DAYS: Leading Actor Possibly Leaving

[DRW50]

I don't think she raped Brandon. I might be wrong though. The story with Austin was presented as an assault, it just was one that he didn't remember.

I don't think it's hypocrisy for people to get upset about the rape - I doubt there was ever any big fan demand for Sami/Austin so it's not like all kinds of Sami/Austin fans were furious about Sami/EJ. I think it's perfectly understandable for people to be offended by a scene where a woman is crying and has sex with a man under threat of harm, or threat of harm to someone she loves, especially when the show presents this as being sexy, and the rapist and the woman he raped as being lovers fated through the centuries.

Hogan Sheffer has told 3 different stories on 3 different soaps about women who are raped but secretly sort of want it. That goes beyond Sami for me. It's extremely disturbing and it tells me that the basis of this story was not about Sami meeting her match, but about a headwriter who wants to send a very specific message about sexual assault.

[JaneAusten]

Skin its interesting that you say EJ challenged Sami and helped her grow but on the flip side you acknowledge shes boring as a heroine. WHich is it? I also can't address how the show chose to address those other stories with Sami but rape is wrong especially showing it as graphically as they did. I agree with Carl the most disturbing part of this is that its a pattern and a wrong one about sexual assault which we all know today is not about sex its about violence and control.

I have heard people say the same about Adam on Y&R with Sharon how somehow he made her stronger because she stood up to the town in defense of a man who made her think her baby was dead, she lost her children because of, and still continues to demean her while Sharon sits in prison for a murder he could clear her from but won't in retaliation for what I don't know. All its done is make Sharon weak and pathetic for chosing a man like that over her children which were justifiabily ripped from her by her ex for her siding with Adam,

I don't know where they can take Sami at this point. I just don;t think putting her in the workplace is going to work but I also don't think tying her back into story with EJ works either.

And JR as Billy Clyde Tuddle or Ray Gardner I just can't go there.

[Skin]

The whole love is not rape campaign is founded on the idea that a couple whose history included rape is not a viable template for a romantic relationship. This was the whole reason why fans hated the EJ/Sami relationship yet there was little to no outcry from the same vocal group when Sami was about to marry Austin - a man she raped. It's blatant hypocrisy. I don't remember there being many protestations when Sami and Austin were paired together in 05/06 outside from token protests from fans who wanted their preferred couples. Where was this gigantic fan outcry when Sami was about to marry her rape victim? Like I said before it just smacks of poor logic and that's not even bothering to bring up all the other various disgusting things Sami did to Austin in past years in her disastrous schemes to keep him. It's the same double standard perpetuated by society, male rape is not taken as seriously as female rape. It's okay for a woman to rape a man but it's a horrific cataclysmic event of epic proportions when a man rapes a woman. The truth is that both are horrible, yet the male rape victim is constantly diminished in terms of importance while the female rape victim gets all of the sympathy. To be honest I don't even bother to take in such blatant hypocrisy from fanbases because it's ridiculous and holds no logical ground when being argued. It makes no sense to me how these fans who are crying about Sami being with a rapist don't even realize that Sami herself is a rapist. Irony at it's greatest they are demeaning and insulting the very thing Sami is in an attempt to demonize EJ by saying he isn't good enough for her. A laugh and a half.

I don't think either of those situations cancel each other out, was Sami entertaining in her earlier years when she was causing havoc for half the town? Of course. Was she immature, childish and petty? Good God yes she was. Look at Sami's histoy pre-EJ and you will see a character who had a cycle of bad relationships and poor ways of dealing with her problems. Sami now is a lot healthier then she was back then. As a result she has also become stale and boring too because she is a healthier, more well adjusted person who is not causing issues and problems for half the town. That alone takes out so much of her value because she is not an antagonist anymore. She isn't a plot stirrer. But that's what usually ends up happening on soaps for "good characters" which is what Sami is being written as from 2007 to present. Why do you think the Marlena character continuously gets so burnt out time after time? Because there are only so many times you can victimize her before she loses her effect and utility on the show. The same applies to Belle who was in the same situation as her mother and now it's happening to Sami. There is no doubt that Sami has matured a lot and that she has become a more well rounded person/character/human being. That doesn't necessarily mean the character is more entertaining then the poorly written caricature she was prior to EJ.

[Khan]

See, this is why James Scott needs to go, good actor or not. Because all EJ/Sami have done is inspired the Soap Debate That WOULD NOT DIE. (j/k)

[DRW50]

Honestly I think it was because people didn't care about the story at all. I don't know if Sami and Austin had any fans. If they did it wasn't exactly a big amount. This rape had also happened ten years earlier.

I just don't understand why the reaction to a woman in tears and pleading as she has sex only to save someone's life somehow = hypocrisy. When you see someone in that position your first reaction isn't going to be tallying up old stories from the Clinton years.

