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OLTL: SoapNET Marathon On New Years Day


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Ugh Andy...

I admit part of my problem was, while I don't like the constant rapist/redemption stories, I hate that under RC (and he's far from the only soap writer to do this) the message in a way seems to be that no one can get past these things or be rehabilitated. Go to St Anne's, go to a prison for the criminally insane for year,s you migth come back decent for a couple of years but you'll always snap back...

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The back of Patrick's head is a great and permanent cure for insanity. Murder a doctor a day - back of the head will make it all go away.

That type of writing - that "oops, pretend we never did this" writing - is why I can never get into the hoopla and fawning over RC's genius, and how he is going to save GH if only ABC will let him!!! and so on. Not one plot that ever makes sense or is followed up on. Just pointless stunts.

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It's definitely my main issue with him--over the often lame camp. That's pretty much the definition of plot driven stuff for me, but he doesn't seem to realize that a TRUE, slow moving redemption story (maybe actually show us scenes of therapy sessions--and more than 2 minutes like with Shane) actually would be something a ton of viewers would enjoy watching. But really often it does seem that as soon as one story is suddenly done, the characters reset or something and the past is only mentioned when convenient.

And this is me being silly but I think it can send a negative message (not that I don't mind SOME negative messages in soaps--they're entertainment foremost-- and life can be very negative but there needs to be balance). We get things like "You could spend years surviving rape, trauma, cleaning yourself up, being a successful shrink yourself but then a small thing like losing a boyfriend and you'll just snap right back! You can spend 15 years in prison being trated for your mental issues, but... Too bad again, it won't stick!

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It does send a bad message. So do the rape-is-love stories he's repatedly sold, and the bullying stories that always seem to imply the person who is being bullied kind of deserves it, or that the bully is the true victim. It's one thing to focus on camp and craziness and wacky soapy goodness, but to repeatedly bring real world issues into it and then botch them in the most dangerous ways - it's just bad and deeply unsettling writing.

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Exactly. Having a former crazy person snap again is classic soap, and something I often enjoy, so I'm not against stories like that in all cases, but you still have to have some responsibility to how you do them (on the other hand the rape victim/love message, etc, is IMHO just bad storytelling with no excuse). Hate to bring Agnes Nixon up in an OLTL thread but I do wonder if she followed RC's OLTL closely at all and what she thought. Of course we'll never find out--the most negative thing she will say is something like with Pratt's AMC about how he was a writer whose style didn't fit their show lol, or like with the unabortion--nothing at all. Maybe in her twilight years she'll snap personalities and just start ranting on about everything on her never used blog on her website...

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