Days: October 2019 discussion 🎃

[DRW50]

The writing for Julie is shameful. I just won't criticize the character. I can't and I won't. It's just not her. Forget Julie being "ruined." It's not Julie. I will not even act like it is. Was she a saint? Of course not. But she was never this. There is no reason for any of this story to exist. None. You can say that as some people get older they become more racist, but that isn't what this story is saying. It's just saying she's a racist, isn't that wild and hilarious and she just can't help herself, but let's have a laugh along the way - oh and of course poor Gabi.

 

The material is disgusting and it encapsulates the many, many failures of Ron Carlivati as a writer and in just how much he trucks his many failed headwriting stints in lazy bigotry. 

 

Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith would be sickened.

 

Hell, I'm sickened for them.

[DaytimeFan]

I was home yesterday and tuned into DAYS...whoa what a mess of a show.

 

But I take it that was it for Strasser as Vivian? If so, good. She looked totally out of her element and the costumes and wigs and bad lighting they had her in was atrocious. 

[AlexElizabeth]

Why can't Rolf just perform a miracle for Julie?

[ranger1rg]

I’ll sign on with the others calling the writing for Julie as atrocious and disgusting.

 

it’s not who she was, but Ron C didn’t care, and carried out the horrific bigotry for months and months. Did no one on the set complain? Did SSH ever say “Wait a minute”? Every time I saw her, my mind immediately went to “She’s a racist.”

 

i had had the same problem with the writing for Jack. Going full blown MAGA for all that time? Seriously? It was just sh_it. 

[DRW50]

 

I don't think most actors today have the power to question the writing, and SSH and Matt Ashford both have been fired by the show before (a few times over in his case), which would likely make them even more wary. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

Word +.

 

I literally just opened this thread to post the exact same sentiments.

 

This is not Julie. This is a unlikable, alternative-reality pod version of the character, being butchered by a hack writer who lacks the talent (and probably even the interest) to write consistent, nuanced, adult drama.

 

The show has butchered and warped many of its veteran players over the years, including Maggie, Marlena, and now Julie, and it only turns off long-time viewers like me, who remember how good the writing once was.

[DRW50]

 

For all the breathless hype (from many people who no longer even cover soaps now, or are busy writing their own garbage shows) of how Ron was our savior because he "loved" soaps and "understood" soaps, he has never understood anything beyond his own ego. He was, at best, an adequate scriptwriter who never should have been promoted to more. 

 

I'm sure this is all meant to be delicious camp, and we're supposed to get giddy while we wait to "kiki" over our shiny new editions of Small Wonder re-releases, or whatever the hell else is being pushed as his newest obsession. It's just a shame this has to involve such a rich, complex character. He should never be allowed to write for anyone who has ever provided any worth to this genre. Fortunately for him, that leaves a lot of characters.

[Wendy]

I said at another site that what makes this worse - at least to me - is the fact that Gabi was made sympathetic as a character on Julie's back. As was said, Julie was no saint, of course. She hated people. She was devious at points.

 

But she was NEVER so OTT hateful and vile. And it pisses me off that this behavior was used to sanctify Gabi. Sure, Julie treated Gabi badly, but again? That wasn't the Julie of yesteryear. And it just makes me resent Mary Sue-Gabi that a character LITERALLY on the show since Day One, if not SSH playing her, must be sacrificed for her.

 

But Ron cannot write nuance. Subtlety? Forget it. He has his white hats and black hats and the end.

 

It may not be right or fair as far as my issue with Gabi/Julie goes, but it's how I feel.

[vetsoapfan]

 

The folks who claim RC is a savior who understands soaps tend to be, from what I have seen, people who do not understand the genre, themselves. Low-brow camp (with outrageous caricatures paraded across the screen in place of recognizable human characters) is NOT what is genre is about. If the audience had been handed this crap from the start, soaps would never have become popular to begin with, let alone lasted for generations. My sarcastic self often wonders who the target viewers for this "new" model of soaps are: gum-chewing grade-school drop-outs who move their lips when they read, but still cannot understand the big words? Drunken drag-queens who are anxiously waiting for the next episode of RuPaul's show to air, and need a temporary "fix" in the meantime?

 

UGH.

 

 

ITA. The exact same thing happened on GH, when that degenerate, would-be hitman Luke Spencer SEXUALLY ASSAULTED a married teenager, and then to prop him up and portray him as the show's new hero, the show inexplicably and stupidly started saying that SCOTTY was the bad guy (!!!) for being pissed off that his wife and the hoodlum rapist ran off together. It was sickening, and it only made me loathe Luke more, just like the Julie/Gabi idiocy turns me completely off Gabi.

 

Sigh. 

[Contessa Donatella]

 

AMEN. I've hurt for it with Maggie and Marlena both in the past. But, I am more in pain for it to be Julie.

 

And, I find myself really worrying with great concern if Ron is going to cause DOOL to go under?!!! Can the ratings sustain this?!!! Will we lose one of the last four to what is such a mess where the writing is concerned?!!! I really care about that. I'm not watching Y&R or B&B or GH. I'm only watching DOOL. And, I find myself feeling a little desperate. Heck, one day last week I felt myself in a cliffhanger moment where it seemed like Julie had died! I didn't know for sure that she had not until Monday's show. And, it is the writing. The Directing is solid, with Scott McKinsey in there pitching with others. And, that's a good cast for the most part. Oh, I have whined about Stacy Haiduk and about Robin Strasser but they are only two. The bulk of the cast fits fine into the town called Salem.

 

Okay, now, there's a problem with definition. This is not camp.

[jam6242]

I agree with the comments about what Ron has done re Julie.  I have enjoyed the Doug and Julie scenes in which they've been alone, but I give credit to Susan and Bill for that.  Now Ron seems to be working on dragging down Kayla, making her an incompetent and unethical doctor.  And none of this is making me like Gabi either.  Just makes me resent her.

[teplin]

 

Ditto. I hated it when Jim Reilly treated Maggie like a piece of furniture and deducted 50 IQ points from Marlena. But this feels even worse. On the one hand, I'm thrilled to see Julie on screen more than we have in years. But I hate that viewers who don't know the real Julie – who didn't see her progress from troubled schemer to romantic heroine to high-powered businesswoman – are labeling her racist because of the way Ron is writing her. 

[Contessa Donatella]

 

Yes, it's true that I have really felt settled into it when they've put Doug & Julie alone. And, there's no good reason for him to be writing Kayla this way! Kay is a jewel.

 

Yes, I was just reminiscing about what a spoiled little girl she was. But, Julie has had character growth in front of our very eyes like no other.

Okay, I know that a canonical definition of camp is out there somewhere from Susan Sontag, but I don't have it to hand right now.

 

Here's the dictionary.com definition:

 

something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being artlessly mannered or stylized, self-consciously artificial and extravagant, or teasingly ingenuous and sentimental.

 

a person who adopts a teasing, theatrical manner, especially for the amusement of others.

verb (used without object)

Also camp it up. to speak or behave in a coquettishly playful or extravagantly theatrical manner.

adjective

campy: camp Hollywood musicals of the 1940s.

 

See?! Nope, this is not camp. Not sophisticated. Not with knowing amusement. Not artlessly mannered. Not stylized. Not artificial. Not extravagant. Etc.

 

 

 

[AbcNbc247]

Depends on how you look it. I think GH is in more danger of cancellation then DAYS. I only watch DAYS, B&B and GH and out of those three, I think DAYS  is in the best shape. It does need work though.

[Contessa Donatella]

 

Well, I am glad to hear that opinion.