Why No Daytime Soap Set in the South?

[Faulkner]

The Midwest (“America’s heartland”), the Northeast, and the West Coast have been well represented in the annals of soapdom, but why hasn’t there been a real attempt at a daytime soap set in the South (and not Texas but Louisiana and eastward)? I suppose part of it is that these other regions feel more “generic” for storytelling purposes (soap cities have traditionally been “Everytown, U.S.A.”), less potentially alienating for a wide swath of audiences, and easier for a wide variety of actors based in Los Angeles and New York to convincingly do the accents. (Plus Irna, Agnes, and Bill were all from Chicago, and they were the architects of daytime as we know it.)

But we all know Southerners are huge soap viewers, and Southern culture is just *ripe* for drama and intrigue. It would have been cool for a daytime answer to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason to have done a multiethnic, irreverent soap set in Atlanta.

 

Soap characters from written as Southern have traditionally been trashy (Opal Gardner) or mystical oddballs (Luna Moody), so that’s somewhat telling as to how the South’s been perceived.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Faulkner

[Darn]

I think Savannah is the closest we've gotten to a Southern soap. I loved that white trash nonsense, cancelled way too soon.

[Taoboi]

I LOVE and MISS Savannah. Cancelled too soon, but enough wrapped up that fans were not left hanging.

 

Speaking of which...there's that new Southern soap coming out with Kim Cantrell. But I don't know if that is a summer or fall thing. And can't remember if it is in Texas though I want to say no.

 

As a Southerner...I can't hate on those characteristics. hehe. Bible belt and all. 

[watson71]

Only two daytime soaps with a Southern location that I can recall are P&G's Texas (Houston) and The Catlins (Atlanta).  

 

NBC's new  prime time drama Council of Dads relies heavily on its Savannah, GA locale as part of the plot, as does Netflix's Outer Banks and its North Carolina locale.

[Faulkner]

 

Yep. That’s what came to mind for me as well. Sad that it didn’t connect.

 

I read that the Corringtons had planned a soap set in the Antebellum South before they did Texas. I wonder what that would have looked like.

[Darn]

This topic prompted me to look up Savannah and it was doing VERY well for the WB when it was cancelled and was even a hit in the UK.

 

The show was the most successful program on The WB at the time...Garth Ancier, president of the WB's entertainment division, attributed its cancellation to the fact that "serial dramas don't repeat well, making the investment too expensive".

 

The first season was broadcast in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1996 on ITV in a prime time slot and became the highest rated new American series of that year.

 

Sad.

[Faulkner]

Ok that pisses me off. I see that a lot of it is posted online so I might give it a rewatch.

[Taoboi]

I was about to say...lol. It did VERY well from what I remember. I wanted to say it was a BTS network thing that got it cancelled. Cuz it was not the numbers. 

 

Peyton was THAT bitca. lol. 

[Soaplovers]

I think rituals from the 80s took place in Virginia....but I think for a truly good southern soap..you nees a writer from the south to create one.

[robbwolff]

I vaguely recall that NBC toyed with a southern-based soap in the 1980s but ultimately didn't pick it up. It was possibly around 1983-1984, was titled Generations (not to be confused with Sally Sussman's soap), and was created by Dorothy Ann Purser. And, of course, NBC seriously considered adding its primetime soap Flamingo Road to the daytime lineup.

[GLATWT88]

Many primetime soaps/dramas in the past decade or so are set in the South like Nashville, Greenleaf, Hart of Dixie, One Tree Hill, Jane the Virgin (Miami, which doesn't really fall in the same category). 

 

A daytime soap based in the South would definitely be an interesting premise. I feel if soaps had continued to be developed into the 2000s we may have had a Southern based soap.

[Faulkner]

I agree. (Throw True Blood in there.) I feel like the center of gravity of the country has moved South, with so many northern transplants going to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, etc. Plus so many black folks who’d settled in the north for generations returned to their family homes down South. (My family left Missouri for Mississippi in the ‘90s after 40 years.) Like with so many cultural trends, it’s just a shame that soaps didn’t stay viable long enough to capture that.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Faulkner

[Taoboi]

See? TRUE BLOOD...I think horror or mystery before I think soap. Though it did get soapy the longer it went on.

[All My Shadows]

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For the record, Louisiana is very different from the rest of the south in many, many ways, and I have yet to see any soap or soap-like show truly portray us (or any portion of our society) as real people outside of shallow stereotypes centered on voodoo or "Nawlins" (and that includes Katrina - there's more to us than that, y'all!). AMC did a random as hell Mardi Gras ball complete with the expected early 2000s soap disaster in around 2005 or 2006, and I love Agnes's baby, but I just remember rolling my eyes the entire time. And then a few years later, Angie made a comment about making "shrimp gumbo," which is fine, Angie, and I love you girl, but I'm not eating gumbo made in Pine Valley, PENNSYL-DAMN-VANIA.

Ahem.

When I was a kid creating soap characters and storylines for fun, I always focused on soapy locales like the Midwest, but when I dabble back in it these days (just for fun - it really exists more in my head than it does on paper or computer screen), every single one of my show ideas is set in Louisiana because there are so many stories that just haven't been told, and you don't have to bend yourself in all kinds of crazy directions to tell them. A simple teen soap set in Louisiana about real Louisiana teens would be amazing. Do "Coronation Street" in a Louisiana trailer park - ridiculously fun stuff. Do something set at a small-town commuter college (which I think was the original premise of LOVING, right?). If you want to focus on the wealthy, you got tons of "relatively rich" people down here who think they run everything but they really ain't sht, and they're two or three degrees of separation away from that Coronation Street trailer park. We're a good time

[GLATWT88]

I have several friends who have all moved down South within the last decade for varying reasons. I think the South has such a unique identity from the other regions of the US, yet it hasn't been fully explored on TV. The cultural identity itself, and the everyday dynamics of race, religion and gender in the South.

 

I just remembered "The Haves and the Have Nots" is also based in the South if I remember correctly. I've only watched a few episodes, but I found the premise an interesting one that could work well on a soap. Race and class disparity between two families whose worlds traverse because one woman is a maid for the other. The haves hiding a multitude of scandals and secrets behind their pristine facade.

Edited May 8, 2020 by GLATWT88