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GH: Discussion for the Month of April


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I haven't watched GH in years so on a whim I decide to catch today's show with a couple of friends who have never watched an american soap and WTH. This is exactly why people think soaps are horrible, why they make fun of them and give them and the actors no respect. It's not funny nor is it cute and it is now where near going to capture the attention of much needed new viewers. I don't know if dedicated soap viewers have been conditioned ( I don't mean this in a negative way) to soaps that they don't realize just how bad the writing, acting, etc looks to non soap watchers but it is indeed bad.

My friends already have misgivings when it comes to american soaps and today's show just cemented it for them, you couldn't even laugh this mess off. I have no idea what is the mindset of those involve but it seems as if they are not even trying to save this show or the genre and no bringing OLTL characters over is not trying to save the show it was a lazy gimmick that was supposed to lure OLTL viewers over to GH in droves.

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Oh some people don't realize how bad the acting is. I'd say I'm pretty critical of acting and even notice it in some of the older beloved characters like Caroline on Days( watching her have that heart attack or whatever that was was painful)

But RC and FV promote bad acting, writing, production, etc because afterall they are only writing to please themselves.

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Hall is an ingenue at best--I said I liked her in a small role in Chorus Line--but you're right it is pretty much the same thing. I haven't actually seen Sullivan on stage but she has a rep as being a good comedic and dramatic (not musical theatre) rep from reviews, etc. At any rate I agree with you--she needs to be toned completely down, and with FV now in charge and even directing if anything they'll be telling her to play it up (which really is the director's responsibility as much as hers IMHO). Some kinds of theatrical acting work in daytime, but not broader and hammy.

I was thinking of how much better the whole Janet stuff worked. Yeah it had some camp element of course, but simply not even slightly in the same way. Then again we never had Mirror Janet somehow trapping people in other dimensions when they take over which seems to be how Ron loves to show the DID experience (see above image).

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I think conditioning does play a part in accepting how bad many soaps seem to have gotten--although of course there have always been some, to put it mildly, rough moments even in the golden era there was more to get you through that. But RC and FV really do like to make things broad and cartoony.

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I also think one aspect is soaps are done quickly, in longer takes, etc. It's much easier for a director to control a movie performer's performance--or a prime time actor's--than on soaps where they're usually (especially now with less rehearsal) too busy trying to block the cameras and just record any performance. In some ways this makes some theatre actors better for soaps--they have less trouble with longer scenes, etc (some terrible soap actors have been great in movies and I think partly due to more retakes, more prep for each scene, more cuts, etc), but in other ways it's the opposite.

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I am shocked people are so hard on Kelly Sullivan. The mirror scene was cool I thought. Was it realistic? I have no idea, I don't have DID, but it isn't about realism it is about melodrama and the telling of a story visually. I don't know who has been conditioned to not recognize good acting or not, but I see it as the GH audience has been conditioned to accept no acting and see that as "realism". Kelly Monaco, Nancy Lee Grahn, Jason Thompson...so many on GH just recite their lines with all the drama one recites a grocery list. If Sullivan is overacting I think that is still far better than underacting.

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