As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

On its face, it would appear that way, until you look at the section that qualifies the statement with …

A story meeting is not the same thing as a plot summary. A story-meeting is often a place where the worst (and sometimes best) ideas get pitched, and many tossed out. Having attended a few of these meetings myself, I can honestly say it’s not clear whether this is actually a curve against ATWT. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Okay, but typically mentions outside of serious treatment or fan treatmeant, the rest were likely to be pejorative. In her doctoral dissertation my BFF had to catalog all of the mentions in the NYT during a specific period of time to soaps. I forget the percentage but a huge majority were not related to soaps at all but instead were pejorative terms about real life situations. 

[wonderwoman1951]

another ny times piece by the same writer:

ginia bellafante on ryan’s hope

[DramatistDreamer]

Thanks so much for posting this article @wonderwoman1951. 
This quote really stood out to me as one of my constant critiques of many daytime soaps (even my favorites) was that many abandoned the realistic quality in favor of absurdist fantasy.

Many other soap fans have argued that they welcomed the fantastical qualities that soaps took on (e.g.a ‘super-couple’ racing to save the world from freezing) as opposed to a more realistic world but I have always contended that this is also the aspect that would come to alienate all but the most ardent fans of daytime soaps. It also gave critics more latitude to criticize and mock soaps and ultimately be dismissive of the genre’s hallmarks.

Well, I just read the part where the GH plot get mentioned.

 

This article goes with my initial feeling that the quote was not meant to be a derisive one, just an even-handed one about the realities that go on in a writer’s room, maybe a bit too ‘inside baseball’ for most and I didn’t want to jump to a judgment.

[wonderwoman1951]

it’s funny. in the late aughts, when ginia bellafante was one of the ny times television critics, she was deep in the closet about even watching soaps. at that time, she made a lot of disparaging — even insulting — comments about soaps.

can’t remember who the blogger was who called her out. but, over the years she came around. 

[DramatistDreamer]

Unfortunately in the late ‘00s disparaging soaps was low-hanging fruit since so many were plagued by poor writing and production choices but the critical mass of disparaging comments read so much like piling on.

That article did raise an issue that has been in the back of my mind for well over a decade now, the possibility that any shifts were going to alienate viewers at any given time period.  Many of us 1970s babies grew up watching the soaps of the 1980s and loving them, but there is a possibility that viewers that were watching from the 1960s and 70s were alienated by the drift away from the characterizations of the everyday in favor for big action and adventure.

[wonderwoman1951]

for sure! but it was also the best of times for serious discussion of soaps online. before the suits figured out how to monetize the web, there were so many websites — media domain; we love soaps; daytime confidential; snark weighs in; marlena de la croix; tom casiello; sara bibel; a couple on the now defunct red room; the soap pages on television without pity (i’m sure i’ve forgotten a few) — where the authors read and commented on each other’s postings.

miss those conversations and connections. 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Underlying is the shift from character-based to plot-driven storytelling & I definitely think there is a split in soap opera fandom over that. 

The idea that some just left is yet another possibility of what happened. 

[wonderwoman1951]

oh absolutely! inevitable with a genre that continues for decades. 

but, what was interesting — and the source of considerable online discussion in the late aughts — was how character driven story found its was into primetime serials: not ‘dallas’ and ‘dynasty,’ but shows like ‘friday night lights,’ to name but one. 

here’s what ‘snark weighs in’ had to say:

[M]any primetime fans are former daytime fans who now stick exclusively with primetime, because it’s the only place they can get anything resembling the socially aware, character-driven, serialized storytelling they used to get from soaps.”
 

[Contessa Donatella]

Also fans on RATS (Usenet) and on Delphi. 

But speaking of critics who also watched soaps, Renata Adler. Here is one essay on soaps that was a chapter in one of her books. 

 https://shallotpeelblog.org/2021/06/24/blog-50-renata-adler/

It begins ... 

CANARIES IN THE MINESHAFT: Essays on Politics and Media. by Renata Adler. St. Martin’s Press. New York. © 2001. “Afternoon Television: Unhappiness Enough, and Time” “You have to tolerate extremes of hatred and loneliness to follow, Monday through Friday every week. through a still unterminated period of months, the story of an educated man so bitter that he kills himself solely to frame another man for murder. Yet there is an audience of at least six million at two-thirty every afternoon New York time (other times across the country) prepared to watch this plot line, among other plot lines, develop on “The Doctors,” a television program of the genre soap opera, or daytime dramatic serial.” And, this is no joke. ... 

And it continues. It is about soaps in general but specifically also about the storyline that is showing on The Doctors right now & about some of SFT & about DAYS & about AW. And that's a lot of soaps to cover in one essay!

 

“About “Friday Night Lights” my first thought when I saw “maybe the best-acted show on TV” and “soap opera” on the same paragraph—with soap opera *not* being used as a pejorative— …” – Lynn Liccardo

[Broderick]

I feel the New York Times writer was just making a somewhat generic statement that Capote's book was like the general public's perception of soap storytelling -- "salacious and tawdry, devoid of symbolism".    

[Contessa Donatella]

Yep, that's exactly what I thought, too. 

[DRW50]

I didn't see that as the best of times as I felt that sites like DC and their agenda in favor of certain regimes held too much sway, but I do miss the We Love Soaps interviews (and if not for them a number of precious GL and ATWT episodes would still be in the vaults).

[Contessa Donatella]

Speaking of which, welovesoaps.net I mean, the last 3 times I've tried to access the site I've gotten an error. Is it just me & my Internet connection or is there a problem with the site? Anyone got any idea? Thanks. 

[DramatistDreamer]

WLS was an invaluable resource. The interviews and the “On This Day in …” with the accompanying video clips and descriptions placed soaps in a historical and cultural context. Even the WLS YouTube channel was thoughtfully curated, thanks to their upload of ATWT episodes, I got to see The Willows storyline. Not to mention the fact that Roger Newcomb provided his services as a liaison between the SoapClassics people and the P&G people. He really was a true ambassador for the genre and that is sorely missed.