Whatever Happened To Good Fights in Soaps?

[VirginiaHamilton]

Back in the day, one could always count on a soap to deliver a fabulous fight for viewers to cheer on, a la:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqJhp6fScQk

No matter whose a viewer was on, you knew that you were getting an eyeful's worth when the fur started flying.

Nowadays, all soaps serve up is a once-in-a-blue-moon slap that wouldn't even slay a third grader in a playground fight. Most of the time, they won't allow it to get that far because someone will step in and break it up before a fight even begins, which is lame as hell.

I'd like to know what happened to the good soap fights of yesteryear? When and why have they ceased to exist?

[Chris B]

The weird thing is that these are so popular in reality tv, that you'd expect soaps to revisit them.

[VirginiaHamilton]

Precisely - especially since soaps (both daytime and nightime) wrote the book on fabulous fights in the first place. Why or what made them decide to shy away from them and replace them with an anemic slap?

[DaytimeFan]

THANK YOU! Where have all the catfights gone?! Is it that women are, on the whole, written so poorly and without any backbone that they've all faded away?

We used to have build up fights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbNP8DEdIy0

And then brawls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A04g0mXF8Eg

[DaytimeFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_VSeTBiA5k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUwONRX6U5E&feature=related

WHERE ARE THE FIGHTS LIKE THIS?!

[VirginiaHamilton]

DaytimeFan, thank you for bringing up one of my favorite Y&R memories. That was when the broads on the show knew how to throw down!

When I read viewers these days praise today's weaksauce 'fights' (if you can even call them that), it just saddens me because they clearly have no clue what a true and epic soap fight is.

[VirginiaHamilton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgqLHque8wA

[frequentsoapfan]

Last one I saw was on DAYS, I think right after Nicole got out of prison. Both she and Sami were bleeding, it was more extreme than the men's fights!

[ChitHappens]

ROTFLMAO! Really good stuff! All of that over Victor's swimmers? Yeah ok. Then the 2 sperm stealing pigs in the same room at the same time? What are the odds?

ANDREA

[ChitHappens]

Krystle and Alexis fights were the absolute best! Boy, do I miss that!

ANDREA

[DaytimeFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LbLikClWnM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELzjQ8F_2gE

[ChitHappens]

YES YES! Thank you! OMG! I love it...

ANDREA

[quartermainefan]

I think these fell victim to the same mindset so many things about soap fell victim to: the self loathing on the part of the soap community and the inferiority complex it has. There was such a relentless drive to be seen as adult and serious drama that out went the melodramatic background music, out went the badguys talking to themselves in close up vowing revenge, out went the weddings where someone would stop the wedding and out went the entertaining but silly catfights. It's "campy", it's "cheesy", it' all the things that embody the OTT 80s soaps are so ashamed of. It's too Aaron Spelling and not enough Stephen Bochco. It's why people say OLTL "grew up" in the 90s, why the last season of Dynasty was better, and so on and so forth.

[Mr. Vixen]

This was the last "great" catfight GH had, if I'm remembering correctly. I loved how Claudia kicked Olivia's ass.

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This isn't really a catfight, but another great fight between Olivia and Claudia.

"Why don't you burn in hell, bitch?" "Bitch, I will KILL you."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LTNrI1FDcA&feature=endscreen&NR=1

[ChitHappens]

Sam and Carly had a pretty good one in 2007, but it wasn't a classic.

ANDREA