OLTL: Discussion for the week March 8

[Khan]

Nah, but I remember a lot of what you've described, Carl. And you're right: OLTL - and the other soaps - need more, strong, funny, complex female characters (in decent storylines).

[catsmeouch]

The John/Natalie scenes are nauseating. Firecrotch is such a tramp. Marty, take your baby and RUN!!!

[Leia]

Totally and for what?

[NYC123]

Ford is useless...

[SFK]

If they make him Allison Perkins' and Mitch's son, at least he'll probablyy get bumped off. That's a horrible thing to say, I wish death on no one, not even fictional characters, but enough with this guy. And re: most recent spoilers,

[DRW50]

There aren't a lot of roles for young women on soaps these days. She would either have to get pregnant, or be victimized, or go crazy. This way, they can tell a story that is very widely used in fiction, which is the young woman whose life is destroyed by her sexual urges. This whole story is probably a very persuasive, albeit unintentional, argument for abstinence-only education. They took a healthy story about a young couple who chose to have sex and turned it into a story where having sex ruined Markko's relationship with his parents and has now ruined Langston's self-esteem and her relationship with her family and her boyfriend.

Langston has become a bland character because this is such a paint by numbers story. She's also become extremely dumb. OLTL's young women are at the point where every time I see them I think of that old cartoon where the person is pulling at a door that says push.

[Vee]

I wouldn't call this a commercial for abstinence. Markko and Langston's first time was presented lovingly despite Lola's attempts at sabotage, and they were shown to be in the right despite his parents' ignorance. What Langston's doing is stupid, but also realistic; kids [!@#$%^&*] around on each other and make dumb choices from their loins all the time. If anything I find Langston to be one of the most realistic youngsters on the show.

The real problem is this: The networks have made such sport of out-of-character writing and cheap sex or violence plot twists that the audience, particularly online, is now conditioned to react negatively to virtually any storyline in which any character is unfaithful. Back in the day, people on soaps cheated all the time, sometimes for less reason than Langston. They did it because it was there, and it happened in real life, and the audience understood that, and they accepted that the characters were fallible because the writing was uniformly solid and made them understand a person's failings. Today, Langston and Jessica can't cheat on their spouses without being consigned to a digital "wicker man" for immolation. That's the fault of two groups: production and the fans. Production writes the stories in weak ways, while fans grow increasingly unforgiving of any negative behavior because those behaviors are very rarely well-written for anymore. Look at who cheats on soaps these days, and how they are treated. In most cases, the "heroes" are given an out for their behavior; they were drugged, they were delusional, someone else cheated first. There's almost always a wrinkle to say, "oh, well, they didn't actually cheat." Langston (and before her, Jessica with Nash) is one of very few cases in which the character, female no less, is of sound mind and still expected to be rooted for. That's why I'm very forgiving of it. Because it used to happen all the time and we didn't make this kind of federal case. In response to hypocrisy by the production team, favoring some cheaters over others or intentionally running some characters into the ground (Liz Webber), the online and possibly offline audience has only become more reactionary and yes, puritanical when it comes to infidelity.

[Eric83]

I really like this girl playing Hannah. If they develop her right, I wouldn't mind keeping her. I see chemistry with her and Cole.

Jessica's scenes were hilarious, it was like watching a bad movie.

Marty/John/Natalie sucked. Susan Haskell continues to be wasted.

Rex and Gigi need to just go to hell.

Kish was great!

Scott Clifton

[MichaelGL]

Co-sign!!

[DRW50]

Yes, but is this about Langston's loins, or is this about "good girl gone bad" and another tale of a dumb young woman who is easily manipulated through sex by a nasty pig? They could have made this into a story about casual sex, or an affair, but instead, Ford is presented as a very bad man, and Langston is his dupe. The story has very little to do with her as a character, and even less to do with Markko. All that about how "structured" her life is, when that has been far from the case for Langston, came across to me like something from a very generic script.

By repeatedly presenting sex as something harmful and destructive, I think they've undone the positive message they had around Markko and Langston's first time.

[Vee]

I don't know; I don't like much about this story, but I bought that character argument, that Langston has fought to keep her life steady and stable since her orphanhood was discovered by Dorian. She never wants to be alone and adrift again, and so she surrounds herself with security, yet falls prey to the same whims and needs and passions as any other teenager.

Girls on soaps have been falling for bad guys forever. Julie Siegel fell for Mark Toland, who was a rat. Great story. Or when Steve Frame fucked Rachel behind Alice's back - was that a nasty message? There is nothing new under the sun about this tale; the only difference is that Ford is singularly uninteresting and very obviously crude and foul to everyone but Lang, which is what makes this tedious. But the basic concept - Langston makes a mistake falling into bed with the wrong man - is a traditional soap yarn.

