June 8-12, 2009

[SteveFrame]

I see the idea but Goutman was at AW and it wasn't mysogynystic. It had many strong female roles under him. And he worked with Passanante there.

See I threw out that theory of someone having that much influence on someone in a short time a long time ago. And it was mainly due to Pat Falken Smith. As I said earlier here Smith worked under Bell for a long time well over 10 years. But in just a few short years under Monty her whole writing style changed. She never achieved the level of writing again that she did at Days.

And look at writers and producers like Langan and Reilly who worked under Bell and great writers and producers at Y&R and then went to Days and in a short time with Corday their whole styles changed from what they had learned under Bell.

I think it depends a great deal on how much they respect that person and how much they allow them to change them. I just thank JP worked so closely with HS that she developed many of his ways and she as a writer that already had problems anyway.

I mean the same thing even applies to real life. You can take many a person out of what they are normally accustomed too and put them in a total new group of folks and often you will find them pick up many of their ways and change. Sometimes you will find someone who rejects it but for the most part they don't.

[MarkH]

I am uncomfortably with this word "misogyny" being thrown around. I recognize that it refers to "women as victims". As a lifelong viewer of Y&R, I'm here to tell you that women have been victims on Y&R many times. Cricket was raped twice and sexually harrassed once. Nikki has flinched in the shadow of TGVN her whole adult life. We could develop a whole list of women who have basically been victims.

We could probably also find male victims, but they would be somewhat more difficult to find. At a different level, through the years, most characters have had "tragic" backstories that could in part motivate current behavior..."victim" pasts, if you like. That's not misogyny, because it was true for almost every character. To wit, almost every character ever invented on Y&R has suffered some form of parental abandonment.

I realize there are now some disturbing stories going on, and there are some female victims (most notably Ashley)...but I'm not sure that is misogyny.

Other females are falling apart -- e.g., Sharon -- but males are falling apart too (e.g., Nick).

I think the more encompassing concept is "are characters doing harmful things to themselves and others?"...and here we have a LOT of that going on on Y&R nowadays. Is that Sheffer's "fault"? Maybe. But I think we have to look at the whole creative team for that. Sheffer is only one voice.

My feeling is this: The audience reaction against all this darkness is pretty universally negative, at least if the internet and soap mags are a guide. My guess is that ratings momentum is also about to slow, or we're about to enter another decline phase (judging from the rest of CBS). Those things, together, should wake up the creative team.

But I really wish we could stop throwing that word "misogyny" around so much...because it is as much an over-generalization as "racist" or "homophobic".

[brimike]

Outstanding post, MarkH. You have my humblest of apologies... you are correct. Daytime was built around victimized women coming back stronger and better than before (victimization meaning anything from a betrayal by a friend, a husband leaving them for another woman, their baby dying... all the way up to and including rape and murder). One could generalize that all of daytime is "misogynistic", going back to the beginning.

It's a word I will try to refrain from using from now on, because you're right - I know I'm using it too much, and way too freely.

[SteveFrame]

I agree that daytime has been built on the woman as victim and them coming back. I totally give you that.

But the writing that I am referring to today is totally different.

I would even go so far to say that daytime was totally unfair to men for so many years in that women were strong in that sense and men were always pictured as weaklings to a certain degree.

But the thing that I see different and why I see daytime as more mysogynictic (and that is using it in a general sense) is that the writers started writing these strong men and turned women into big old weaklings. So many of the men like Sonny Corinthos, Zach Slater, Victor Newman, Holden & Jack Snyder, Craig Montgomery, EJ DiMera, Lucas Horton, etc. all treat women as if they are inferior subjects who are only there to serve their needs whenever they want.

It goes back to the old feeling of keeping a woman barefoot and pregnant and in the home where she belongs. They all treat women as if they have a place and they better stay in it. And remember where it is at.

Many of the men I once liked I don't even like anymore because of that reason.

And women who were once strong now cowtow to these men as if they are king.

It is a whole concept of writing that I don't like at all.

Here is the definition of misogyny - hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.

And I agree that the word is thrown around a lot these days, but honestly in reference to daytime it fits so much more these days.

All the instances you referred to MarkH the diffrence in them was the writer behind them still let the woman's strength shine through. So many times today you don't see that.

Since when have we gotten to see Victoria Newman's strength that was such a part of her for years. Now whatever daddy says she goes along with. And I for one don't buy into it that it is all AH's fault. I have seen the girl in other stuff and I know what she is capable of. This is the way the writers want Victoria now.

And of course with Hogan Sheffer the statement he has made about giving the men their penises back on Days doesn't help the situation much. He came on to Days and yes made the younger men stronger but he turned once strong women into whiny little bitches. And I would even go so far as to say that writers like Hogan have a problem with age too. Look at what he did to Stefano and Victor. He may have given the men back their penises but he castrated them. And he even said it in interviews that it was an age thing in round about ways. He often referred to Aniston's age especially.

