Honestly, why do soaps have a bad rap and are easily targeted

[allmc2008]

First of all, I HATE SOAP SPOOFS!! The only one I like is "Soap" from the 70s. I just watched the crap that was on "The Apprentice" and I cringed. I had NO idea what they were doing but it DID not resembled a soap!! The only way I knew it was a spoof is because they said they were spoofing a soap.

Also, I hated how someone at the end said "I like how they took traditional soap drama and made it compelling and entertaining". I was like "Traditional soap drama IS Compelling and Entertaining"

It seems as if soap spoofs across the board are constructed by having the actors act as cheezy and over-the-top as possible then have them say lines that make hardly no sense. Also, I understand the last 10 years have been awful for soaps but the genre has been around for 80 years. I hate how some spoof's in the last 15-20 years have featured Organ Music!! I was watching The Nanny a while ago and there was a mini spoof that I cringed at because of the Organ Music (granted I thought the Dynasty one was cute).

But really, why are soaps targeted? Too me, saying "were going to do a spoof on Soaps" is like saying "We are going to do a Spoof on Dramas" How can you compare early 80s GH to Early 80's Y&R to early 80s AW??

This may be more about spoof's but I am really wondering why they are treated like crap across the board.

[Darn]

Because of their fans.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

Because of the over the top acting that's constantly hailed, the fans, the soap press,the cliche over used storylines like baby switches and long lost kids and alot of those spoofs are based off the soap stuff from the 80s.

I tend to laugh at alot of them

[EricMontreal22]

I think it just comes from the fact that they've always been at thebottom rung of their medium, and like pulp, made to be quickly consumed and then discarded. In many ways they're to radio and tv what comic books are to books, although of course the comic book collecting market boom 20 or so years back has given them some sort of credibility.

Like comics, if you looked at them as a whole you'd prob find a lot more crap than brilliant stuff, but it doesn't mean that they aren't possible to also have some very good stuff.

[jo.frank88]

I think we as soap fans tend to look over alot of things that a non-soap fan wouldn't. To us it's just another baby switch/back from the dead, etc ( we're accustomed to them).. but to a non-soap viewer they see more the "cheesy-ness" of it. Of course, we see how cheesy it is too - but in many ways, that's why we watch - the escapism. I think many non-soap viewers don't understand the emotional connected-ness to characters, storylines (heck even the sets) and just see the "cheesy-ness" and "lame" plot points before they turn the channel and mock the soaps. It's understandable - even though we see it differently.

[Antoyne]

I would say the fans and the fact that 95% of the actors are terrible at acting but good at memorizing lines.

[EricMontreal22]

Actually, in all honesty when I've spoken to non-soap watching fans who, for some reason, watch a few minutes, they nearly all say that the acting is much better than they assumed it would be, and seem aware of how quickly the actors have to learn, etc. But they don't really see how invested soap viewers get--as was pointed out here it tends to be not so much for the crazy plot twists that keep longterm viewers watching, it's investment in the characters, the history, nostalgia for many who started watching as kids or with their parents, etc, etc. I think it is hard to sorta see inside that soap world if you're not a part of it.

[quartermainefan]

Because even what we think of as great soaps come across as ridiculous and moronic to non-soap watchers. All the crying and screaming, the ridiculous way everyone sleeps with everyone else, the way there is always--always--someone at the hospital, how everything is ok except abortions--even murder, ridiculous dialogue like "we took vows"...it is all over the top nonsense. They are TV shows where no one ever has a good day and yet they never seem to find it strange. Spoofs work because they are based on something that is true. Now maybe the organ music is outdated, but until very recently silly stuff like the way people would stare at the end of every scene for no reason whatsoever was de rigueur for soaps.

[jfung79]

It's not staring, and they still do it on DAYS ... It's a lingering reaction shot. It is not unique to soaps. It is something that I think used to be more common in televsion and film, and soaps held on to that tradition for longer. Lingering reactions are also seen in some of the epic movies. I for one am glad of it. It allows you to delve into the emotion of a character and of the scene.

I think soaps in the US have had a bad rap because of the excesses of primetime soaps in the 80s. When soaps came to be seen about being about looking good and catfights. James Reilly's writing (sorry Toups) being one of the most common images of soaps in the 90s and 2000s, with actors with their shirts off all the time, many of whom could not act, talking about the same thing over and over, also didn't help.

It is also partially a sexist/gender thing. Soaps with a predominantly female audience are not considered as "serious" as male-dominated work.

But anyone who did not go into soaps with preconceived notions would have to acknowledge the difficulty and craft behind the writing, acting, and production of these stories that do not end, interwoven with each other, 5 days a week. Behind these shows that are about emotions, relationships, and characters.

By and large, soap actors and soap writers are much better actors and writers than the people behind the underdeveloped, plothole-filled dreck that passes for an acceptable episode in primetime. There is a lot more "just put out any old formula thing" in the police procedurals and hospital shows of primetime than there are on soaps. Primetime writers often can't hack it when they come to daytime.

