GH: April Discussion Thread

[Mr. Vixen]

I agree, having Todd as a male lead is pretty bad, but there is a difference. On GH, no one EVER calls out Sonny or Jason for the monsters they are. Anyone who does is deemed insane by everyone else in town, and that's if they LIVE long enough to say it twice. Everyone worships at sonny and jasons temples, and says they "save the day", and are completely blind to the fact that the day wouldnt NEED saving if Sonny and Jason didnt cause so much violence and destruction.

At least on OLTL people call Todd out. Dorian, Dani, Jessica..Hell, even Blair and Tea sometimes, will call Todd out for what he did. Cole, too. Sure, people gloss it over somewhat, but the fact is nobody EVER says that Todd is perfect. No one makes excuses for him (with the possible exception of Starr). People have learned to forgive him, and learned to accept it, but no one ever says "Todd is and always will be a good guy" and no one makes up cock-n-bull stories about WHY he did what he did. On GH, no one EVER calls Sonny out as a monster, and EVERYONE makes excuses for him as to why e is the way he is. Im sorry, but getting beaten as a child is tragic, but there is a limit as to how many people you can kill and use it as an excuse. Same goes for Jason, being brain damaged doesnt mean you have to kill people. He CHOSE this life, yet when he does something bad, everyone runs around making excuses for him. That is the difference between Todd and GH's monsters...Todd's monster-like behavior is at least acknowleged.

I'm not saying it's necessarily BAD to have a show where men are essential, like B&B, but on GH women are degraded, demeaned, beat down, until they finally "realize" that they cant live without a man....That is what, for me, makes GH the most anti-woman friendly soap.

I am not trying to say that this show is written so much for male viewers, as male characters. And the "list" you speak of just proves that. The demeaning way they have treated characters such as Robin, Liz, Sam, Alexis,etc. just shows this. I don't know how you can say a show that completely revolves around women making mistake after mistake, and being degraded and portrayed as whores nonstop, is anything appealing to women? When a show writes a storyline where a woman who has been raped, kidnapped, lost children, had children kidnapped, etc. and made it through all tthose things on her own, but then tries to kill herself when her boytoy calls her a whore, i think that's a limit. COME ON. That is pathetic, and it just further proves that no woman on this show can be independant or strong unless there is a man at her side. The fact that Liz has an affair with Nikolas is SO MUCH worse than when Lucky did the same with Sarah (conveniently forgotten!), just proves that men ARE superior on this show, and that as long as Guza is writing, men can do NO wrong.

The same goes for Robin. When a writer makes a storyline about how the WOMAN is HIV+ and pregnant, but yet the entire pregnancy has to be about how much the MAN has to go through during it, it's just wrong. Robin is a legacy character, who's struggle to make it through an HIV+ pregnancy could have been a groundbreaking storyline for daytime. BUT, what did it end up being?? Patrick worryign about what HE would go through, and if HE contracted it, and how HE didnt want to be a father...All the while ignoring the HIV+ woman was carrying HIS baby, and DID have something to worry about. The whole pregnancy was based on PAtrick's pity for himself, and everyone telling Robin how wrong she was to keep the baby from Patrick...Who was RUNNING around town whining about how he DIDN'T want a baby...And conveniently no one mentioned how HE KNEW the condom broke...You can be assured that if Robin had done that, she would have been the town scratching post for months. If you are trying to tell me that writing a storyline about a HIV+ woman being pregnant, and yet making the ENTIRE storyline about the father being an a-hole, and then coming out as everyones hero, isnt writing a story FOR MEN, then I honestly don't know what the hell is.

I think it is extremely insulting to imply that women would be interested in watching storylines like this, and that it is written FOR women. Why would women want to watch a storyline about a woman who cant get any support throughout an extremely high risk pregnancy? Why would any woman want to watch a man abuse her verbally throughout such a pregnancy, and then come out as a hero to the woman AND everyone else, without so much as an apology? Why would a woman want to watch a storyline where woman goes mentally insane and is degraded by a MAN, after the man did the very SAME THING, and then cheated AGAIN with a CHILD, and came out as a hero? There are so many more examples I could give, but I think I made my point. I honestly think Guza just doesn't know how to write for women. So maybe he is trying to appeal to these key women demos, but he will never achieve that by continuing to prop EVERY MAN on the show no matter how horrible they are, and degrading the women of the show, who are more often than not the good ones who get manipulated to prop men.

I mean honestly, if you were a woman at home watching GH and you saw these storylines, in which women are portrayed as helpless, spineless, worthless people UNLESS they have a man, would you feel good about that? Because that is what is evident when you tune into this show. However, if you're a man, you tune in and see how EVERY man is a good guy no matter WHAT they do, and they ALWAYS end up with a woman...And honestly there's still a debate as to whether this show is written for men or women? No. Just no.

