Underrated social issue stories

[alphanguy74]

I don't have any problem with social storylines. Lily's cancer SL would have come off quite nicely if a decent actress was playing her. it's not ALWAYS the writing, there have been TONS of opporotunity for Kahlil to kick that story up a notch, but it never happens. Look at how Walton and Cast can take virtually ANYTHING and pull it off. But as far as the most underrated? The Bill Foster Euthanasia SL. That was some heavy sh!t. That was SO ahead of the curve, and even today... it would still have relevance.

[DRW50]

I'd like to see more of the Bill Foster story. Imagine Julianna McCarthy being given such an opportunity on a soap these days.

As trite as it was, I thought the story on B&B with Stephanie losing her memory and becoming homeless also had some good moments, and I liked that for a year or two they tried to maintain some ties between Stephanie and the people she'd met.

[Dion]

Its all to do with the rating...a G soap can't, but a PG soap can.

I don't recall them using the word "rape" during Dani's storyline but then again I was watching sporadically at the time so I may have missed it. They did use the word during the rape storyline last year though.

The reason why Home and Away I think always used other words instead of rape is because for so long they were trying to hold on to their G rating, but eventually a few years ago they decided to give up that battle and have most of their episodes rated PG. Neighbours on the other hand has to stay G rated because it's on before 7pm.

Back to the topic at hand, I do like it when soaps tell a good issue storyline, but too often the story is either over too quickly, poorly researched or let down by bad performances.

And as for an underrated storyline, yeah I agree that the Stephanie being homeless story did have quite a few good moments.

[MichaelGL]

I've always heard about the story on AW involving Paulina's battle with weight and her taking diet pills. How was this recieved by the press and fans? I wasn't watching much of AW at this time.

[Bright Eyes]

Why would the show want to KEEP a G rating?

[LoyaltoAMC]

I'm a huge proponent of social issue stories. The "education" thing some of the writers espouse is total BS in this day and age. I cringe when I still hear that from them. I like them because I think they bring a certain reality to a genre that tends to OD on fantasy. They definitely balance the fantasy aspect of these shows, and help to ground these shows in reality and make them somewhat relevant to viewers' lives. I'm not sure if the majority of the audience for these shows appreciates that, but I certainly do. Additionally, I think reality-based stories can reflect the writers' respect for the viewers' intelligence. These stories, I think, show that the writers know that we fans are intelligent human beings who can digest scenes with conversations about issues other than who's sleeping with whom. When the writers respect the audience's intelligence, then the show is all the better. Of course, this is if they're done well. If they're not, that's a whole different story. The best ones are those that are well-integrated into the current storylines and which don't come from left field and seem like PSAs. I think that's why Agnes has been so successful at these stories throughout the years. She knows how to weave them into the show without preaching. At least that's how I view it. Doug Marland too was great at that. I don't have enough information to criticize Bill Bell's foray into these types of storylines, but I remember reading years ago a critique of Y&R (probably in SOD) in which the reviewer wrote that the problem with Bell's social issue storylines is that he relies too much on characters barking out statistics about whatever illness (or whatever the social issue was) that he is trying to write about. Although I'm not as critical of LML's period at Y&R as some others, I have to admit that her disease-of-the-weak approach didn't really work. Much of it was just very transparent Emmy bait IMO and probably also reflected her snobbery toward, even disdain for, traditional daytime storytelling.

One of the most underrated issue stories IMO was Lily Slater's abuse by her father, Garth, on Loving back when it premiered in 1983. I thought it was a wonderfully done story in terms of the writing (Doug Marland) and acting (John Cunningham, Jennifer Ashe, Ann Williams). I think this would've gone down as one of the best-done "issue-oriented" stories of all time if Loving had been a more succesful show and if ABC hadn't killed it midway in order to promote "Something About Amelia" as the first network series/movie dealing with incest. Of course, Doug would later do a similar, well-remembered story on ATWT with the Langes. Another one I remember that didn't get much fanfare was Brooke's ectopic pregnancy on AMC in the early 90s. It was actually something that could happen to pregnant women that I'd never heard of, and I just remember it being very well done and acted.

[Dion]

I guess it was more Channel 7 rather than the show itself that wanted the show to be G rated. Plus a large proportion of the show's audience is pre-teens.

[DRW50]

Judi Evans received a lot of praise for her work. I think many people liked the story, but it was very rushed. They then had Paulina become a heavy drinker to compensate for her no longer taking diet pills. That led into Grant framing her for burning down her house. I think after a while people were tired of the angst but the story worked dramatically.

