7 hours ago, Darn said:

 

I don't know about that, Y&R had a series of incredibly popular ingenues in Sharon, Mac, Lily and Colleen in the 90s and 2000s. All good girls in extremely popular pairings.

Sharon was not a good girl, she got raped but like Karen from OLTL and Nikki who  got raped, not a good girl.  She poked a hole in a condom to get preggers, just sayin!

9 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Actually the ingenue character has been essentially gone from soaps for 20-30 years.  The last successful long-term ingenue was probably Lily Walsh on ATWT.  Since the 1980s very few ingenues have been successful long-term characters, and nearly all those that were brought on the canvas quickly disappeared (or gone crazy or turned bad). For example, the last two or three ingenues Agnes Nixon tried to create on AMC failed miserably and were very short term characters.  DOOL tried an ingenue character a couple of years ago (can't remember the character's name, but she was Eve's daughter).  That character proved unpopular and was killed off in less than a year.  Today, soaps just take a bitch/bad-girl character and give her the romance and the perils of Pauline stuff.  Good girls are considered boring.  

Bad girl becoming Perils of Paulina happened with Rachel, Erica, Nola, Lisa and Nikki/Lauren in the 80s

Edited January 16, 20205 yr by rlj

The idea that a "good girl" can't be raped is an incredibly offense statement to make. I'll carry on with the Ignore feature. SMDH. 

On 1/16/2020 at 10:45 AM, DramatistDreamer said:

The idea that a "good girl" can't be raped is an incredibly offense statement to make. I'll carry on with the Ignore feature. SMDH. 

Never said that!

I would say Eric on B&B although he’s stupid.  

Characters aren't allowed to "grow" up anymore, they have adult children and still act the same way they did 15 years earlier. I think that's part of why we have less/few/none matriarchs/patriarch characters. If you get into that role, you may end up off contract or written out, (it has happened enough times) that it feels like it is intentional.

 

When it comes to character types: I recall in one of the soap books that one of the types mentioned - and now disappeared is the sensitive man. (I don't know when they started in soaps, the first reference I saw to them elsewhere was Alan Alda's character on "MASH" being the example.)

 

Others I don't recall seeing as much anymore are charming well-educated playboy - I think they tried this with Y&R's Kyle, to copy his father Jack, but it didn't completely work. As they redeemed him very quickly, and well he wasn't "bad" enough to be a bad boy or good enough to be good, not sure?

 

Actually for the most part professional characters aren't really a thing anymore either they are independently wealthy, a CEO and don't have an actual job, we see on screen. The only Newman child who was educated was Adam. Soaps used to be filled with upper middle class professionals (like Tom Horton, a doctor), GH's Alan was a doctor even though he could have lived off the family wealth. 

 

The unlucky in love character aka the "black widow" - could be a good or bad person that goes through love interests every few months or years or contract renewals. The unconventional character (sometimes comic relief other times not) appears less often as they aren't as hot. 

On 1/16/2020 at 3:00 AM, Paul Raven said:

I think the matriach/patriach characters disappeared from soaps for a variety of reasons.

 

The emphasis on youth pervaded the soaps in another way as actors in their 40's and beyond projected a far more youthful look than previous generations. Frances Reid and MacDonald Carey were in their 50's when Days began and perfectly acceptable as parents and grandparents. Compare Reid at 51 to Michelle Stafford who is now 54 for example.

 

Also the shows continued to give the same characters front burner stories Jack Abbott/Victor Newman/Marlena Evans way beyond what was necessary for those characters. Logical character depictions went out the window to keep them front and center when they should have been eased into strong supporting roles.

 

 

These are two very good points.

Ingenures exist but they're written as goody two shoes with no brains, backbone or personality.

 

Tara on AMC always knew Erica was up to no good..and didn't fall for her tales.  If they were featured today...Tara would believe anything Erica said without question.

 

I think Caroline on BB in the late 80s was an ingenue..but had a backbone, career and a personality...even Taylor did as well in the early 90s.

On 1/15/2020 at 5:08 PM, Darn said:

 

Yeah! And OLTL had Jessica and Starr (unfortunately), AMC had Dixie and Bianca. To say Lily was the last ingenue is just incorrect.

 

Bianca came to my mind immediately when I read that soaps don't have ingenue's anymore. Granted she debuted in the 90's but she was pretty easily defined as an ingenue, Eden's performance was well received, and the character was renowned both critically, commercially, and culturally. 

Edited January 27, 20205 yr by Skin