Soap characters misunderstood by viewers

[DRW50]

All views on a soap character are subjective, of course, but are there any soap characters you felt were misjudged or misunderstood by a lot of fans?

An example would be Rita Bauer on GL, who was apparently seen as a nasty slut by a lot of the audience in the day.

[Cheap21]

OLTL

Robert Ford....he's not that bad. The hate for him is beyond excessive and there have been and are tons worse in daytime

Kim. She was awful yet for some reason she was loved at least on these boards I dont get it. She was a slut, a manipulator and very nasty person, yet she wasnt looked down with as much contempt as others i that same category like Stacey and Aubrey.

Kyle. Ditto on him. I think the only reason he got as much love was bc he was gay and nothing more. Talk about propping bc the show wrote him as this creepy awful person but the minute they wanted to do a gay love story, they did a complete 180 on him and had characters singing his praises and the audience ate it all up.

AMC

Babe Carey. She did an awful thing but she wasnt malicious. In her weird way, she kept the baby bc she didnt want to tear JR aware from this child he had grown to love, even though it was at Bianca's expense. People act like she was one of the most evil character when she was around, never ever letting up on that even though baby stealing aside, she had become a relatively good person.

Josh Madden. He had a negative stigma around him from the minute the unabortion plot was tacked onto him. Its too bad bc if you ignore that, he was a decent character played by a charming and likeable actor.

[dragonflies]

I have to disagree. He's written to be pretty bad, a guy who got turned on at the thought of sleeping with a woman who MENTALLY thought she was 17, I'm sorry but that's pretty damn sick & disgusting, right up there IMO with the rapemance

To me it doesn't boil down to others have done worse, it's about what HE has done and how he's being written & nothing more. Other characters actions have nothing to do with his.

[Cheap21]

Im not surprised you (and many others will) disagree bc thats the nature of the topic of this thread. I guess my point is others have done just as bad if not worse, yet have not been judged by the same moral compass. Thats why I put him down on the misjudged/misunderstood list. This hate for him existed BEFORE the Jess sex so I dont think you can pin it on that. He's been reviled ever since the show brought him back. I actually thought he was a more interesting character then and he was far worse than he is today

[DRW50]

I was mostly put off by the endless story where he seduced Langston, and how viewers were supposed to get off on what a stud he was and how Markko was a pathetic loser who could never compare. Scene after scene of Ford smirking as Langston simpered, and "fun" moments with Ford and the pizza girl. This was at a time when the entire show revolved around the idea that we should swoon at pigs who treat women like dog crap (Rex with Gigi, Todd with Blair and Tea).

[DeeeDee]

He was horrible before the unabortion. *cough*breakingupreggie&dani*cough*

[Cheap21]

Different actor playing an underdeveloped role. The character got better after Colin took over and the character of Josh got defined under him.

[Skin]

I agree completely. The way some fans of AMC reacted to what Babe did you would have thought Babe payed off Micheal Cambius to rape Bianca, that she somehow clawed her way inside Bianca's womb to snatch Miranda and orchestrated the plane crash herself single handedly in order to steal Bianca's baby.

It's ridiculous and as a result it seems like most of these fans have completely forgotten the fact that Paul Cramer was the one who put all of the baby-switch in motion and caused endless heartache for five families across two soaps. Babe was just as much of a victim as Bianca was initially and she went months not knowing that Miranda was Bess. To be honest I don't think it takes much work to understand her position especially in context to Krystal actions and her ideology. She too had her baby kidnapped and had to deal with her baby being dead just like Paul told her. I don't think it's necessarily unforgivable that in her grief she kept the baby she had come to love and care for and that she wanted her and JR to have the fairy tale marriage she dreamed about. Selfish yes. But unforgivable? No.

I feel like viewers didn't even realize, acknowledge or even remotely try to understand this. Was her grief not as important? Was her pain not as poignant? Babe was a lot of things but she was never blatantly malicious, she never cackled in glee about taking the baby away from Bianca and she never wanted to hurt anyone really. She was just a teenage girl who didn't know how to tell her husband her baby died and was put in an impossible position in regards to that Miranda/Bess position. She was unfairly pushed into this situation due to Paul Cramer's lies and actions for Kelly. The entire situation was much more complicated then the way it's treated online.

I agree completely on Babe more or less being a good person. She was a true solid friend to Josh in his time of need in regards to Greg, she was a great friend to Zarf during his transition, she was incredibly loyal and steadfast to Amanda after Janet's situation, Wes through his illness and so on and so forth. She was even quite kind to her (unknowing) killer and Janet Dillon who were out to get her and ruin her life. Say what you will but from 2006 onward she was more or less a good person despite her bad choices and enabling behavior/toxic relationship with JR.

Agreed on this as well. I think he got a raw deal just because of the unabortion had he been the baby that Erica lost with Phil Brent, no one would have cared.

[DeeeDee]

I liked Colin & Josh as a character was tolerable once he was away from Babe but up until that he sucked.

[Antoyne]

Now Cheap, you know I hate when we disagree . But Robert Ford, come on. The character was brought on as a sleazeball, has been nothing but a sleazeball until the writers suddenly thought that him bonding with Jessica meant he was some sort of a good guy. I would say originally his love of his kid was supposed to make us feel something, but that was overshadowed by his continuous attempts to keep a mentally ill woman, well...mentally ill...How the fans natural reaction to that makes him misunderstood, I will never understand.

[SFK]

I see Cheap's point about other characters having done far worse, but to me, that isn't even the issue with Ford. The Ford problem is so much bigger than any particular act he has committed. It's the nauseating way in which the creative team has picked a favorite and bent over backwards to make this guy *happen*. It's sickening, like some twisted Middle School crush, and their obsession with him just oozes out of every additional plot development in his favor. EVERYTHING they have done to try to endear the character to us has been incredibly transparent and written with the finesse of beginner's fanfic. They have flipped the script on at least three occasions with the whole Regressica business, and they know and we know EXACTLY what they're trying to accomplish as the lines of retcon exposition which "take him off the hook" are about as subtle as his shirtlessness. "Ford good now cuz we say he good, unga bunga."[/Captain Caveman] I really don't even get it as OLTL always seems bored with good guys, but it's like they want him as their reformed hero, young male lead but unlike Joey, he's *interesting* because of his checkered past. I didn't like all of the crap Ford pulled with the Langston/Markko situation and Jessica, but I would have preferred that he remained a player/bastard. The deification of Ford just makes me indignant.

[psychofan]

I totally agree about Babe.

Another one I would add is Courtney from GH. To this day I have never understood why she was so hated.

[Cheap21]

I definetly see that and I wish they had just left hi as an a hole and made him someone we love to hate instead of someone we need to love. I hated him before but the show gave me plenty of valid reasons to do so. I think DG is a charming enough actor and could have done well as a gray character instead of full on making him one of the good guys, erasing any ounce of personality the character of Ford once had. I dont hate him anymore but that hasnt made me like him. I simply dont care anymore as he elicits no reaction from meand sometimes thats even worse.

[DRW50]

A lot of fans also hated how they made AJ into a monster in order to prop "Journey."

[MichaelGL]

I agree wholeheartedly here. The writers totally did a 180 on the character after his pairing with Fish.