Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Mitch64]

Very true...and that was the heart of what the character was and excelled at..everyone goes on about the Slut of Springfield scene, but damn, did the writing and acting come together when Reva confronted Pharoh about her early molestation by him.  THAT is the stuff that worked...not being the Queen of a dumb island.

[DeeVee]

I've always liked Kim Zimmer. She's a very good actress.

I think the majority of the resentment comes from how much air she, or rather, Reva, sucked out of the show. There were periods where it felt like it was All Reva, All The Time. So many male characters had to be madly on love with her, even when they had zero chemistry with her. Her rival characters, like Sonni and Annie, were practically turned into psychos (somehow Olivia escaped that fate). She was given bizarre storylines, like the clone and time travel stories, to keep her front burner. It wasn't enough to have ONE bizarre reason she was missing (living with the Amish) she had to have TWO (princess of a Caribbean island, with a secret kid--her second one--to boot).

She got an insane amount of attention from TPTB, to the detriment of other characters. Possibly because the actress weaponized her fans. Maybe that's an unfair assessment, but seems to me her day had come and gone and yet she was still centered so much on the show.

I agree. In the beginning she was a very good character with a beautifully composed backstory. If they had kept her grounded like that, I am certain few would have complained about her.

[Soaplovers]

When Pam Long was the headwriter, Reva was written as someone that wore her heart on her sleeve and was driven by insecurity, lust, and impulse.

Partly due to her early childhood trauma, partly as a form of rebellion against her strict mother, and also partly due to being abandoned by her father for awhile.  

The problem with the character of Reva was that she was revived in 1995 during the more back to basics era in soap operas... and she stuck out like a sore thumb.  

[P.J.]

There's an exhaustion factor with Reva (and characters who "eat" shows like Y&R's Cricket, ATWT's Lily or B&B's Brooke or Taylor...depending on which way you lean)  that colors my perception of her now. It's hard to remember exactly what I thought of her then, but soaps were different before---you could like multiple characters/couples and the writing didn't feel as slanted as it's become.

(I will say, fans be fans. I was amazed to see Quint/Nola fans still having smoke for Vanessa when reading comments nearly thirty years after the fact.)

And hindsight is 20/20. I know how the story ends. There's no denying Kim could sell igloos to Eskimos, but I do kinda resent that somehow Guiding Light is remembered as "that show with Reva".

[Gatecrashers]

I said the same thing about Dani Dupree. That's when you know the writing is good because a complex character has been written that can be taken in multiple different ways.

[kalbir]

Like I've said before, if there was any character that defined GL's final 25 years, it was Reva.

[Speed Racer]

I never liked Reva, either the first time around, or the second.

My issue for the first go round was that Reva dominated the show, which was a shame because I didn't like the character.  Loud, insecure, narcissistic "look at me", "here I am, entertain me" individuals irritate me in real life.  It wouldn't have mattered to me who portrayed the character...Zimmer or someone else.

Reva is a character inherently inimical to the idea of ensemble.  

Post 1995, Reva was no longer a character, but a device.    

[DRW50]

Some of my first memories of GL are Reva's last episodes before she "died." As a kid, those moments were extremely dramatic, and it did make the character a bit of a legend in my mind, even though the show quickly moved on, due to the departure of Robert Newman. 

Due to this, I was never really upset when Reva came back. I think if the show had been in better shape, I might have been, but at the time, if I felt like anyone was eating up the show, it was Dinah. I would have taken Reva any day, even though it was clear even then that the show did not really know how to use her, saddling her with the busted Alan pairing, then at Fifth Street, and the stalled-out reunion with Josh. I got the sense the show didn't really know what tone to take with Reva and maybe even resented her a little. I missed her relationship with Sarah, and I knew Reva wasn't what she could have been.

Once Rauch arrived, he put the pedal to the medal with Reva. She was centered, whereas under Laibson she had been a "big" name awkwardly fit into the canvas. She also became even more generic, and after the initial exciting Annie vs Reva tangles, the show fell into a long list of iffy story ideas that were clearly just there to keep her in story rather than benefiting the character (the island, the island hunk, the clone, San Cristobel, Jeva breakup #40, a talk show, blindness, time travel, stalking, etc.) But I never felt like Kim lost her step, and unlike Beth Ehlers, I never felt like Kim herself lost her spark in dreary material.

I don't think I disliked Reva even then nor did I feel like there were times she was suffocating other characters. I think this is, again, more down to the rest of the show by this point - it was much more superficial than the GL I had started watching. Much duller. If Vanessa and Holly had been in their best years when Reva had returned, if Bev's Alex had still been around, if a new generation of compelling and complicated heroines or anti-heroines on par with Blake, Harley, even Eleni in the early '90s had been around, I would have been more annoyed at Reva's presence. But they weren't, and the few newer young characters I did connect with, like Drew, certainly had their share of story. There were reports of rivalries with rising names like Cynthia Watros, but it was clear Watros was not going to stay even if she and Kim had been BFF, which meant I never blamed Kim for that loss of dynamism in the cast. 

So Reva never really bothered me. However, I do get annoyed at the narrative of Zimmer the brave truthteller, Zimmer holding the show together, Zimmer as the show's face, and so forth. She was certainly a key part of GL's last years, she's a tough person who is willing to admit flaws, she always gave everything to her work, she had a legion of devoted fans. Reva just was never a character who brought me that level of love or hate. And in the end I don't think her contributions to the show, good or bad, were ever as meaningful as they are meant to be. It's just that history remembers the personalities, especially with a juicy memoir. I think that her influence is overhyped, and so are her instincts for the role, as the producer she intensely disliked is the one I think gave her most of her best material post 1990. 

When I think of GL, I don't ever think of Reva first, and even in the show's barest years when she was one of the only "stars," I did not. When I think of GL, it's always going to be Vanessa, or Ross, or Ed and Maureen, or Beverlee, or early Harley, or young Bill and Michelle, or Gilly, or Hamp, or Billy, or Henry, or Sherry's Blake...or just GL itself, such a nuanced, messy show, nothing else on daytime like it, not then, not now. 

Edited yesterday at 03:16 AM by DRW50

[P.J.]

So, on rewatch....did Rick and Mindy never have sex? 

[DRW50]

I assume they did at some point during the finale...

[P.J.]

Well, natch....but I mean, they never got a love scene onscreen? I'm just surprised. Although I guess it took Beth and Lujack longer than I expected too. 

[P.J.]

It's Maeve's birthday!

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[DRW50]

Happy birthday to the best of the best.

[alwaysAMC]

Happy Birthday, Maeve!  She's a Gemini - interesting.

Great insight, thanks for sharing!

So I didn't realize Zimmer had a juicy memoir!  Is it worth reading? I'd pick it up and read, if so.  Which producer did she despise?? 

Edited yesterday at 02:24 PM by alwaysAMC

[P.J.]

So happy she is still with us. It's crazy how much my appreciation of her and the classic Guiding Light era she represents has grown!

I never read it, but I think the producer she trashed the most was Ellen Wheeler. And I don't think she liked FMB.