enemy being alive a secret and use it to her advantage or tell everyone........

[Jess]

I did not know that about Tony Geary. Thanks. You know as much as I enjoyed Luke and Laura, it bothers me too. It really bothers me that I accepted them. I admit some guilt about that.

To be honest, I'm troubled with the blurring of lines between good and bad and sins, crimes and good behavior. The diminishing of rape is the most offense because it is done so often.

There has always been the well-intentioned bad boy or girl. It seems now that rapists are romantic leading men and all is forgiven and bad behavior is written off as mental illness and given instant redemption. GH does have some great couples and the acting is marvelous in my opinion. They also have some of the most effective humor. I am truly troubled though by the show making murder a heroic gesture.

[rhinohide]

I think it's more offensive with rape because it took such a long time for the general public to acknowledge that rape is an act of violence. It's not about boys behaving badly or misunderstanding that "No" meant "Yes". It took forever for people to get past the "she was asking for it" and to move past the victim is somehow responsible because she was a tease, or because of what she was wearing, or how much she drank, or whatever. We finally have accepted that it's an act of violence and control. Perhaps not completely, but the public has made great strides in that direction. So it's very offensive to turn around and try to romanticize it.

[Wales2004]

I felt guilty about liking Todd but then I realized it was the acting and not the character that I actually liked. I can't even honestly say that he was young and did something dreadful because his character has never been reformed and I don't even think he should be. I think he may have been another case of no long term plans for the character so the rape made a dramatic story but what do you do after and maybe no one ever gave it enough serious thought.

I would think that being able to write a story to fit into something longer than just one episode might inspire writers to really delve into complex issues and character development. But it hasn't and that's one area in which soap writers don't take advantage of the time they have to focus on something tangible. There's no reason to employ rape as a s/l unless the rapist is actually going to suffer some serious consequences and there's not going to be this oops let's keep him and give him romance. I don't think the majority of the viewers are able to easily brush that aside anymore.

I think it becomes a reason to tune out and so when whatever it is that most interests them goes awry and they lack confidence in the writing that things will be fixed then it's a bit easier to let go of a show.

GH still has some good acting but the great couples are past tense to me. I don't think they take the time out to give the relationships any substance. There are moments of "okayness" here and there but not enough to justify my watching it any more.

[EricMontreal22]

Right that's exactly what I agree with. I don't even object to how often it's used in soaps, etc, or how often it's used to gain sympathy for a victim in an odd sorta reversal (Lisa on ATWT in the 60s was hated by audiences until she was abducted into a truck and gang raped--well by 60s terms--the same thing Malone and Griffith did to Marty in the 90s). But I do object to when the raped falls in love with the rapist or somehow it's shown as some weird misguided form of tenderness, or what have you. It's still IMHO too touchy an issue that affects too many people to do a story where the lines are turly blured even if perhaps it does happen sometimes in real life or would undoubtedly make for good drama-- It would be like someone thinking that having a molested child fall for his molestor and turn into some sort of intergenerational grand love story would be a good idea... (even, when dealign with molestaiton and abuse, having fake acusations can be iffy to deal with in soaps unless it's made clear what's happening, like Malone and Griffith did by having Marty say that she saw Andrew molest Billy Douglas and not have the acusation come from Billy)

E

I know that amnesia is played with fast and loose on soaps and always has been but if Marty spent so much of her life SOO traumatized by Todd I have a hard time accepting that she wouldn't feel creeped out by his presence on SOME level