And, I don't know what Dixie character you were watching.

Dixie was a naive country bumpkin who got in way over her head and was used as a brood mare. Babe was a scheming whore who knew exactly what she was doing every single time she made whatever idiotic choice she made and then somehow wound up a victim of the very situation she set in motion with her moronic choices.

Dixie wasn't that pure and clean cut. The very reason she came to Pine Valley was to swindle Palmer's money because she held him accountable for her mother's death (he didn't give her money for her costly medication or something). Dixie and Will came to town with the sole purpose of stealing money from Uncle Palmer so no Dixie wasn't always the good character she is marginalized as being throughout her tenure. She came to town scheming to get Palmer's money and she was also a homewrecker in Brooke and Adam's marriage. So no she wasn't this pristine pure figure. She was the country girl who had an agenda and then later on she was victimized by her husband. Anyway she went from one rich household to the next because she believed that money was all that mattered in a family home. Dixie isn't all sunshine and flowers she has a dark side to her as well.

As for JR being a hero... unless someone's been smoking copious quantities of crack while watching AMC over the last five years, I don't know how anyone could ever think that!

JR is the tragic hero we are supposed to feel sympathy for. Who we were supposed to feel sorry for. Remember all his blubbering to Babe in May of 2006? Where he said he broke because Dixie left him? We are supposed to feel bad for the son who was abandoned and shafted (this was huge during the Dixie return storyline). JR has always supposed to be the anti-hero that everyone was supposed to identify with because he has had it so hard. We are supposed to feel for him because he has struggled over drug, parental and alchoal problems and we are supposed to excuse all of his deviant actions in which multiple characters have died based on his actions. Were supposed to forgive him for his trespasses because "Mommy didn't love him enough", "Babe lied to him" or "Dixie is such a bitch!"

Maria NEVER forgave her.

Maria never said poin blank: "I forgive you Erica" but to say she hated Erica is an exaggeration. Maria many a times allowed Erica in her home and allowed her even to interact with her children. When "Maureen" came back she was even friendly to Erica and Maria was one of the many to comfort Erica when she found out that Micheal Cambius raped Bianca. Maria even testified for Erica in court. Erica and Maria were very civil to one another. Arguablly Maria was even nice to Erica considering.

and had she become the town parriah for a while, there might have been some real growth for the character.

Babe was a pariah. She was a pariah for the entire year of 2005. She wasn't even allowed inside the town of Pine Valley, she had to find a garage in the outskirts of Pine Valley and literally every one hated her. Her car was stolen, her bar burned down, she wasn't allowed at the Valley Inn and JR paid off a judge to cancel her vistation. Not to mention all the things Janet, JR, Paul Cramer and The Satin Slayer did to her.

Again, it's never Babe's fault and again,it's not characterization but manipulation.

That's not true Babe always said that it was her fault and hers alone for cheating on JR.

That being said there is viewer mainpulation, but it only becomes a problem when the characters become unidentifiable. For the sake of story their has to be an pot stirrer, a victim, an ingune, a hero, a anti-heroine, ect. But when they are turned into cartoons it's a problem.

Edited July 7, 200817 yr by Skin

The big thing is that the idiots in control do not learn from mistakes anymore.

They keep using these damn focus groups as mentioned when it was proven time and time again that the focus group who said it was okay to kill Maureen Bauer on Guiding Light got it wrong.

Half the time these focus groups have not watched the shows for a long time. How can they feel the connection to stories that long time viewers can. It is totally stupid.

I'm late to the party here but here's my two cents.

I've read that it's very Kane/Chandler/Hubbard centric. And that there is some HUGE Taylor McBride secret that effects the Martins (IIRC), and it's not a long lost daughter/child thing.

My first thought was maybe she's Jake's first wife, Emily Ann, coming back with extensive plastic surgery for revenge on him for never looking her up after she was released from the asylum.

The part of not just you Skin but many fans today rooting for the bad guys is something that I still find interesting. I wonder if it is more of a change in the way America thinks or what, but when I grew up the HEROES were the one you rooted for. And I am still that way.

We rooted for Superman, Batman & Robin, Roy Rogers, etc.

On soaps we rooted for Alice Matthews over Rachel Davis, for Tara Brent over Erica Kane, for the Bradys over the DiMeras, etc. The classic battle of good vs evil is what made the soap world go round. You loved the villians, but you couldn't wait for the good guy to triumph and for them to get what was coming to them.

Today fans root for the bad guy and want them to prevail and to never even pay for the bad things they do. And thus writers don't even write characters with shades of gray anymore - they are all bad and never pay for the crimes they have done. Even the supposedly good guys don't pay anymore because it seems the fans don't want anyone to pay anymore.