Exactly. Everone knows that the target for soaps is women. Guza knows that. He is just simply writing the way he knows: Demeaning to women. He could never write a storyline where a woman was the focus without a man by her side. It wont happen. Every story has to have the focus shifted to prop up a man. And then he kills characters like Georgie and Emily (who were both in the age range of the KEY DEMOS) and wonders why they lose thousands of viewers?? you think he would learn.

And I agree about the women issues. IT's sad because decades ago shows would focus on groundbreaking independant women, because it was something different, and admired, in the industry.Women were written to be strong and independent without men...In a time when that was rare and almost NEVER appened. Yet, today when there are LOADDS of stronf single women, none are portrayed on GH. We have women who couldnt be strong if their life dependent on it...Unless there's a man at her side. The show has been on for what, 47 years? But yet we still treat women like they LIVED 47 years ago?

I dont know on what planet is considered "writing for women".

[quartermainefan]

I don't know why women want what they want, that has always been a mystery men will never solve. In my experience, women are their own harshest critics, and are far more vicious to each other than men are to other men. (Men will punch each other out and that's it, it is done). As for women with regard to what they find attractive in men, this is getting a little too deep for a soap forum, but I believe that even if they don't admit it most women would rather have a Sonny even if they claim they want a Mac. That is just from my experience talking to women as they complain about their perfect boyfriends.

[Mr. Vixen]

I wouldn't even argue with most of that. I mean it has always been known that a lot or most women would want a bad boy type character. That's great, and realistic, and not even my problem with the way the show is written.

My main problem is that, I dont think that's what comes acrosso on GH. If there was a storyline where a woman said "I want to be with Sonny because I like bad boys, but he is too dangerous for me." A?nd focused on her angst over it, than ok. How often has that happened? You have Carly, Emily, and whoever else, jumping head first into his world.

When they attempted to do something like this with Liz and her being concerned about Jason being "too bad" for her, they still managed to turn it around on her. They wrote her to be a whiny little girl, who is responsible for Jason not having his child. The fact of the matter is, it's realistic for Liz to have second thoughts about her relationship with Jason because of how dangerous he is, and because of THAT doubt combined with her "bad boy" attraction, could have made for a great storyline...But instead it was twisted and changed to make Liz look bad and make Jason look even holier than ever.

The same goes for Maxie. She is attracted to bad boys, but isntead of pairing her with one, they pair her with a weasly little geek, and have her cheat with a psycho bad boy. In this case it isn't even so much done to prop Spinelli as a character, but simply to diminish Maxie and further prove to GH viewers that in Port Charles all of the women are whores who can only be redeemed if a good man sweeps in and "accepts all their problems."

So while I get what your saying, and I even acknowledge the tiny bit of realism some of these storylines contain, the way they are PORTRAYED is what bothers me. There is a difference between falling for a badboy (ala Blackie Parish) and a psycho murderer (ala Sonny Corinthos), and to me it is a line that is severely blurred on GH. Combine this with the fact that NO one ever calls them out as the mosnters they are, with the fact that this semi-realistic but yet very convuluted "falling for the badboy/monster" element that ALWAYS turns out to be a storyline about who women are whores and how all of the mens problems came from WOMEN, and we are right back to the argument as to whether this show is written for men or women.

I still say men.

[Juliajms]

I think when one is Maxie's age the Ethan's of the world are a little more attractive than the Lucky's for many women. Ethan is relatively safe, but he has that bad boy edge. About the time a woman hits 25 or 30, the Lucky's of the world start looking a lot better.

The Sonny's of the world are a whole other matter. It's completely unrealistic that a woman Carly's age would be panting over this man who has gotten her children kidnapped and shot. Just no. If GH were at all realistic Carly would have gotten involved with Sonny at 18 (or more likely 16) and would have hated him with the heat of a thousand suns by the time she was 30. Sure, some women still watch and even still like some of what they see, but many more have voted with their remotes.

Wednesday's episode was decent. I like Dante's relationship with Kristina and Morgan. I hope it isn't dropped once he and Sonny become best buds. I also like the Dante/Olivia relationship and the sister vibe the Davis girls have going. I'd almost rather see GH's police force written as corrupt as opposed to so incompetent. I'm not sure which is more insulting, but the keystone cop thing grates on me. Honestly, the only way they good screw up this much is if Mac is secretly on the take.

[reallyhateskateonlost]

And it gets stupider-Ethan and Maya's cars crashed, that why Ethan's car has a dent!!! whatever GH.

[R Sinclair]

Thank you! I swore I was losing my mind, remembering something that I hadn't seen!

[R Sinclair]

Yes, she did. She had the flashback when she was in the elevator.

