Working Class Characters & Economic Struggles Being Discussed on Soaps

[marceline]

Only writing for rich characters makes it easy for writers to be lazy. If your characters only make 50K/year, they are less likely to fly to another country with only a day's notice or spend an entire week chasing down the mystery of the blahblahblah. And they sure as hell can't get plastic surgery to make them look like their archenemy. In fact they're lucky if they have health insurance.

When I read that I didn't think about the Blaisdels. I thought of the Anders: Blake's butler Joseph and his daughter Kirby. (Kirby was one of my first TV girl crushes even though she was a hot mess.)

[Titus Andronicus]

Days had a very brief storyline of the Lockhart family (Bonnie, Mimi, and forgotten brother Connor) losing everything financially and being homeless. It wasn't done well and I can't remember how it was resolved, but they lived in a cardboard box for a time.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

Sometimes you have to smile to keep from crying.

[R Sinclair]

Which doesn't work for a drama.

[R Sinclair]

I never saw this show, but this critique had me 'ing.

[AlexElizabeth]

There's always OLTL's Gigi.

[ER Tosh]

Life many hard working working class people she lived rent free in a house owned by her good friend.. the richest person in town.

[Khan]

Trust me: if you had watched the show, you'd be crying more than laughing.

[quartermainefan]

Mac and Felicia never seemed all that working class to me what with her family hacienda, he just deciding one day to buy a bar, their large home, and she just deciding one day she is a P.I. and not worrying about how to get paying clients. Ruby was working class for sure.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

IMO it worked out really well

[august1229]

It deprives them of one old staple - the aristocrat falling in love with the working class person and the aristocratic family's objections - maybe they considered it to have been done too many times. It can be an interest tale though. I remember when Chuck fell in love with Donna on AMC way way back. Naturally Phoebe had a fit.

You could do that now, but then the fans don't seem to want favorites to be baddies in that sense - the snob sense, so I think for instance fans of Tracy Quartermaine would not want her ranting about say her son marrying a working class girl - they haven't given the Quartermaine's that sense ever. The mobsters are always "rich" but obviously can't be snobs about it.

[applcin]

The person on OLTL that seemed closest to working class to me was Cristian. He kept changing jobs trying to make money. He wasn't that smart, he could paint but that didn't bring in the bucks, he tried boxing (like, what else was he going to do?) but that didn't last long.

Even Roxy, who was the "trailer trash that never lived in a trailer" ended up with her own business or two.

[frequentsoapfan]

GH doesn't portray their working class people as working class. The only ones I think would currently fit that box at the moment are Sean and TJ and Sean turning down a university job to happily wipe tables at Kellys with not a care in the world was beyond dumb.

I remember so many of the "poor" people in recent years sleeping their way into money. Theresa Lopez Fitzgerald for example came from a family where her mother was a poor maid who had to send one child to Mexico to afford the rest of them yet Theresa managed to sleep her way to CEO of Crane Industries.

And I actually wouldn't mind is some of the rich characters did not associate with the people of a lower class than them, it would be realistic. I went to a rich highschool with mostly wealthy suburban kids while I lived in the city. While I did have some rich friends I was closer to my friends of a similar background who lived in my neighborhood.

Ita with the Vegas being the only ones who came close to working class on OLTL in recent years.

[antmunoz]

Bea drank. ALOT. Off-camera. Hey, if Nola was YOUR daughter...

I need to see if Viki will let me live in the guest house for the next few years...

[xtr]

I agree about Christian. He seemed like he close to working class to me. I also agree with some of the other examples that others gave like Lucky/Liz (even though they had rich relatives). I do remember Lucky and Liz living in that tiny apartment, struggling financially. Also AMC's Babe and Krystal for a while. Michael and Marcie didn't act like they were made of money either. I seem to remember them kind of struggling financially for a bit?

I would say AMC's Aidan was closer to working class than a lot of others. He wasn't poor, but I wouldn't say he was really rich either. He lived in a small place and never really tried to throw any wealth around/showcase that he was wealthy. He probably made enough to live comfortably as a single man, but I don't think he was really rich or anything.

Nowadays it does seem like soaps feature a lot of characters/families that are extremely rich. And you don't really see a lot of characters that aren't super rich. But I can come up with some more characters that weren't extremely rich, if I add some middle class/maybe even upper middle class characters into the mix. In addition to those that have struggled financially. Characters who aren't poor, but who also can't buy their own island, or a huge company or things like that.

I would say AMC's Brot/Natalia/Frankie/Randi/Jake/Amanda fell somewhere in the working class/ middle class/slightly upper middle class categories. None of them were poor but they weren't rolling in the dough either.

I would say that AMC's Jesse/Angie were probably upper middle class. As a Chief of staff and Chief of police, they were probably pretty comfortable, though not really rich.

Some of the ladies that worked at Fusion,- like Di, Erin, Annie (before she married Ryan) and later Madison probably made an okay/decent amount of money, but they weren't rich.

Derek Frye was probably upper middle class like Angie/Jesse. Comfortable but not rich.

I think that Anita Santos and Julia Santos were probably middle class.

I think that on OLTL before Rex found out that he was Clint's son he was probably middle class. Managing Ultra Violet and being a PI kept him afloat, but he wasn't rich.

I think that GH's Mac is probably like Angie/Jesse/Derek Frye.