One Life to Live OLTL: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[Vee]

I don't understand the idiots claiming the show is written for "straight males" - Dani and Viki have key stories about them, and Clint is clearly portrayed as in the wrong. Destiny is shown to be a proud, upright citizen and single mother. Matthew's behavior towards her is frowned upon by the show and every other character on it except Michelle.

Dani is the troubled heroine who's been given loads of character work, falling into an icky (yet hot) relationship with a very questionable older man. That is a staple of soaps going back to Marco Dane, Karen and Tina; it's not about how hot it is that this new character might hit it with Dani. At all.

Viki is struggling to save her paper and both she and Natalie have fought back against Clint's controlling influence. The show has clearly sympathized with both of them. Natalie is trying to move on without the "love of her life". Clint is shown to be human but also wrong.

And as for the other stories, giving David a POV beyond a cartoonish sidekick for the first time in years is not the same as "making Dorian the bad guy." It's clearly been shown that both David and Dorian are ruining their marriage, mutually. It's just not all about David the comedy beefcake in speedos anymore. And oh, God forbid Jack talk to his uncle about his love life. It's not like they were snickering and passing out nude photos. God forbid men talk to other men without it being all about what Sabrina and Felix are doing today for Patrick Drake without his permission. All for Patrick! All because Britt is lyyyy-eeeng!! She wants my boyfriend!

Look, I've seen a misogynistic soap - Bob Guza wrote it intentionally for almost ten years and hollowed GH out, and Dena Higley and Ron Carlivati wrote it with differing degrees of intention, off and on, for years. Ron is not a misogynist, but the bottom line is he's wrote a lot of unintentionally misogynist, crass, overly casual [!@#$%^&*] towards women, and dismissed any complaints with "that's soaps!" By comparison, I can hardly find two straight male characters talking about their love lives or their personal feelings to be misogynistic or frattish. I think it's real and honest, a lot more honest than any men I watch on network soaps these days, where most of them are either meat puppet pawns, idiots or sociopaths whose flaws we're supposed to wave off because of the actor's Q rating or their pecs. (Ford.) Soaps are a female genre, with gay men also in the spectrum - you can't market them to straight men. But you can market them to all people as best as possible. And just because you're writing predominantly to women and gay men doesn't mean the men aren't allowed to be three-dimensional and talk amongst themselves. Malone knew that. Doug Marland and Bill Bell certainly did. No one told them Y&R was a "dudebro soap" (okay, kids) because they watched years upon years of Jack vs. Victor.

Ron's OLTL either never knew or they never cared that Ford or John or Rex or Todd or Victor were assholes, sociopaths, whatever. I was out there supporting him even before Daytime Confidential got the scent for his name, and I can tell you this was his downfall - trying to force the audience to think one thing when the story he told onscreen said another. He's very talented still, he still does a lot of good when he wants and produces compulsively watchable, entertaining soap opera, either intentionally or unintentionally. But by contrast, this new OLTL is grounded in people, not plot and one writer's ego. Jeffrey is a calming, mature influence who calls Matthew on his [!@#$%^&*] while still being his friend. The show knows Matthew is a dick, while also still being a human being. It lets us know he's a dick. It's okay with that. Ron never, ever was. Not with Ford, not with Nate, not with Victor or Todd, not with Rex, not with anyone he loved. And this OLTL is even-handed - it shows both sides of a story, from both people's perspectives, with Viki and Clint or Dorian and David.

That's not a misogynistic soap. That's just a soap that is a lot more versatile and grounded in contemporary reality than the ones I've been watching the last few years. And I have a feeling a lot of the men on Ron's GH right now would rather have the same voice. Jason Thompson looks ready to eat a gun every single day.

