GH50: November 2013 Discussion

[DRW50]

Wow.

If all these campy, soapy goodness loving ladies like Jillian Bowe truly want to go along with a mindset that tells viewers abortion makes you an unfit mother, more power to them.

[KMan101]

So, Maxie vs. Lulu continues to get uglier and uglier. I never truly bought them as besties, but it was somewhat sad to see their friendship get ripped apart, even though I've quite enjoyed the baby storyline, overall, despite it's glacial pacing.

Nice to see Mac show up. I figured John J. York was "on vacation" when Mac wasn't there yesterday.

Faison/Obrecht and Duke wasn't too bad. I liked Duke pitting them against each other. But I'm somewhat getting tired of the same thing between Faison and O, where she 'realizes' AGAIN that Faison will never be over Anna. I feel like we've had to sit through this scene way too many times, just played a tiny bit differently each time. And as great as they are ... enough. It's all just stalling. And bad stalling.

Spare me everything with Patrick and Sabrina and ugh at Robin having to sit there and listen. I'm also just not buying Robin, in plain sight, in the lab and yet there's never anyone who sees her. IDK it's kinda ridiculous. They couldn't just come up with a Wyndemere secret lab? LOL. I rolled my eyes so hard when Sabrina came to drop off Ellie's wedding invite. Of course Patrick just SO happens to be in there. Oy. And what's the deal with Carlos? Is the show working to redeem him and keep him or is he going to be a throwaway psycho? I admit I find Sabrina/Carlos at least a tiny bit interesting. She's just much better away from Patrick (and Liz and Felix, TBH).

Robert and Anna were nice. Of course when the door opened my mind went to Jerry catching them, so of course, guess who's in the previews! So predictable, LOL.

Nik/Britt was nice. I feel like it's not going to end well for Britt though. Just a hunch (hello, Ben .... clearly that kid is you know who's).

Not an awful show though, actually.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

I agree. I would've been surprised if Diane didn't bring it up. It has nothing to do with the politics of it. She's a pitbull of a lawyer and a lawyer with that kind of reputation won't pass up an opportunity to score a cheap point by any means, especially when their case is in trouble. They'll go as far as the judge allows. It would've been out of character for Diane to not go there. I hate to compliment Carlivati in any way, but it made sense in context.

[Khan]

Another image I'll never be able to un-see in my lifetime.

Hey, RVD! Long time, no see!

[Juliajms]

I couldn't begin to guess their stance on the matter. To me, the only way LuLu's abortion is relevant is that LuLu accused Maxie of killing LuLu's baby when she had a miscarriage. I found that truly bizarre. It would have made sense for Maxie to hit back with the abortion in that conversation. I certainly would have had to point out the difference between a choice and an accident, if I were being accused of killing a baby by suffering a miscarriage.

I suppose it made sense for Diane to bring it up in case the judge was a radical anti-choice person. I say radical because whatever the judges personal beliefs, I'd consider it radical to punish LuLu for exercising her rights.

IDK, I've never loved the way this team writes for women. They aren't the worst, but it could be a lot better.

[DRW50]

I think they're tapping into the view that abortion is murder.

This is the team that thought a woman raping herself was hilarious.

It just seems like trash to me.

[Skin]

Well ABC Daytime under Disney always had the view that children were the best thing that could ever happen to a person. It was always written like that under OLTL and AMC. GH a little less so, but they were still considered to be hugely important. I don't think it's Lulu's abortion necessarily that's the problem so much as the choices that caused it that was a true issue. I made note of that several pages back. Like I said before Lulu and Maxie are both messes that shouldn't be caring for children. Neither of these women should have had babies yet.

[Cheap21]

That was low of Diane to call Lulu's abortion murder. In the eyes of the law, abortion is not murder and she had no business in the court of law throwing that legal term for what happened. Im glad Alexis and the judge called her out on it.

"I'll forward your complaint to your sperm"

[Vee]

That trend really got over the top and puritanical at ABC starting with Bianca, in my view. IMO it was a horrible black mark on AMC to rape her, and while Miranda was a delightful child and a great heroine on the new show it doesn't change what happened to so much of daytime around that period. Almost any young heroine who was fertile, particularly on ABC, suddenly had to be with child or wanting a child; it had to be her primary motivator in life. Women under thirty, under forty, regardless of background or character were forsaking careers, any kind of independent life for children. The network went baby-crazy but it didn't stop at ABC, we see this on Y&R, on GL, on DAYS with Sami's eight kids, Will and Gabi's daughter, etc. Starr Manning - teen mom. Babe Carey - instant mom. Angie Hubbard wants another kid at age 50 even though it leaves her blind. Amanda Martin, Kendall, Greenlee trying for a kid over and over. Liz Webber gives great single mom but she too has too many. And I'm pretty sure even Kelly Monaco isn't buying Sam McCall as a mother. But it's the function of the characters on all these shows.

And it was the same with Maxie and Lulu, both several years ago and again today. These are very young women who are already married off in Lulu's case, and had careers but have now both shared the same singular aspiration to be barefoot and pregnant. A motherhood role is the antithesis of Maxie, and after a certain point that juxtaposition doesn't make for good drama - not if you do it again and again, don't explore it, and make the characters the happiest, most committed and effortless mothers ever. And yes, FV and RC have been instrumental in cementing that view of motherhood as the ultimate achievement for a woman, both on OLTL and on GH. Maxie should never have been pregnant. Lulu should not have been dying for a baby. Starr should not have had a baby. Marty Saybrooke should not have been dying for her boyfriend's kid when she's pushing 45. The list goes on and on.

[Skin]

Yeah there are some characters that just don't need children. It's just not in the way the characters were written. Sometimes having that child pretty much killes their character. For some characters I think it actually worked and made the characters a bit better. I didn't think Miranda was bad for Bianca, but I definitely thought Gabrielle was. A baby worked for Babe (also from AMC). But for other characters there was no need (Starr, Amanda, Sam, Kendell, Greenlee) and those characters in that category are definitely Lulu and Maxie.

[Juliajms]

The crazy thing to me is that the soap audience is still predominately women. I'm guessing many of them have either had a miscarriage or an abortion. Meanwhile the show is bandying around words like "killing" and "murder" in regard to these issues. Now, I'm not a writer, but if I were, that's not how I would try to engage my target audience.

[JackPeyton]

i feel like the abortion blow was more in reaction to the robin blow and it made sense coming from maxie/diane, because they would believably do something like that and now that ive fully watched the episode, i kind of feel like neither one of these ladies is going to get the baby. i do think the show went way, way harder on maxie than lulu in general tho, but the abortion blow was the lowest.

[Vee]

Maxie deserved it all.

[JackPeyton]

Absolutely, and Lulu deserved a hell of lot than what she got - but not the abortion comment.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

I'm surprised we're not currently seeing NLG respond to this. Didn't she have abortion?