People have sex on this show all the time. Not all of them are with scum like Ford or Todd. You could say that any number of foolhardy sexual interludes send a wrong message, but Jessica fucked Will and while fans cried out and I hated Will, I also remember thinking at the time, as a teenager myself, that it was very realistic that she'd waited so long to be with one good guy, then thrown it all away in a drunken fit of pique. Happened in my school everyday. Or take Marty and Tina and Natalie's various wrong men over the years - did that invalidate the more heartfelt romances they'd had before, or after?

[DRW50]

Langston has barely had any security though. It was only last summer that Dorian humiliated her in front of Markko's parents, and not long before that when her murderous cousin was poking holes in her condoms. Dorian then entered a highly controversial race for mayor. After that, a psychopath has returned to town and caused Dorian to be estranged from her family. It would be one thing if Langston was like Jessica and had had a relatively stable childhood (until the retcons), but almost all her life has been turmoil. For her to now see this as boring and something she needs to get away from, it seems odd to me.

I see what you're saying, but those stories involved a woman who was either presented as extremely pure, or who had already had a horrible history with sex. Wasn't one of the cornerstones of the Julie/Mark relationship that the traumatic sexual relationship she'd had before meeting Mark (didn't the man die after sex or something) had made her unable to enjoy sex with Mark? And Alice was not only whiter than white snow, but she had watched her sister go through agony because she had been talked into sex and then an abortion, followed by learning she was barren and killing the man who'd seduced her.

Langston and Markko was, up to Ford, a story where sex was presented as healthy, and a natural part of life. I don't think that's true anymore. I think it's now used as a weapon and the women Ford interacts with seem to pay dearly for it.

That depends on the story. Tina's behavior was presented as invalidating her heartfelt romance with Cord -- Cord distanced himself more and more from Tina due in part to her choices in men, and finally rejected her outright the last time they met. Natalie has often been presented as a broken, weak woman who has to be saved by John. She had positive relationships with Cris and Jared but they no longer mention her marriage to Cris and Jared is now dead. Marty paid an ugly price for her one night stand with Todd all those years ago, and in the long run, has continued to suffer far more than he has, even though he raped her twice. The last time especially, she suffered while the most he did was belly flop into the water for a few minutes.

I actually was offended by the way Jessica lost her virginity, not because it can't happen in real life, but because they had built up a story about Jessica for a year or more and then suddenly, she gets drunk and loses it to Will, and then gets pregnant. A story about Jessica's choice suddenly became about this crassness and we were robbed of seeing her finally decide to take that step in a healthy way. I felt like JFP was saying f*** you to fans, saying, "This is my show now." She then became defined by pregnancy and trauma -- which has gone on to define her character ever since.

Langston's story was the rare soap story where sex didn't have that stigma of a young woman being confused and out of control, and yet now I think it does.

[Vee]

That kind of [!@#$%^&*] happens to everyone on soaps, though. Relatively, Langston's life is stabler; she has a roof over her head, people she can count on, and a support system, which she did not have when she was living alone in an empty house (okay, it had a roof). She is surrounded by loving foster family and the adoring Markko.

Yes.

Sex is healthy; the question is who you have sex with and why. Langston made a bad choice [!@#$%^&*] Ford, I think it's as simple as that. If it was all a way to make Lang out to be a whore - which could come later but IMHO hasn't yet - why didn't they do that when she was very hot to trot with Markko before, during and after they finally made love? I think Lang's being stupid, but she's not being painted a whore. Just brash.

But Tina also couldn't help but be drawn to her schemes and plots. But even when she'd dump Cord for some creep or a con man like Cain, the show never called her a whore, nor did we think they did.

And before that, Natalie went from a stable marriage with Cristian to a foolish relationship with ne'er-do-well Paul. Like Ford, he was obviously bad news. But at no point was the audience told, "she's a whore for enjoying sex." She just made a dumb choice (and indulged in a tedious story). Painting freely sexual women as whores happens a lot on daytime, don't get me wrong, but I didn't see it with Nat and I don't see it here.

That's true - but I'm taking more about her relationships sans rape, whether it was her early flings or her illicit thing with Andrew. We were told she was wild and making foolish choices, but we were encouraged to understand her, not call her a whore.

I don't think Jessica was defined by trauma until Bree Williamson. But I agree, that's why JFP did it, to put her stamp on the character and the show - however, the story was raw and realistic. And again, Jessica was not called a whore. Just a classic soap character: a woman (or man) who made a mistake.

[DRW50]

I didn't mean to make it sound like the show is saying Langston is a whore. I think what the show is saying is that Langston can't control herself and sex has helped to ruin her life. I think they have written Langston as being a victim of her own sexuality. That's what bothers me about the storyline, well, one of the things that bothers me.

I know but if they were going to use this as a reason for her to cheat, I think they should have paced this story slower. As it is now it just seems like ugly self-loathing.

[DeeeDee]

Have fun under the bus Layla!