Blacks In Soaps or How To Be On a Daytime Drama For Years and Never Have a Real Storyline

[OldSchoolSoapFan]

It figures threads like these have 5+ pages, mostly of mud-slinging.

Tyler Perry's shows and movies have been successful, but guess who its target audience is? Duh. Now you have some blacks in the public sector who criticize him because they think his shows dabble in the fine art of "stereotyping". This sort of criticism is no different than the ones who complained that "The Cosby Show" was flaunting that dreadful idea of blacks being "Oreos". So my question is this: how the hell should black people be portrayed on television? Why doesn't BET create a mandate stipulating that all blacks in television should be in black written/produced/directed/casted shows on their network. Wounds healed, right. WRONG. Then you'll have the same blacks in the media and the media in general screaming over the fact that this is blatant segregation.

In all honesty, "diversity" and integration have been failures. That's the bottom line. White shows that were forced to become "diverse" tanked ("Friends", anybody?). I don't seem to recall black shows being forced to have whites on their shows to achieve "racial harmony". I have a Soap Opera Digest from 1980 where this mantra of "Blacks In Soaps" was rehashed and this time the whiner was Irving Allen Lee (Calvin Stoner, EDGE). My feeling is this: people like Lee, Andrews, etc. should be lucky they were even hired to be on a soap opera back then. And Lee played a cop, which to Jefferson was no doubt a disgrace but what would she prefer him to be--a rocket scientist, a biochemical engineer? And having watched EDGE throughout most of his tenure on the show, Lee was part of an ensemble storyline mostly but did have a joint storyline here and there, mainly from 1982-84. He was never backburnered.

I think the vast majority of you have your heads buried way deep in the sand and are living your lives through blinders when it comes to race.

[All My Shadows]

Yeah, I was gonna take the bait, but I'm not going to.

[R Sinclair]

Can someone answer the question? If you feel you're being mistreated, insulted or misrepresented WHY ARE YOU WATCHING IT? In all of these redundant threads dominated by redundant people who swear they speak for black viewers everywhere (HA! Only if my tongue's ripped out -- even then, I'll grunt like a primate before I let them speak for me), that question always seems to be deflected.

[R Sinclair]

Ok. You avoided the question in your cut and paste session. Why are you watching? No answer? Just more hair ruffling? Figures. Anyone who takes your word as gospel deserves what they get -- led down the primrose path.

[DeeeDee]

LMAO +1.

[All My Shadows]

I don't try to speak for anyone else, so I guess I have to go back to putting a thousand IMO/"for me" cocktails in my posts, but then again, I don't know if you're referring to me, so if you're not, my bad.

But anyway, I watch something if I'm entertained by the characters and the stories. I don't have a one track mind, so it is possible for me to be entertained by something while also finding huge flaws in it. Sometimes there more things that I dislike than things that I like (ex: OLTL), sometimes there are more things that I like than I dislike (ex: AMC, sometimes ATWT), but regardless of what I like or don't like, I think I still have the right to voice my opinions on both matters without having to pick one side or the other.

[Sylph]

So, what happened to the whole retirement thing?

[SFK]

Re: Ellen Holly, she did in fact leave One Life for a short period of time. IIRC from her book, that was due to her unhappiness with the show/her character and her desire to pursue more work in the theatre. Upon her return, Miss Holly found it to be a real head-scratcher that Carla was suddenly the law degreed D.A.

[All My Shadows]

OldSchooSoapFan is itching the bring out the project bitch in me, but R Sinclair is just asking a question.

[SFK]

This is how I feel.

I watch two shows regularly (AMC and OLTL; bits and pieces of Y&R when my brother's got it on) that by no coincidence are the two shows I have watched practically my entire life. I would describe my present soap fandom as a mix of being legitimately entertained, and at times almost begrudgingly "too far in" to just give up shows and characters that have provided me with greater viewer enjoyment in the past. No one is forcing me to keep up with Dorian, no one is forcing me to call my cousin from South Carolina either even though I know I should while it's often the last thing I feel like doing. Frankly, I'd rather watch OLTL than call my cousin, but I digress... Now more than ever there is SO much room for improvement on these shows with the lack of minority representation being one of a myriad of problems. I feel like a giant clusterfuck of industry inbreeding, focus groups, too many (often uncreative, unqualified) cooks in the kitchen, chasing primetime, chasing pop culture, chasing youth, blaming O.J., blaming cable, blaming the viewer has cost soaps what little integrity they had (and what great creativity they ALWAYS had but was slept on) leaving us with too many vapid pretty people and mediocre if not appalling storylines. For me, there was always the hope for renaissance, and I still believe that will happen, just not in the way I would have liked to see it happen.

It's too easy to say that black folks in the business should just pull up their bootstraps and make it do what it do. Today it's easi-er, but still not easy. Oprah, Tyler, Cathy Hughes and the like have the power and the platforms, too bad they didn't when soaps were at their prime and the idea of a black soap is something the industry and fans would have been more excited about. Tyler could pitch a black soap with his hack writers to TV One tomorrow and it would probably get the green light, but a. Would it be good?, and b. Is he even interested? Probably no to both. IMO, black faces are not enough, you've really got to come with it. How incredibly blessed would we be if David Simon, Ed Burns, George Pelecanos, Rafael Alvarez (and the late David Mills) delivered us a daytime serial? That's what I'm talking about. That level of writing matched with the self-owned networks and connections of the Oprah/Tyler/Cathy types.

[DRW50]

SFK I'm glad you're posting again!

[SFK]

Thanks bud! Same sh!t, different day...

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah I thought when I came back after all that drama, that you had gone away too--it's nice to see you here.

[EricMontreal22]

I actually think, burried in all you say, you have a handful of good points Well maybe 2. Still--but this one is just BS--Friends was canceled because it have reached the end of its welcome. I don't buy diversity was forced on it and in fact I remember many liked Ross' Black GF (whose name I can't even remember...)

[MontyB]

Big ups to you AllMyShadows. That was a legitimate question and I think it's cool you took the time to answer.