I am not passing judgement on anyone who does root for the bad guys, but I just grew up in a different time. I would love to see soaps go back to the classic good vs. evil pattern. I like good characters who sometimes do bad things, but I like to see them pay too. I don't think there are any totally good people anywhere. We all have shades of gray and I think that needs to be explored on the soaps - but not all the people are like Carly (ATWT), Kendall (AMC), Greenlee (AMC) or Sami (Days) eitehr who are played as the central heroines we are supposed to root for today. I can't root for them because they never learn from their mistakes - they just keep making the same ones over and over and over and over.

At least when Days reformed Julie Olson and AW reformed Rachel - they paid for their mistakes and suffered big time for them.

I loved Bianca on AMC and really miss her. She was really the last classic heroine we had in Soaps. Lily on ATWT fits the mold too but they hardly ever use her for anything really good anymore.

Yeah, I hate how characters are christened "good" or "bad" by the writers and we we're supposed to accept whatever agenda they're pushing. I miss the days when good characters occasionally made a mistake that hurt others (physically or emotionally) and bad characters occasionally did the right thing. It made for much better drama, imo.

I like your examples of how characters used to be punished for their actions. They also used to feel guilty for more than a week or two. When was the last time Tad mentioned killing Madden?

Remember when Babe was introduced and she'd call her mom who was always busy with random males, in bed? I LOVED that angle. I wish they had kept it--Krystal or not.

They really should have kept Krystal as a selfish slut. At least back then she was interesting. I just find her so boring now.

I agree. The problem with AMC is that they don't characterize/write humans they manipulate. Babe has been awful from the get-go but from the beginning the writers have REALLY wanted us to root for her. Around the time she was "killed" the Babe love was almost intolerable with Zarf, Amanda, JR, EVERYONE telling us how wonderful Babe was. If they had just written her as she should have been: a manipulative, golddigging strumpet I think they might have been more successful with the character. It seems that AMC takes the simplistic route with ALL of it's characters. Again during the Crash storyline; they wanted us to HATE Greenlee when frankly, the way AMC is written, the kidnapper is the hero. What I wouldn't give for the days where the characters did what they did, reprocussions were felt and viewers were left to make up their own minds.

Yup, the writers should let the characters acknowledge what they did and live with the repercussions of their actions. I agree with everything you said about Babe, but the worst example of this kind of writing for me is Greenlee. She just has gotten away with so many rotten schemes against Kendall and yet we're supposed to believe that Kendall would ever talk to her again. There was great potential in Greenlee being related to the Kane women through marriage because she had been such a bitch to all 3 of them and it could have been interesting to see the struggles they went through to accept her into the family, or choose to never accept her. Instead, she has been presented as a heroine and the other characters keep telling us how victimized she was. It's stupid and insulting to us long-time viewers.

Part two of the TvGuide thing is out.

1. It took Pratt 3 weeks to figure out what the heck Fusion was supposed to do exactly lol

2. He's going to make it a real company and delve into the office politics (I know we want him to get rid of it for good but, come on, that's not gonna happen under Frons)

3. The way he described Kendall and Greenlee might cause an all-out war here.("two spoiled rich girls")

Edited July 14, 200817 yr by LeClerc

Part two of the TvGuide thing is out.

1. It took Pratt 3 weeks to figure out what the heck Fusion was supposed to do exactly lol

2. He's going to make it a real company and delve into the office politics (I know we want him to get rid of it for good but, come on, that's not gonna happen under Frons)

3. The way he described Kendall and Greenlee is going to cause an all-out war here.("two spoiled rich girls")

I like the idea of office politics at Fusion, as long as it goes further than Kendall and Greenlee bickering over what to call the new perfume (which will also be available to buy at your nearest Wal-Mart).

3. The way he described Kendall and Greenlee is going to cause an all-out war here.("two spoiled rich girls")

That's certainly Greenlee (she's also a sociopath) but not Kendall. AM plays her too delicately for me to buy that but I can see how watching her walk around in designer duds and stilettos and constantly talking about make-up and her man would give that impression.

I have always thought of Kendall as a spoiled rich girl too. No she wasn't raised rich like Greenlee was but now that she is rich she is still the spoiled rich girl.

Both her and Greenlee feel they are entitled to everything. both of them are spoiled - just for different reasons. Both of them would do good to have a good spanking or two every now and then and be knocked down a few pegs in life.

When Hogan Sheffer took over Days he said he wanted to give the men their penises back. I wish one writer or producer would come on to AMC with the goal of making one of the "supposed heroines" and "female leads" likable again.

All the current female leads: Annie, Kendall, Greenlee, and Babe are very unlikable for me and I can't root for any of them. If they all 4 disappeared I wouldn't miss any of them.