Soap Tropes: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[mikelyons]

The Good: The bitch goddess (Lisa, Rachel, Erica, Jill, Brooke); Social climbing; Character development; Engaging opening title sequences

 

The Bad: All of the black people/minorities are related; Super-couples; Endless stunts; Repetitive dialogue 

 

The Ugly: Raping the heroine; Rehabilitating the rapist; The illiterate person of color learns to read and improves his/her life (huge sigh); A woman on cough medicine/slightly out of it mistakenly sleeps with her husband's brother and bears his (the brother's) child; Forcing a newcomer down the audience's throat; The only people of color are cops, thugs, gangsters, accountants, or under-fives...

[All My Shadows]

Good: benevolent grandmas who are accepting of almost anything/anyone
Bad: people with no business experience whatsoever successfully maneuvering the corporate world
Ugly: original premises shapeshifting and transforming and regenerating into all kinds of crazy nonsense to attract "younger audiences"

[Darn]

 

It's funny, I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s almost every complaint about daytime was their desperate attempts to cater to a younger audience by getting rid of vets and bringing on a bunch of hair models and having everyone half-naked. But now it seems like everyone is old and telling the same stories for 20 years. Instead of trying to attract new viewers they're desperately trying to hold onto the few they have and by doing that the same characters are making the exact same bad decisions they were making 10, 15, 20 years ago.

[Mitch]

Good: Older Matriarch/Patriarch of a town, who all people come to for advice/everyone gathering at the core families home for holidays/poor girl/guy from the wrong side of the tracks social climbing/exasperated mother/older female dealing with the town vixen/said vixen actually has a heart of gold

 

Bad: Triangles where two women fight over a man, one is always "bad"/Woman turns psycho to give supercouple more story/small midwest town has international airport and "yachts"/several international businesses/young people are instantly heads of corporations/there is so middle management in a coroporation just v.p.s/no writer does research on how publicly held companies work.

[Khan]

I was just thinking the other day how much I miss seeing "have-nots" on soaps, grasping at every opportunity to obtain a better life for themselves and/or their loved ones.  Nowadays, it seems like every character has a private jet that's always at their disposal.

[Gray Bunny]

 

I miss that, too. Recently, I was rewatching GL from 1996 and there was still such a great class structure between the wealthy Spauldings, the upper-middle Lewises, and the lower class Reardons at Company. You would never find an Alan Spaulding dining at Company or going to Buzz's lil restaurant unless it was to torture Buzz or Reva. 

 

Eventually, all the soap characters on every show became part of a general class, where a young girl knocked up by a gay guy can be running DiMera Enterprises and whatnot... 

 

 

To add to "The Bad": I was going to either revive an old thread or start a new one... but some things nitpicky that make a big difference is the lack of detail or effort to the every day simple stuff. It's so annoying when someone at Crimson Lights or Brady Pub orders a coffee and then proceeds to hold onto an EMPTY cup! We can see an inch down into the cup and there's nothing in there. They set it down on a table and we hear the hollow sound when it's set on the table. 

 

It's just as realistic as a women waking up in full makeup and perfectly coiffed hair. 

[mikelyons]

Ugh. It's very annoying to watch. How hard is it to pour cold coffee into the cup? Come on, Props!

[soapfan770]

The good: Strong matriarchs and/or patriarchs, family gatherings and holiday traditions, divas and vixens, tent pole characters. 
 

The bad: Constant endless triangles, rush to get married amongst teens and early 20-something’s in this century, pushing each pet couple as a super couple, and not using history.

 

The ugly: near incest with relationships. People falling for step-siblings and/or adopted family members is really quite the stretch but three members of the same family shouldn’t be in a triangle!

[ElleWoods]

The good: History, family scenes and strong actresses.

 

The bad: Writers pushing longterm characters under the bus for theeir new pet/creation.

 

The Ugly: The handling of rape and sexual assault and the inevitable "redemption" of the rapist. 

[mikelyons]

The bad: Killing off the children of core families/legacy characters for a cheap ratings spike. Yes, I'm looking at you,  Y&R. Phillip Chancellor, III. Colleen Carlton. Cassie Newman. Delia Abbott.