LoyaltoAMC, I think Schmering said that about Y&R. I agree with a lot of what you say about social issues stories. They can work as education and as entertainment, and Marland showed that. Like the right to die story with Casey Peretti.

Over the past decade there have been a lot of producers and executives who have that "We can't do social issues, or business," or this, or that, because the viewers won't get it. The problem is that they generally are not good at ANY stories, even basic romances, dramas, anything. So it just shows if you have basic storytelling ability you cna make something work.

I know AMC had a lot of social issue stories for a long time, before Frons took over.

[Adam]

They continue to try in the last few years, but usually fail. The transgendered storyline for one with Zarf/Zoe.. it has some great moments like when he went to that group with Bianca, but the fact that it was intertwined with a serial killer story kind of made it ring false.

AMC was always the best show in its prime to tackle social issues. It will be what the show is best known for. Agnes had a special gift. I think now they have become very irrelevant, because people have so many other ways to get information as others have alluded too.

[marceline]

I'm going to get my ass handed to me for this but I'm going to give credit where I believe it's due. I think Pratt - yes Pratt - did a fairly good job dealing with the war on AMC. He showed Frankie's reluctant commitment to duty, Angie's absolute desperation to keep him home no matter what it took. "Tell them you're gay!" Then they brought in Taylor. I know she ended up being an epic fail of a character but in the beginning I thought she was a really good example of peeling away layers of that gung ho stereotype to show what drives some people to go back especially a young woman. Then came Brot and I have to admit that I was SO afraid they'd use JR Martinez for short term PR points but then they showed the scene in the real VA support group and they let the real drama write itself.

I often think THAT's what's really missing from these social issue stories is the experience. I'm not talking about research. Anyone with Google can research. I mean stepping up and finding someone outside of the bubble of writers and actors and finding out what it would take to make their experience ring true.

I remember when OLTL had Evangeline's blindness story, it all seemed a typical soap drama but they did bring on a blind actress to play Van's counselor Anne. She only appeared twice. I thought at the time she might've made an interesting addition to the cast and it would be a lot more powerful than having an actress play blind.

[Adam]

I can agree with you in regards to Pratt and the war. I certainly wasn't offended by it. I think it gets forgotten just simply because Taylor failed as a character.... it should have been a great springboard, but it fizzled pretty quickly.

[quartermainefan]

I liked years ago when Skye on AMC joined I think it was some hate group that bombed an HIV clinic. It is rare to see a regular character come down on the wrong side of an issue, and it was cool they did that. I may be misremembering a little. There was something about bombing a clinic and Stuart and Cindy and Skye. I think it was after that when she pretended to be in a coma and started walking around inside the walls.

This isn't really a social issue but back when EoN was on aolvideo, they had a great episode with Kim Hunter giving a monologue about a woman getting old. It was really well done. Maybe it is a social issue, just one soaps dare not touch because society hates old people and we would rather not think about it.

[Paul Raven]

Re Neighbours and Home and Away,the G rating was mandated by their timeslots in Australia,6.30 and &7.00 pm.Up until a few years ago,the ruling was that fiction programs (not news or current affair shows)shown in those times had to be rated G.That meant overt violence,sex,language etc could not be shown.

That's also why certain eps of B&B(shown at 4.30)were also edited.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Actually, it was the Hubbard house that was set on fire by the vigilante group that Skye had joined and helped to finance that was out to get people with AIDS. This story about AIDS paranoia that got out of hand really worked because it was woven into the fabric of the show and used to advance and cause conflict for the Stuart/Cindy, Tom/Skye, Brooke/Adam, and Jesse/Angie relationships. What's also interesting about Agnes and her social issue storylines is that she often weaves humor into them. I'll never forget a really funny scene during the AIDS storyline where Enid Nelson, paranoid about having contracted AIDS, barges into Joe Martin's office terrified that she somehow contracted AIDS. The scene was played for humor, yet it reflected what a lot of people were feeling at the time, and the scene really worked. Don't forget, this was 1987 when HIV was a relatively newly discovered virus and there was still a lot of ignorance about the disease.

[quartermainefan]

Enid Nelson is easily in my alltime top 10 AMC characters ever. She is just so perfect, combining every unlikable personality trait possible in one being. Soaps just don't come up with these great character roles anymore.