On 5/25/2026 at 10:55 PM, Vee said:

That was unheard of for a woman at that time or even now at times on soaps. And she remained that prominent. It's something else

Coming back to this, but it is interesting that Monty’s GH had very few damsels in distress or women without some agency. Laura is the only major lead I think of being repeatedly victimized during Monty’s first run, and even she has her moments from the Left Handed Boy through her kidnapping by the Cassadines. Monica, Lucy, Heather, Bobbie, Tiffany, Jackie, Holly- these are all strong women allowed to have agency. Anna and Felicia end up being vital parts of the action storylines, Anna becoming the lead character in them for a period of time.

Women across all the soaps fared better back then, which is wild to think how regressive the storytelling became. But GH and DAYS had pretty much the same DNA in the 80’s to me, and the women on DAYS were mostly second to the men and deferred to them in the danger stories. Hope as a cop comes to mind- she’s no Anna or even Felicia for that matter. Kayla and Kimberly are also mostly victims driven by the men in their stories. Marlena fares a little better, but she also suffers from the little lady waiting at home hand wringing about the danger Roman is facing.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by titan1978

I think what helps Laura in the '80s as she has a wealth of history and a real character POV. From what I've seen Luke is extremely paternalistic with her during their early whirlwind romance which would be gross even without the rape angle, but which was unfortunately just a sign of the times and how they handled those gender roles. But what sets her apart and makes it still work for is that she still has a voice and viewpoint, and more importantly she still gets into a lot of her own trouble and makes a lot of her own choices. She also unavoidably gets under Luke's skin on a primal level, and pushes that advantage a number of times when they're at odds after the Left Handed Boy. You understand she is his Achilles heel that makes him not a superman, and that she knows it. And both Tony and Genie play that angle heavily, and it's something Tony repeatedly returned to how Laura was the key to Luke's existence for decades after. Until he stopped doing that.

4 hours ago, titan1978 said:

But GH and DAYS had pretty much the same DNA in the 80’s to me

I would assume that's partly down to both of them having PFS and Thom Racina at various times, unless I'm wrong?

Analyzing Racina's past work at OLTL in 2013 was a ride, in part because he was clearly shaping up to build some sort of intricate Ice Princess-style arc with the conspiracy left over from 2011 on the network, and which was of course unfinished.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Vee

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I would assume that's partly down to both of them having PFS and Thom Racina at various times, unless I'm wrong?

You aren't wrong, lol. PFS, in particular, had a lot to do with DAYS and GH sharing similar action/adventure/sci-fi DNA in the '80's - starting, of course, with Luke and Laura on GH, and then continuing on with the Salem Strangler arc and the arrival of the Brady and DiMera clans on DAYS. Thom Racina, along with Sheri Anderson and Leah Laiman, just built on PFS' foundation.

What differentiates '80's DAYS from '80's GH, though, is the former show's stronger emphasis on romance, a carryover from the Bill Bell/PFS I era. '80's GH has its' share of supercouples, of course, but probably not to the same degree as DAYS, which became a virtual "supercouples factory" as the decade wore on. Next to the stuff that Pamela K. Long was writing for GL, '80's DAYS had the biggest "heart" in daytime, which I've always attributed to Al Rabin and Shelley Curtis and their insistence on getting to the emotional or romantic core of every scene.

2 hours ago, Vee said:

I would assume that's partly down to both of them having PFS and Thom Racina at various times, unless I'm wrong?

And Sheri Anderson, who deserves a lot of the credit/blame depending on how you view it. She was on the team under PFS when the prototype supercouple formula was developed with Luke & Laura on GH, and IIRC was one of the ones that quit and went with PFS to DAYS when she got fed up with Gloria Monty and the sci-fi storytelling. DAYS cemented that formula though!

Like @Khansaid, GH had some of the biggest supercouples of the era, but they were more ensconced in the action/caper storytelling. And virtually every character on DAYS in the 80’s under 45 was put through the formula, even less popular ones like Pete/Melissa took their turns.

Monty also seemed to learn her lesson about using rape as a storytelling device to keep a major couple apart, she never told another story like Laura’s again. There were things like Monica/Alan’s marital rape, but it wasn’t played like the supercouple formula as an obstacle for the couple to overcome (which was as gross back then as it is now).

2 hours ago, Vee said:

Luke is extremely paternalistic with her during their early whirlwind romance which would be gross even without the rape angle, but which was unfortunately just a sign of the times and how they handled those gender roles. But what sets her apart and makes it still work for is that she still has a voice and viewpoint, and more importantly she still gets into a lot of her own trouble and makes a lot of her own choices.

She noticeably grows up in that period when they were broken up because she panicked about still being married to Scotty when they got attention for Frank Smith. She’s more independent, lives on her own, does a terrible job as Edward’s secretary, and gets herself into the Ice Princess story several times. She’s even holding people at gunpoint at the climax with Robert. It’s much closer to the women later on on GH. But they play the trauma of her experiences with Stavros when she comes back in 1983. Genie plays a lot of it very fearful, uncomfortable, and sad. It was so easy to wedge Nikolas into that story because of her behavior onscreen, Lesley’s death soon after, Laura’s own history of having an off switch when she is traumatized, and how weird she was just wandering around looking at Luke but not going right to him or her family. It’s kind of disappointing in 1995 when Labine pushes her right back into the little lady scared of danger. It made sense with her having a family, but it was also not very Laura to me.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by titan1978

52 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

GH had some of the biggest supercouples of the era, but they were more ensconced in the action/caper storytelling.

Not even JFP and Bob Guza could create the sense of danger that PFS or Gloria Monty could. Whenever those two ladies would place characters in jeopardy, you absolutely were on the edge of your seat.

34 minutes ago, Khan said:

Not even JFP and Bob Guza could create the sense of danger that PFS or Gloria Monty could. Whenever those two ladies would place characters in jeopardy, you absolutely were on the edge of your seat.

Monty had a way of really imbuing the show with energy. She came up against the limitations of the format and even her expanded budget, but when other soaps did the action stuff it seemed less than what she did to me. She liked intensity- the exaggerated way Luke flies off Frank Smith’s boat when Scotty punches him comes to mind, Robert and Sean fighting in the rail car. Same with emotional stuff, like the iconic fight between Monica and Lesley, or Robin running into Anna’s arms. It’s staged for impact, and matched perfectly with PFS’s modern for the time writing.

It’s funny to watch her older GH stuff and see how much walking and talking the characters do, like the daytime version of what Aaron Sorkin became famous for later in his shows.