OLTL: Discussion for the week September 13

[DRW50]

They even took away the one relationship Blair actually had with anyone which lasted -- her bond with Dorian. They are basically strangers living in the same house now. Any relationship Blair has will be thrown aside if someone else looks better.

Given that Viki's presence in a Todd story is a constant reminder of how he destroyed her daughter, having Viki consider raising his child would be a joke on her.

[TeamEric]

15 years ago, Todd was victimized to rebuild Blair as the big she-wolf of Llanview, the one who was able to con and tame the Prince of Darkness. Malone admitted he wrote that story to turn the tables on Todd. Todd's original characterization was rewritten completely to suit her character. That was one massive rewrite so it's very difficult to read that only Blair's character has taken the hits. Especially as multiple writers routinely employ the let's have Todd victimize Blair again to build up sympathy for her character. Dead baby lie was nothing but one long lament for poor Blair by TPTB who didn't care they trashed the last redeeming value in Todd's character, in the process. Additionally, Todd has gotten Cramerfied to slide into Blair's world at LaBoulae. During those times Todd's Lord connections take a major backseat and he becomes all about the Cramers.

As for another major contract character, I never cared for Max but even I was taken aback when he was turned into total scum of the earth with moving mistress Skye into his home, just so the audience would feel for poor Blair and side with her shooting him. There's your second contract player thrown under the bus to give her character a major story arc.

The writers pen Todd, Spencer, Eli playing her for a fool to manipulate the audience into lamenting oh that poor Blair. Blair's landed more times in the hospital, and lost more babies as result of very lazy and obvious sympathy ploys.

I have absolutely no time for silly arguments blaming Tea for 15 years of "poor Blair" when FL's only been onscreen for 1/3 of that time. The other 10 years can't even all be blamed on Todd either as he was MIA for periods or trashed so TPTB could play the sympathy card for Blair. Yet again.

It's time to cease the scapegoating of FL/Tea, Evangeline or whichever female du jour is being seen as standing in the way of some great, independent story for Blair.

The real HONEST question here is why so many different writers hold this narrow view of Blair as a pathetic loser and/or perpetual victim?

That's the crux of the debate.

[DRW50]

I'm not sure if it's that many different writers. Aside from the horrendous writing the Labines had for Blair, the worst have been Higley (from what I've heard - didn't watch much of her time as headwriter) and Carlivati. There has been a very systematic effort in recent years to take away anything of value Blair had as a character. She has no job. She has no relationship with apathetic Starr or hostile Jack. She has no relationship with Dorian. She is just there to remind us how great Todd (or before that John) is and to make us sympathize with Tea (or before that Marty).

[Vee]

I watched that in real time and I was a huge Rebecca Lewis fan. Nothing was rewritten except the character was slowly being redeemed with both those women, which Roger Howarth hated. But Roger Howarth hated a lot of things. Bottom line is at that time RH and Todd were the biggest stars on the show. Period. They didn't have to try him with Blair, who 90% of the audience (myself included at that point) apparently thought was an evil whore from hell over the Max and Luna business. But they did try it and it worked and they became very popular as a couple. But Todd victimized for Blair? Todd victimized for Tea? Don't make me laugh. No woman on this show has ever victimized Todd on any level, within the text or metatextual, except Margaret Cochran. Certainly not on a meta, outside-the-script level - TODD's character has always dominated any story he tells, excepting only the recent one with Tea, because they've had to make Todd passive after the rapemance destroyed his entire being. So he's become reactive and almost a male ingenue to try and make him more palatable. To be fair this reversal would've happened with anyone Todd was paired with after something like the rapemance; it has little to do with Tea herself IMO, despite Carlivati's obvious adoration for her.

But aside from the post-rapemance period, Todd's stories have always, always been about TODD. What is happening to TODD, why is TODD doing these things, what are people doing to TODD, how is TODD feeling about this or that, will TODD learn to love [Rebecca/Blair/Tea/Marty]? Todd dominates, because the Todd Manning character has always sold and made ABC money. The caliber of the stories they tell with him has degraded sharply in the last decade, but that's still the ethos. Todd sacrificed or victimized for Blair or Tea? IMO, never. Absolutely never. It's total fan myopia to pretend otherwise.

Actually, Todd victimized both Blair and Tea because those were, apparently, the only kind of stories that RH would play back when he had control. He undermined that character's development at every turn. I can both admire his integrity and resent his own myopia.