[Ann_SS]

I totally agree with you that woman are far more vicious to other women and more likely to blame the other woman when a man cheats on them or abandons them. However, I think don't think that the bad boy fantasy as played out by GH is desired by most women. When I was a teen (I'm trying not to date myself), I use to read those Harlequin romances. The men were dangerous, tormented, demanding, and not sensitive, but the love of a woman could help them to open up. A year or so ago, I read few of those romances and I was struck by how much the portrayal of both the women and men had changed. The women were independent assertive career women and sometimes single mothers. The men were still tormented by some secret hurt or pain, but they were sometimes single parents and were definitely very sensitive, supportive, bonding with the woman's child, etc. My point here is that the relationships of women and men in our culture have changed which means that the "bad boy" fantasy has changed as well. As for Sonny versus Mac, I'm sure that there are some women who would prefer Sonny, especially for the money and power, but I think a whole lot of woman would prefer the reformed bad boy like Mac who won't shoot them in the head or throw glasses at them.

About GH's 18-49 women demos, it has actually collapsed over the last five or so years, especially when compared to Y&R. I can't help, but think that the quality of GH has contributed to that decline.

[Sylph]

And how did you find the quality of writing — unbelievably bad or there were good moments?

[Cat]

The problem with GH, as usual, is one of balance. Putting aside the fact that they still pimp Mo Benard like he's a 20-year old Chippendale AND Marlon Brando rolled-into-one, GH only likes Bad Boys. In fact, Bad is the new Good -- and Good is the new Bad. Look at how horribly Greg Vaughan's Lucky was written for years -- stupid, bumbling, drug-popping, cheating. Jonathan Jackson still plays Lucky as Good but now he's Even Better because he got to lobby a couple hundred "whores" and "bitches" Elizabeth's way.

If they portrayed a wide range of *gasp* characters, then we'd have supportive, nurturing guys alongside tortured, misunderstood bad boys alongside idiot, dwarf-like mob kingpins and braindead assassins. It takes all kinds. The problem is that GH only likes one kind. Don't even get me started on the kind of woman they like.

(And Ann SS, you aren't dating yourself. Harlequin romances are a kind of rites-of-passage for many a young adult).

[Cat]

I am really liking the Kristina SL right now. And I LOOOOVE the Davis girls. Molly and Kristina make my day.

The problem (isn't there always one with GH? Sigh) I have is with the way this SL seems to be All About Sonny. I just wish we had less focus on how Dimples is feeling because I really couldn't care less.

Secondly, did anybody notice how Dante inferred that he was relieved his mother kept him from Sonny all this time when he looked at how Sonny's children suffered by their proximity to him? The focus was on Alexis and her kids -- and a mention of Michael -- in that scene. But they were super-careful to avoid calling out Carly on her fabulous life choices and those she made "for the kids."

And why do I have a feeling that this Keifer mess is going to be used by Carly and every other smug ho to hold over Alexis forever and ever?

I wish Alexis had dragged Keifer's parents in to take a look at her bruised and bloody daughter after they finished insulting Kristina. I know it wasn't the right moment, but they need to see what their bright, Havard-bound baby did to his girlfriend.

[Cheap21]

I dont mind Sonny's role in this story. He strengthens it. He provides the link to his mother being abused which is a major reason why Im loving him being utilized. This isnt something thats just been made up and thrown in. His mothers abuse at the hands of his stepfather has been a defining part of his past which has made him into the person he is today. He is so deluded by thinking he's been a great father and much better person bc unlike his mother he hurts those who hurt him arther than protect them. LOVED Dante calling him out on this bc its that same mentality that has Krisina hurt and twisted bc he scares her. He's an abusive monster in another way but justifies it bc he doesnt hit women. His daughter is a walking representation of the damage he causes yet justifies. I loved her calling him out on the way he treated Claudia last week.

I dont see this story as one that anyone or Carly will hold over Alexis. She is coming across very sympathetic. I think letting Ethan take the fall will rightfully earn her some contempt but as far as hitting Kiefer and ignoring that, I think most will understand and not pass judegment (Yes even Carly)

[Cat]

I...... don't know. Carly has a history of acting like there's one rule for her and another for everybody else. If Alexis does let Ethan take the fall, though, that would be horrendous. But I don't think she will.

IA about utilizing Sonny's history, I guess I would rather see more of Kristina working through her issues than Sonny doing his "rub eyes, look sad" face. And ITA about the fact that Sonny may not hit women but that doesn't mean he's not abusive.

[Ann_SS]

I would describe the writing of those romances competent. Some of the authors are overly flowery with the prose, bout overall it is solid writing that made the romances believable.

[bellcurve]

YUCK! Poor Jackie Zeman.

She looks like an older Octomom.