And another difference that I see in what you are talking about is that every time a woman was a victim years ago it was never presented as a thing that she had to have a man to get by. If she got a man to help her through things it was a bonus - not a must have. Now women who become victims sit around and whine and cry and don't seem to get by without some help from a man.

Where are the strong women like Lesley Webber who took the fault for her daughter and stood trial for her. Today that story would be rewritten with Rick Webber coming to the defense and taking the blame while Lesley and Laura sat around and cried and praised him for his chivalry.

Look at poor Kendall how many times Zach has come to the rescue and took the blame for her.

Mary STuart once said to Roy Winsor (before going to work with him on SFT) that the women in soaps of the time were not women that other women could identify with. For years it was set out to make women identify with them.

Sadly I think we have gone to the reverse and women today again cannot identify with the women they see on their screen. Either that or they don't even want to identify with them.

[DRW50]

Well said, SteveFrame.

To me, daytime was built around seeing women overcome obstacles. That's also what radio soaps were often about.

Now daytime is all about men, men and their egos, men and their insecurities, and how women revolve around them.

I do blame Sheffer at Y&R because I have seen him ruin women on 3 different soaps. He turned Barbara Ryan into some crazy whispering lady who spent all her time hiding her face and plotting with the man who had destroyed her life multiple times. He turned Julia into a loon who killed horses and who raped Jack (which was played for laughs, as one of Hogan's favorites, Craig, thought this was hilarious). He turned Jessica into an incompetent lawyer who was utterly inferior to Marshall Travers, and who was attracted to him because he so thoroughly dominated her. Then at DAYS there was the awful weeping, was-she-really-raped-or-did-she-want-it Sami on display week after week after week after week. At Y&R, Nikki was humiliated for what seemed like months on end. Sharon has been ruined, Ashley has lost any personality or drive, Jill's pain is written off for laughs, or as being shrill.

Misogyny may be thrown around too often but I think Y&R deserves the criticism, especially for Sharon's story. When you try to pass off a woman sleeping with three different men as some form of mental illness, and when you have everyone around her completely understand and act like that's what a woman's for anyway, I don't know what else to call it.

[Ann_SS]

ITA about misogyny, SteveFrame. It accurately describes what is happening on Y&R the last year and on GH for the last 10 years. The combination of Guza and Phelps have been a disaster for the women on GH. The women on GH have been sacrificial lambs for the men. When the relationships go bad, the men spew ugly insults and degrade the women to put them in their place. Carly has been the only woman to hold her own against the men in her life, but even she has had to bow before Sonny. To a some degree Robin has a voice in her relationship with Patrick, but the rest of the women get kicked around constantly. Michael wakes up from a coma and targets his rage at his mother and women. This is a plot device that dovetails with the misogyny that is pervasive on GH.

[cara mia]

I know misogyny when I see it and Y&R has crossed the line in several stories.

Sharon is a joke. She has been turned into a stupid whore and for what? To show that without her man in her life, she will turn into a sex-crazed rag doll? Yes, Sharon should have problems, but the writers have sucked all the humanity out of Sharon and turned her into a mindless blow-up doll.

Adam's entire storyline is the very definition of misogyny. He can't confront the men he hates, so he targets the woman they care about? A pregnant, sweet, defenseless woman? Heather and now Rafe only exist as pawns for him. Just because Adam is also using a gay man does not absolve him of misogyny, it just adds yet another group for him to hold in contempt. Why did the writers makes Dr. Taylor guilty of sexually molesting his patients? To me, that speaks of deep misogyny on the part of the writers and isn't just some throw-away character trait.

Jill is a manicurist now? Would the Bradcicle return to being the pool boy if he lost his money? Would Jack be flipping burgers at Jimmy's? I hardly think so.

[tgilbrea69]

Anyone notice a new opening for ATWT? I caught just a second of it.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

The plot driven stories that have overtaken Y&R within the last few months have Hogan's fingerprints all over them. Character/history have been sacrificed for plot, and it's begun to impact the ratings. The story surrounding Phillip's return is absurd, even for a soap, and especially for this soap. The stories are hurling forward at an alarming rate, and the emotional impact is missing. MAB needs to pull back, return to organic stories that spring from the characters and their histories, rather than superimposing plot.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

It's well known that when Bill Bell stepped down from Y&R and handed the show over to Alden that Ed Scott began to interfere in the writing and scripts. I think it undermined some of Alden's confidence, and the writing suffering. No longer was there just one singular vision, as it was under Bill Bell. I think Higley ran into the same problem with Scott. Personally, I've never been a fan of hers, but I'm glad she won in the end and Scott got booted. Let the head writer write, let the producer produce.