In other countries, like the UK, soaps are viewed with more prestige and are considered some of the pinnacles of television. Partially it's because of the subject matter. It's true that American soaps use too many of the same cliches like baby switches and hospital drama. But these plot elements are but a small part of what makes a soap a soap.

Soaps are not just consumable and disposable ... Soap fans analyze soaps intently and have strong opinions. That's also not a bad thing. Being involved in discussion, in analysis -- being engaged by the subject matter -- is not a bad thing. Quite a few soap fans can tell you who the script writers are on their show, who does the music, who directs, who does the casting. The difference between a head writer, breakdown writer, and script writer. Most TV besides science-fiction does not evoke that level of engagement and analysis both behind the scenes and of the stories and characters themselves.

[EricMontreal22]

The gender bias is fair to bring up I think. Traditionally, although women have often actually been the biggest consumers of books, movies, etc, ones, the work aimed at them tends to be not taken as seriously--whether it warrants it or doesn't. The fact that, due to their timeslots, UK soaps and soaps in other cultures aren't often as associated with "the housewife eating bonbons and crying while watching her stories" is one reason they're taken more seriously.

"I think soaps in the US have had a bad rap because of the excesses of primetime soaps in the 80s. James Reilly's writing being one of the most common images of soaps in the 90s and 2000s, with actors with their shirts off all the time, who could not act, talking about the same thing over and over, also didn't help."

While I agree with this, obviously this treatment of soaps came from before then. James Thurber did an entertaining series on radio soaps for the NewYorker in the 40s where, while he trats them with more respect than they had gotten before, it's still very much a "look how silly these crazy emotional stories are with everyone connected to everyone else," thing. Still, just a few years before that a psychiatrist (forget who...) released a study about how soaps were basically ruining American women, causing them to be depressed and paranoid by listening and identifying with these super fraught radio programs (the networks even listened to this somewhat, asking that their soaps be slightly more upbeat during WWII as an act of patriotism to keep America's women strong while the men were off fighting.) Which of course is another common thing with comic books which a shrink convinced people was destroying America's youth. And then you have classic parodies (yes, which tend to all use organs) like Carol Burnett's As The Stomach Turns (and she was of course a big fan), Soap, Mary Hartman, etc.

I do think though that it's true that things that are parodied in these as being soap staples often don't really reflect what soaps are anymore--like that damn organ music. And yet, they're instantly recognized as soap opera elements...

[chicklitsandfantasies]

I sat with my friend to watch her favorite telenovela. She says she doesn't like American soaps because of the bad acting/boring plots but her telenovela was filled with horrible over emoting that she was praising as we watched saying she loved how intense it was.

Oh and speaking of the lingering looks at the ends of scenes I hate that. I remember being on Passions boards and those fans would make fun of "the look" all the time. Those lingering reactions shots don't work in non intense scenes.

And I can't remember the last time I watched a soap parody with organ music in it.

And speaking of UK soaps I've also seen many talk about the ridiculousness of EastEnders so while they are taken more seriously they still get their fair amount of hate.

I wouldn't take parodies too seriously especially when I see Lifetime movies get the same amount of mockery and there's plenty of things they could pull out of soaps and mock that they don't.

[DramatistDreamer]

While I've loved soaps since I was a child, there is one aspect that sets these shows up every time-- some of the ridiculously over the top storylines, and worst of all...the ridiculously over the top storylines that DIDN'T WORK (the biggest no-no).

Even farce has a place within some logical reason. Too many soaps (daytime commits this sin with regularity) bypass any type of logic (or logic's cousin, common sense), in favor of shock value or to try to 'correct' a story/character trait that although it might have been misguided had become ingrained when they try to change things. Re-writing well documented, well traversed history, even when it makes absolutely no sense.

And I know we as fans tend to accept SORASing but you have to admit, it is pretty funny when it shows up onscreen.

[SouthOfSoap]

It's not only soaps - its is anything that employs melodrama to sell it's story - Mills & Boon, Jackie Collins, Danielle Steele etc. - that genre of literature gets the same treatment.

Because melodrama seems to appeal more to women than men stereotypically, that is where the gender bias appears.

I think it is fair to say that people who don't "get" soaps or other similar stuff, can be rather scornful or mocking of it - there doesn't seem to be much indifference or middle ground. To be sure, the way soaps have been written for the last 20 years or longer, there is a lot of low hanging fruit to make fun of.

[edgeofnik]

The bad rap started in the 60s and 70s and continued on. The overwrought drama, the constant victimization of women, the ridiculous storylines, the angst, etc. Marriage after marriage after marriage, long-last twins, Stephano (the Phoenix), hair models, etc. Doesn't matter, we still love our soaps and, frankly, so many primetime shows are FAR worse.

[Gray Bunny]

It's funny how stereotypes of the early years of television stick around even today. But on an episode of Family Guy, they do a soap reference where they have the dramatic organ music and the freeze frame of the characters while the announcer does the pondering of "will something happen?" in the next episode. And then the announcer says, "Will our younger viewers understand this soap reference?" because clearly this type of cliffhanger ending to a show is a thing of the past.