Members DRW50 Posted January 14, 2012 Members Share Posted January 14, 2012 I thought this might have gotten lost in the finale thread. http://www.indyweek....ne-life-to-live I mostly wanted to quote this, as I think it truly gets the importance of soaps and social issue stories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Y&RWorldTurner Posted January 14, 2012 Members Share Posted January 14, 2012 Too bad his writing often came off as a very forced PSA... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 14, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 14, 2012 It did, but I thought most of it worked in the AIDS quilt story - there was such a purity and harmony there, once you got past the horribly written Douglas father and the needless destruction of Clint. The quilt scenes were so moving, and I was very touched by the scene where Billy's father was going to hit him and Sloan, finally ashamed of how he'd abused his own son, grabbed the man's arm. I think what he's getting at is something which Marland did to perfection on ATWT. I look back and watch those scenes of characters talking about AIDS, and I'm amazed they even got through on daytime's most conservative soap, even if AIDS was less shameful of an issue by that point. There is an incredible scene at David's memorial where they read a letter from Hank and he talks about how David was there when many people treated those suffering from AIDS like they were lepers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted January 17, 2012 Members Share Posted January 17, 2012 I don't always get the PSA criticism, although it's certainly true of his second tenure when they'd often kinda randomnly shove little bits of social issues into outlandish plots (or things like the Love Center, which had promise but never worked, etc). Still it's not like Bradley Bell's work at B&B or anything... I think a lot of it worked well, and some of it may have been a victim of the times. To have a gay teen on a soap in 1992 for instance on network tv was still seen as pretty outlandish and it may have dictated some of the PSA style writing. I thought he did an excellent job (along with Josh Griffith of course) with the gang rape, and the DID/abuse story. Thanks for posting this--I'm trying to catch up on the finale thread but since I was horribly without internet access from Friday night till today (! talk about bad timing) I'll probably miss a lot...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 17, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2012 That's why I put it here, so it wouldn't be swallowed up. I'm glad you got to read it. I hope you know I also left about a dozen comments for your AMC episodes, LOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted January 17, 2012 Members Share Posted January 17, 2012 Ha I saw some of them--I'll catch up to all of it, I promise, though it may not be till tomorrow, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DRW50 Posted January 17, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2012 As for PSA, I think Malone got better at this over time, but I think some stories had a strong PSA tone, especially that early domestic violence story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EricMontreal22 Posted January 17, 2012 Members Share Posted January 17, 2012 Oh for sure--it seemed Gottlieb and Malone realized fairly early on that those short term arcs, often focusing on PSAs were a bad idea. It's interesting in the interview he kinda implies that when he returned in 2003, the networks at a time they should have been more daring were trying to be more conservative (I also hadn't seen that CBS news piece on the gay story before). I've always been curious to read one of his novels--the only one I picked up was Killing Club because I have a thing forbuying the cheesy tie in novels with soaps and I thought it was a surprisingly good and solid mystery (definitely better than Charm and the other soap tie ins I've read), though ironically by the time the murders on the show started to play out that were meant ot be based on the novel, Higley was writing and they started to have next to no connection to it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.