Again, this is subjective, but it's also myopia. Suffice to say that Blair was made to look like a fool for staying with Max for several years during that era, whereas Robin Christopher was a celebrated friend of EP Jill Farren Phelps for whom Phelps negotiated a lucrative contract with the larger ABC Daytime programming block. You be the judge of who was the priority there, especially since James DePaiva has said JFP told him she would go out of her way to destroy his character. Without Todd, Blair was strictly backburner fodder for Skye and Max.

All those stories are about the men, Todd or Tea, etc. I've discussed the Todd situations, and if you want to pretend that's all some cheap sympathy ploy for Blair then you have to be fair and acknowledge when Tea got the same treatment in the late '90s. The Spencer Truman story was about Todd's frame-up and John; Blair was a side player. Eli was playing her for a fool but his real agenda more profoundly affects Kelly, John, Todd, and Tea - who are the primary characters again now. Blair was simply a story agent for others - as usual.

I'm not blaming Tea. I like FL and I enjoy Tea, sometimes. I think it's clear who I'm blaming, the show.

Because she is a utility player. An actress they respect, a character they do not but they know she is so versatile they can put her in any ridiculous story and it will play.

[DRW50]

Max had also been pretty scummy before that story with Blair. They had that tacky story where he was bedding Kelly, who was half his age, to try to get control of her money.

[TeamEric]

I was a huge Todd and Rebecca fan and watched them get thrown under the bus to salvage Malone's failing Blair recast. Malone tossed her into Todd's orbit to save her because you're right 90% of the audience hated her. As for victimizing Todd, yes that's how I saw it and so did Malone. In one of his interviews he speaks of the role reversal for Todd. Todd was now the one being played, manipulated and lied to. It was another ploy to instantly redeem him by victimization versus continue the slow slog of therapy which was abruptly dropped in favor of overnighting him into Todd Lord, the rich, married happy newspaper publisher.

As for rapemance destroying Todd's entire being, sorry disagree again. The real wreck job occurred years ago with "get rid of it." The audience always knew Todd was a rapist, and rapemance was eewww but frankly not all that shocking. Todd who had never ever harmed a child throwing a newborn out like trash was shocking, and many fans jumped ship right then.

Todd's stories aren't always about him. He's gotten stuck living in Blair's home, in her world and swallowed whole by the Cramers a few times.

I do agree there's no denying Todd abused both Blair and Tea.

I have no problem acknowledging Blair pushing Tea out the window and then coming into court on crutches was blatant, sympathy ploy as was her getting blown up in KAD bombing last year. Now admit that Blair's string of miscarriages, stabbings and near fatal deaths at this point are even longer than Viki's.

Scapegoating Robin C won't fly either. Blair was made to look like a pathetic fool over Max in 94 and again in 98. See this is the problem with scapegoating Luna, Marty, Tina, Tea, Skye, Evangeline, etc. There's a clear pattern over 15 years so no matter which actress, writer OR EP is in change, this is how ABC views Blair. She's as locked into her tight, narrow characterization as Jason on GH is. There's never any character growth allowed, no matter who is writing her.

So fire RC, that's fine with me, he's proven a deeply flawed writer. But JP will just take over and continue penning Blair in the same manner. Malone after all returned and he victimized her too with that dreadful maxipad tumor story.

I think at some point you need to ask is your view of Blair real at all? When a character is written a certain way no matter the co-stars nor writers, then it's in her DNA, her character bible if you will. And no writer appears willing to rewrite that for her.

[TeamEric]

Blair was victimized and written like a pathetic fool before Labines showed up as Todd had kidnapped baby Starr and lied to her for months it was all Carlo's doing. That was the start of Starr Wars with poor pregnant Blair fighting like mad for her unborn baby and daughter, at same time, against mean Todd.

Pam Long did her no favors penning her desperately in love with Max again only to learn Asa was paying him to screw her for information. Then there was the Max/Skye fiasco when JFP was headwriting. McTavish I believe was one that wrote Max drugging her into believing they had sex together. Then Whitesell/Broderick utterly decimated Todd with dead baby lie which victimized Blair once again. She was played for a fool by Walker and of course then Spencer struck. Now Eli.

Blair was pegged as either a pathetic fool or a victim during most of those regimes.

As for not having any relationship with Starr now, there I agree that's a problem. But it's not a new one either. There was a solid year when KA was barely shown when Blair was chasing Max.

And before Marty there was Evangeline and before Evangeline there was Kelly, Luna, etc.

[MontyB]

Thank you!!

[TeamEric]

Todd didn't destroy Jessica. He was utterly wrong for not alerting Viki that Jess but he didn't cause her psychotic break.

But hey I can totally relate to holding a grudge. That's how I feel about Blair anywhere near Dani after she sicced Ross on her last year with instructions to grab her.

