Members Pine Charles Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 And then there's the Female Psycho. I suppose Shelia Carter and Janet Green would be tops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paul Raven Posted January 28, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 From the book The meddlesome and villianous mother/grandmother Geraldine EON Liz AW Meg LOL Pheobe AMC As children we sometimes fantasize about the villianous mother who is responsible for all our bad luck. Well. these mothers are everything we've ever resented; destructive, rich, snobbish, powerful, and always,always meddlesome. At worst they hatch evil plots; at best they are deadly gossips. At bottom, they need to take over other people's lives. about the only kind thing one can say of them is that thay are not so selfish as their actions suggest;whatever they do,it's for somebody's good. There seems to be a need on the part of viewers to believe that there are such characters, and that they'tre always wrong. Viewers never identify themselves with the villianous mother, says one headwriter who gets mail on the subject,"but she's just like their mother, mother-in-law, or their aunt". We doubt it. Other examples from that time would be Mona on TD and Vanessa on Y&R. Iris on AW joined the group when Dennis was aged. Agnes Nixon made a specialty of these women but they seem to have died out as soaps lost interest in older characters.Was Mary Smythe on AMC one of the last? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members All My Shadows Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 IDK if she was one of the last, but she was definitely one. I'd say Barbara Ryan had a touch of that herself when Paul, Will, and Jenn were all on the show at the same time as adults. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paul Raven Posted January 28, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 The Hot Mess character is a direct result of soaps going for plot over character, As a result to keep thigs hopping, these women go through marriages, affairs, pregnancies, kidnappings etc at lightning speed. What may have happened to a character in the past over 10 years, now happens in 2. I think Days started this in the 80's with their heroines facing one peril after another. Viewers lose interest and empathy for these characters as they move through trauma with little fall out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Saving ATWT Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 The wise older woman is still used: Y&R-Kay (Liz Foster would have been better) ATWT-Kim, Nancy (Maybe Lisa at the end) OLTL-Vikki Days-Maggie B&B-Stephanie is quickly taking on this role while moving to the sidelines With so many vets again, I'd expect to see more 'wise older women' types take shape. That is, if the genre lives that long. I think all of the same types exist but in more modern incarnations. Today, less people admire the 'bitch' character and you see more women with jobs making money on their own. Diane on Y&R is a good example of this sort of transformation. Previously, she was without any skill and her career was getting a rich man. Now, she build towers in Tokyo and only hunts rich men for sport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AMCHistory Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 Any chance that you can post the photos of Kitty Shea? I would love to see them (photos from that era are hard to come by). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeeeDee Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 Diane isn't a bitch. Diane is a Vixen. And Maria trying to make Katherine a "Wise Old Woman" has nearly ruined the character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paul Raven Posted January 28, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 The benevolent mother/grandmother Bert GL Sarah LOL Mona AMC Alice DOOL Jessie GH Maeve RH Kate AMC Nancy ATWT Ellen ATWT These women have seen more than their share of trouble (considering they are so innofensive in the first place). But they go right on believing in the sanctity of marriage, the indestructability of family life, and so on and so forth. Their attitude can be characterized as optimism in the face of facts-by far the bravest form of optimism. They may also be called a matriach.if she is not matriach of a family, she is, like Jessie brewer, the matriach of the soaps' second most important institution-the hospital. She is simple and of a religous nature. she tries to be tolerant and non-interfering with her children, but that's difficult since she really knows what's Right. On today's soaps Maggie (DOOL) and Viki (OLTL) have evolved into those characters.Most soaps dismantled their families and dropped older characters so matriachs are in short supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sindacco Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 Bonnie Lockhart? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members All My Shadows Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 For real. The thought of Katherine being in the same group of Nancy, Alice, etc, is just all kinds of wrong. Poor, poor Ellen... Right, but I was thinking more along the lines of a character who wasn't supposed to be almost purely comedic relief. I really wish AMC hadn't ruined Krystal and Babe less than a year after they even arrived, because there could have been some interesting family members introduced through them, some characters different from what we're used to seeing in daytime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SFK Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 Exactly, but I still get your original point. Felicia Gallant would be another example, a woman with a heroine's storylines and a bitch's wardrobe. Of ocurse she started as a bitch, but Linda Dano really wanted her to be likeable and she got her wish. I think that in many ways made Felicia an unique, and realistic soap diva because she in many ways reminded me of older women in my life who dressed to kill, suffered no fools, but weren't bitches as much as capable of being bitchy. SOD used to do a "Diva" feature every couple of years or so, naming a diva from each show. AW's Rachel got the title one year (at that point I didn't realize the article was recurring, they probably did Felicia the time before) but you'd agree that she was a very Viki-like character. However, as DaytimeFan was getting at, her prior bitchiness and period of fabulosity could also qualify her. Some other divas SOD named in those articles that I can recall: -Iris, AW -Vivian, DOOL -Dorian, OLTL -Jill, Y&R -Alex, Vanessa, GL -Tiffany, GH -Gwyn, Loving -Sally, Stephanie, B&B -Lisa, Lucinda and/or Barbara (?) ATWT -and maybe Bette or Olivia from SuBe, foggy... There was a scholarly soap book in a college library I thumbed through once and they had a similar section on archetypes. They grouped Alexandra Spaulding and Myrna Clegg in that meddlesome and villianous mother/grandmother category which was interesting as Marj Dusay would go on to play both parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cheap21 Posted January 28, 2011 Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 Tawny and Amber Moore on B&B are the current queens of the Trailer Trash these days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paul Raven Posted January 28, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 28, 2011 The Former Playboy Lance Y&R Doug DOOL Kevin ATWT Rick LOL Nick AMC The soaps recognize that Mr Right (or Dr Right) is a mature fantasy, and that many viewers retain the adolescent taste for the questionable or disreputable lover. This is the man of darker passions-the man we hate to love, but do. He doesn't exist in soaps. But he almost does; we do have the former Playboy, the slightly mysterious and not altogether stodgy man who is, as they say,'attractive to women'. by the time this charcter appears on daytime, he has forsaken his playboy existence, and sought love in the arms of a favorable woman (or two). About the only signs of his previous existence is his money (since he's not a doctor or a lawyer, the money is probably a bad sign!) A classic example is the now deceased Steve Frame, who first appeared on Another world as a well heeeled bachelor of uncertain background. Steve never quite derved the romantic attentions of lovely Alice Matthews, or the 9 million women who followed him daily. But he got it. This archetype doesn't seem to exist today. The likes of Billy Abbott and Sonny Corinthos seem to represent the men we hate to love -but the writing doesn't do them any favours and they come off as sleazy and shallow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 29, 2011 Members Share Posted January 29, 2011 This is because the soaps no longer want traditional leading men, which the bad boys used to balance out. Now soaps sneer at that. Instead they have worthless husks like Chompers who are constantly passed off as the ideal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members quartermainefan Posted January 29, 2011 Members Share Posted January 29, 2011 Geraldine I think has one of the best soap names ever: Geraldine Whitney Saxon. How can you beat that when you're a soap character? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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