[JaneAusten]

The fact that it happened 10 years earlier is relevant and IA I don't know that Sami/Austin even had a big following. And by that time Days wasn't exactly pulling in viewers as they were a few years earlier at least not that I recall. Male rape isn't any more right than female rape. But the audience is a lot more enlightened today even then they were back then. And even now remember the character of Jax being raped on GH In recent years and that was even laughed at by soap journalists yet many saw it as rape and how did the show deal with it? They pushed it under the rug and forgot about it.

I don't even like Sami, never have, I actually like EJ and still found it repulsive. There was a time and it was highighted in romance novels of the day that male domination(what today we know as rape) was considered foreplay and a turn on to a love story. I'd like to think in the year 2011 viewers and our society is more enlightened.

I tend to agree with Carl that there is something a little twisted about a HW thinking this is somehow sexy and hot when women today know better.

[DRW50]

I should say that if the show brought up what Sami did to Austin, and Sami wondered about her own actions then that would have been an interesting story angle. But as far as I know, they didn't do this. So essentially the storyline was about how a woman who says no secretly may mean yes and this is fated love.

[ER Tosh]

I don't know how JR is any worse than Adam, Palmer, David, and sometimes Liza and Annie.

[Cheap21]

or Ritchie, Michael and Alexander Cambias, Vanessa, Lee Hawkins, Rob Gardner, etc....the list goes on

[Skin]

I think you are highlighting many of the points I already raised. Male rape is not as important and not as devastating as the rape of the female. People didn't care about Austin's rape but cared about Sami's. The audience didn't want a rape is love story concerning EJ/Sami but were willing to swallow it with Austin/Sami. Fans had a problem with Sami being paired with a rapist yet they completely forgot that Sami herself was a rapist...The list just goes on and on.

Again,

female rape = horrible occurance that only the evilest of people commit.

male rape = they deserved it kind of apathy the audience can't be bothered to care about.

As far as the rape happening 10 years ago and that being a factor does that make Todd/Marty relationship happening nearly twenty years later somehow okay? How about if Bianca and Micheal Cambias were to get together? Jack and Kayla? Liz and her rapist? So on and so forth. I don't understand how just because time passed that makes everything okay with their rape victim being in love with their rapist. I don't understand how Austin/Sami is a more viable pairing to the audience then EJ/Sami are. The whole rape is love argument is torpedoed based on logical fallacies and other convoluted attempts to demonize one rapist in the favor of another one. To say I have no interest in tolerating such inadequate arguments is an understatement.

There are a myriad of reasons why JR is more offensive then some of those characters. But that's for a completely different thread.

[DRW50]

If Sami was with Austin again and raped him again then it would be disgusting.

I wouldn't say the audience was apathetic. At the time of the story, many viewers were horrified at Sami's actions and couldn't wait for her to pay. The show made it clear that she'd assaulted Austin and lied about it. Austin only kept ties to her because of Will, and it was years before anything else happened between them.

[JaneAusten]

I also don't know how people can say audiences are apathetic if anything its the soap press who don't seem to care about this mysogynistic writing. Look at Jax on GH. He was forced to have sex to protect his family. I remember watching it and to me it was rape. Ingo did a great job of showing the horror. Yet the show didn't present it that way. Fans were buzzing about it for a long time disgusted by it while peolpe like Branco said Ingo/JAx was not good looking enough to be raped and CArolyn Hinsey thought soap fans were overreacting over it because so many turned a blind eye to EJami(in some ways she was right about that). The show itself thought nothing of it, it was just shoved under the table and laughed about. I do believe people have a heightened sense of rape moreso now that ever just because our society does.

[DRW50]

I don't understand who is "demonizing" EJ. He had a gun and he told Sami that her fiance would die if she didn't have sex with him. Sami raping Austin doesn't take away from that.

EJ and Sami have never been a pairing. The show has never put them in a relationship. The show has tried to have it every which way with EJ/Sami, but the story started with rape. Sami may be an evil person but that doesn't change what EJ did and the show has never figured out how to deal with this. As a result, whatever relationship EJ and Sami could have had went out the window.

[Skin]

No one is saying that Sami deserved to be raped. I am just flabbergasted by the fans who were so extensively against the pairing because EJ raped her yet this same audience had little to no problem with Sami being with Austin whom she raped. Surely you can understand and note the irony of the two situations? I said that fans were demonizing EJ because they completely absolved Sami of her own perpetuated planned rape of Austin in an effort to make her this hapless victim who shouldn't be saddled with her rapist. Never mind the fact that she herself was one as well. They both did the same crime yet EJ is evil for it and Sami isn't. Selective justice. I think you've made my point even further by saying EJ and Sami were never a pairing - you are right they weren't. But the simple possibility of them being one was enough to make fans lose their [!@#$%^&*] with endless campaigns all over the soap mags trying to stop them from being together. But the same fans had no problem accepting Sami and Austin being in a committed relationship where they were nearly married. A relationship which also consisted of a rape and which had the rape victim loving their rapist. The mind boggles at the twisted logic that is those soap fans minds.

[Sindacco]

Not every murder has to be a whodunit mystery. They should just kill EJ off, make Stefano a recurring villain that comes and goes and Tony and Lexie should be the grey DiMeras living in Salem.