[Vee]

I read that too. What Malone actually said was that he'd originally intended for Todd to be a spoiler for Max and Blair, but the couple took off and they changed it. He never said anything about scrapping therapy in favor of Blair or anyone else. I've never heard anything to indicate that Rebecca was forcibly dumped, either. My impression was Reiko Aylesworth chose to leave, as sad as it may be. So of course Todd was going to move on. The "Todd Lord" story that he objected to was a larger story direction that was about a lot more than merely his romance with Blair. Notice Howarth has never publicly commented on either love interest. It's because he didn't like any romance for a rapist.

It was shocking to me, and many other people. They at least attempted to redeem Todd from what he did to Jack. Not so much the rapemance.

It may be her home for budget constraint reasons, but the stories are always his, every single time. Todd and what he did to baby Jack, Todd as Walker, Todd and the Margaret Cochran/Spencer Truman years, Todd and the Tommy saga, you name it. Although for much of that he lived at the penthouse as well. Saying it was Blair's house does not make it's Blair's story. That's pretty flimsy. That's like if I say Viki has been frontburner for ten years because Jessica and Natalie live at Llanfair.

What does this have to do with anything? I never said anything about hospital stints or Tea's fall out the window or her showing up in court disabled. What are you talking about? If a string of hospital visits meant a character was beloved by PTB, why wouldn't A.J. or Johnny Zacchara on GH be something other than pinatas for Sonny and Jason? Often that kind of stuff is just there to demean and for cheap, short-term shock value.

I think there actually has been a lot of character growth, however inadvertent. But they do fall back on certain patterns. As for Blair looking like a pathetic fool, yeah it happens a lot. But you're completely missing the point. 99% of the time, Blair looking like a pathetic fool is not there to make the audience pity and invest in her. It's just there to make her look like a pathetic fool, and promote someone else. Usually Todd.

And you don't know very much about me if you think I advocate the firing of Carlivati for Passanante. Never in a million years.

When you need to believe that Roger Howarth, a male megastar for whom OLTL gave up everything, was put in a corner to service ANY actress on this show, then I think you're the one with that problem. For years he was catered to, and his character moved about six inches in personal growth from 1996 to 2003 as a result of that catering to. His level of control at the pre-Frons ABC was simple, if he didn't want something it did not occur or he left before it could. I'd welcome him back now after the unfortunate CBS interregnum years, I'm just saying, he got the stories he wanted.

[TeamEric]

You're confusing two different Malone interviews. The one you're referring to was year years later and went on about his Rhett/Scarlett fetish. There's a SOD interview from 1995 where Malone is quoted about a real role reversal for Todd.

Whatever went down with Reiko was very abrupt because in fall of '94 Malone was in the mags discussing his plans going forward for TnR.

I never stated RH objected to any particular pairing, so do not attempt to twist my words. I stated that RH called it a complete character rewrite and it was. Todd was rewritten into Rhett Butler, rich, powerful, romanticized anti-hero aka Todd Lord. RH coined the phrase "fairy tale" for that period of writing for Todd. We can argue till the cows come home and never agree on this so just have to agree to disagree.

btw, when did they redeem Todd for can of dirt? He never showed a lick of remorse when Blair threw it in his face, just proud and unemotionally said yeah I did it. Thereafter, he had so little remorse, he tried to kidnap her kids again only have to Tea foil him. Then he returned from island, gaslit her into another marriage to get kids back, etc. There was no redemption, when Jack found out years later, it was quickly glossed over.

Todd was more depressed and attempted suicide over rapemance. There was some real emotional impact.

When I hear one person in Llanview claim Blair deserved the "stabbing, miscarriage, and endless parades off victim scenes, etc" then and only then can you equate her with AJ. It's never about the hospital visits as the blatant ploys to have multiple characters cry oh poor Blair, and have the audience feel bad for all she's suffered. As I said, I acknowledge it when it happens to my fave Tea, too. It's just become old habit now for Blair to nearly get killed like twice a year now, and it's gotten ridiculous b/c it reinforces the character's patheticness. She's a victim constantly versus a winner.

As for Blair's character growth, I agree there's some attempts to grow her up some. However, those attempts usually result in overplaying the sainted earth mother card, instead of giving her some real independence.

As for the pathetic fool and perpetual victimhood, you're the one missing the point. We see the town hero John saving her and then tenderly caring for a traumaticized Blair and telling the audience it wasn't her fault. She was merely the victim of yet another psycho and audience again laments that poor Blair has the worst luck at love. AJ was told STFU you deserve this, a huge difference in characterization.