[greens_dupres]

Vee, once again applauding you from my computer. A few weeks back for some stupid reason, I idiotically (probably just because I was bored of trying to memorize archaic property laws & maybe because I just didn't understand their argument at all) briefly tried to engage with the "dudebrosoap" contingent on twitter. But I quickly realized there's no reasoning with them- Matthew is a deadbeat who has been "rewarded" by the writers with another hot girl instead of a catfish & is loved by everyone (nevermind that she's obviously insane and that everyone except maybe a drunk Dani has been shown to be pissed at his behavior re Drew), Cutter (and also Bruce & Dean) are not half naked every ep and therefore OLTL is a dudebrosoap (the shirtless year of the Fords is lauded as RC at least "knowing" his audience), Roxy is not there and OLTL is therefore a dudebrosoap, Viki & Dorian are shrews that are holding back Clint and David (what????) & David isn't fun enough, Arturo somehow equals dudebrosoap creeper and "everyone" hates his story, and character moments are somehow an undesirable thing. And somehow they've decided that Jeff K has hijacked the writing room (but only on OLTL, not AMC because Agnes doesn't allow that) and JP is a puppet with no vision. GH on the other hand is perfect because of "exciting" plots. And OLTL was perfect under Cartini. And now watching it is a "chore"- yet, every week I see them commenting on the new eps with the same complaints. Oh well, more views for PP I guess.

[marceline]

RC's asshattery notwithstanding I think one of the issues facing soaps in general and OLTL in particular, is the reality that one soap can't be one thing to all people. If you like the camp and misogyny of RC's writing then you aren't going to like the more realistic take on these shows. It's the same as the people who claimed that the swearing kept the soaps from being classy. RC doesn't seem to realize just how much he's damaged and continues to damage the show he claims to love. He's the ex-boyfriend who would rather see his girlfriend dead than happy with someone else.

[Vee]

I just don't understand how someone can claim OLTL is misogynistic or driven by men (it's not) and then turn to look at GH and say they don't see the issues.

I think there is still stuff that works on GH. I think Carlivati can entertain when he wants to, as AdelaideCate said - when he bothers with the show and not OLTL or his ego, he can do good work. But it's got a lot of very questionable [!@#$%^&*] about women, gay men, sexual violence, you name it.

[EricMontreal22]

I enjoyed Pepperman's interview, though it was less revelatory than Smith's--perhaps because we had already read fairly detailed interviews from her. I kinda wish some mention of the bad pacing for the Tattoo story had either been asked or mentioned. ANd I admit she managed to sneak in a few non-answers I thought (like with Kish she acknowledged them but didn't really say if there was a chance they'd ever return or other gay characters would join.)

LOL at the woman who seems ready to kill herself if it means that poor Victor will not be tortured. And *sigh* to Ron's tweet--especially since, indirectly, she seemed to be full or praise for his work (interesting that Frank V helped her get the job.)

It does seem like the EPs are much more directly involved with story than they had been for a long time at the networks. I think this is how it should be...

Oh and the dudebro thing is beyond inane. I simply don't see where that is coming from.

[cassadine1991]

Ron's tweet screamed of bitterness and jealousy and he knew what he was tweeting, he wanted to rile things up

[cassadine1991]

Wow... Still seeing the attacks are in still in full force, over some measly innocent interview

[greens_dupres]

Oh my god you hit the nail on the head. Part of me hopes that one day he gets drunk and decides to live tweet an ep of nu OLTL. Actually don't wish that at all with his crazy brigade ready to like order a hit on JP but I do think it would be entertaining. That said, the TnB contingent on Twitter is also getting a little scary with this. I am just going to enjoy reading some of the madness and keep posting here with this lovely, sane crowd.

[ER Tosh]

I still don't understand this "dudebro" thing. Buy their standards most of the successful soap eras in history were "dudebro" shows..

[cassadine1991]

They are saying now how Jen is a pawn and PP are playing fans like puppets, also they are going as far as reporting other accounts who are siding with PP or agree with them

[AdelaideCate007]

I'm not on either side but how is people defending Ron any different from people defending JP? From what I've seen, they both have their rational defenders and they both have their crazies.

Twitter behaviour and the OLTL 3 debacale aside, I generally like Ron and most of what he does on the show so does that make me a "cult member" because judging by your standards, anyone who likes him seems to be in a "crazy cult".

[~bl~]

How are you finding these tweets? I'm on team soap, I'm not really pro either person...

[AdelaideCate007]

I'm not seeing anything crazier or more offensive than normal either.

[cassadine1991]

It takes a lot of digging around

[cassadine1991]

Absolutely not I'm talking about those who are attacking without taking the time to listen and know all the facts, and just blindly retread the same nonsense