I watched JP's writing for OLTL in 1996, wasn't really impressed either. But then I'm not sure any ABC writer outside of Guza has any free reign so it's like swapping deck chairs on the Titanic.

When you need to ignore that Roger himself told you he had NO power in 1995 to prevent the Todd Lord/Rhett Butler, then I think you're the one with the problem. Roger made sure he had story control when he returned in 1996 precisely because his character had been so trashed. That trashing was to salvage Blair who was flopping miserably so they used RH's immense fame to boost her up. It worked perfectly except the character rewrite was so rapid-fire 180, it cost them RH and many of the Todd fans who were expecting more of the gritty, slow redemption writing.

It's been interesting debating with you, but we're at an impasse now, so it's time to agree to disagree, ok?

[TeamEric]

I found Max always scummy myself. However, moving Skye into his home with Blair and taunting her with it was a level of cruelty I hadn't seen him descend to before. I actually cheered Blair shooting him, he was written as utterly cruel and deserving payback. See, I feel for the manipulation too, Max=bad, Blair=poor victim.

[Cheap21]

Same here. I always hated Blair prior to that story but it made me root for her. Max was vile and he deserved to be shot by Blair.

[Vee]

Yes, that's how the story began. That's not how it ended.

That's because she quit.

Todd stayed rich, powerful and romanticized when he came back in 1996. No one in over a decade has attempted to strip Todd of his Lord wealth and trappings, a move which might revitalize the character. Nothing about that conception was altered other than his capacity to actually evolve as a human being, which is something RH cracked the whip over with both Blair and Tea. RH failed in Hollywood in '95-'96, so he came back and let money and security trump his art. His only alleged request was the firing of Michael Malone, and he got that. But he stopped talking any jazz about his ethics or morals as an actor as soon as he returned and took the cash - in fact, he stopped talking at all, understandable given this is a guy who basically did a "Goodbye Cruel World, soaps are not for me" interview the year before and then came back to keep out of the poorhouse.

I think Roger Howarth's pretty talented and I'd welcome him back, but in terms of his ethos as an actor playing a romanticized rapist he forfeited that a long time ago. While he stayed in the role, Todd was undeniably played up as a romantic anti-hero. He put a lot of wrenches in the works, but that was still what he played.

I don't think they did enough to redeem him either. Still, they did a little. It was half-assed and I wasn't happy but it was there. By contrast I felt they did nothing for the rapemance. He attempted suicide because Marty didn't want him. That betrays an utter lack of understanding of his own psychosis. Later, he pulled the "air quotes" and laughed as he told Marty he was sorry for "what you think I 'did to you.'" That is disgusting.

Generally her endless hospital visits aren't about poor Blair. They're about using Blair to service another story they think the audience isn't invested enough in - like the KAD murders. Once Blair's in the recovery ward, it's back to John and his investigations. And yes, it is pathetic.

That's the surface impression. The deeper message to the audience is evident in the entire storyline since January. Let's look back to that time - Blair and Eli were always intended as this goofy little subplot to off-set Todd and Tea's "pure love;" we saw them [!@#$%^&*] on every flat surface in the Palace, while Todd and Tea made tortured, boring love and wept for the loss of their happiness. The message the audience was supposed to receive was, 'look at poor Todd and Tea struggling as Blair just has casual sex with an acquaintance.' Instead, the audience tuned out Todd and Tea and all of a sudden we got a lot of blogging about Blair and Eli on the Net. Result behind the scenes several months down the line? Tea is suddenly dying, Blair and Eli are dragged into the story and then dismantled in order to shore up Todd and Tea's flagging plotline.

And again, the fans are being trained here to drop their allegiance to Blair and Eli and accept the status quo of the eternal, mind-numbing Tea/Todd/Blair triangle - when fans luxuriate in the idea of Blair having a decent guy, Eli is given numerous scripts in which he explains how very "not Todd" he is, and the writing mimics the fans as Blair glories in having moved on from her dysfunctional life with Todd. But by this time, the show knows that Eli is a serial killer, and they want the fans to know that as Eli tells Blair he is "not Todd" and Blair tells the world how happy she is to have found a real man better than Todd. The message that sends to the fans isn't exactly subtle: "Blair should not try to find a better man than Todd, he's not so bad, look at how awful Eli is! Stupid Blair!" And I'm sure now we're going right back to the old triangle.

"Roger" didn't tell me anything about Blair or anyone else. He tends not to do that. You're equating the "Todd Lord" image and the cancellation of his prison therapy story with Blair, which is not the same thing and also not accurate from a chronological standpoint. And as I said above, "Todd Lord" has remained in many ways despite who Todd is with at any given time. Money talked for RH.

Will do.