Y&R March 2021 Discussion Thread

[LondonScribe]

I personally agree that it would be good to tell some real world stories in soaps (heck, I live in a country where you’d catch hell for not tackling issues) but I think I read of some viewers online taking umbrage with Days Of Our Lives having new character Paulina calling the people of Salem out for their relative lack of diversity. 
 

I genuinely think there is contingent of remaining viewers who don’t want stories that deal with race or other (Conservative) ‘hot topics’.

Edited March 18, 2021 by LondonScribe

[FrenchBug82]

Well I for one am sick and tired of a certain section of the population deciding what we can or cannot talk about. One of the main issue around race in this country has been that white people have determined what could or could not be said, talked about and the frame within the conversation could happen. Enough.

ALL soaps are avoiding those topics lest they offend them; I reiterate that is why there is a wide open lane for at least one soap that will be honest and interesting and tackle hot topics without worrying about offending this or that. Those folks can move to the other scaredy-cat soaps instead and let sane people of the 21st century have one.

[LondonScribe]

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the drunken car crash Devon was in 4 years ago originally conceived as him being stopped by the police and something happening to put him in hospital? But that Sally Sussman and Kay Alden were prevented from doing it?

 

As was said before, that for now, primetime programming seems to be where the harder hitting storytelling is and daytime soaps appears to conducting a Formula 1 race:

 

What gets to the finish line first? The audience being primarily catered to, as they cease to be over the next few years (you know what I mean

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) or the genre in its entirety?

 

In a hypothetical situation, if I wrote for an American soap, especially if I were a head writer, I’d be sacked pretty darn quickly, as my sensibilities are a tad dark, gothic even. And I’d definitely want to touch on issues.

[lucaslesann23]

Yep, sally wanted devon to he shot by the cops. But networks said no.

[ranger1rg]

Thank YOU. I agree with all of that.

Letting the over 80 white women decide what’s ok to write about is why the ratings continue to fall and why the show is worse and worse.

 

Primetime networks are covering this stuff. Streamers go even further and grittier. It all makes daytime seem further out of touch. And no, white Abby having Devon’s baby doesn’t cover race. 
 

Soap writing is so fear-driven it’s unreal. They don’t realize that this move to offend nobody is so offensive it’s unreal.

[prefab1]

I think the most frustrating thing is that if the show just did a little more to delve into the things that viewers notice, like Lily's tendency to date white men, it could make for so much more interesting stories and compelling dramatic conflict.

 

For instance, here's an idea I literally came up with in 10 minutes: Let's say that a younger darker-skinned black woman from a working class background (more like Lily's mother Dru) comes to town and applies for a job at Chancellor Communications. But Lily decides not to hire her because she thinks the young woman doesn't fit the "classy" image of ChanceCo. (For added drama, this young woman could even be a previously unmentioned Barber cousin). And when this young woman finds out that Lily was the one who blocked her hiring, she goes off on Lily, talking about internalized racism and colorism, bringing up Lily's history of exclusively dating white men, and so forth. And then Lily gets angry, and she's complaining to Devon about what this young woman said to her (like "Can you believe she thinks I'm a racist?") but then Devon calmly suggests that this young woman might have a point about Lily's internalized biases. And so on...

[Paul Raven]

Remember a while back Billy and lily had that talk about racism etc that came out of nowhere and disappeared just as fast.

And only Lily gets to be in relationships with white men.

Devon was teased with Abby and Mariah but married Hilary.

Neil was with Victoria but married Sophia, Karen, Hilary etc

Abby was matched with Nate but they broke up for no real reason. Abby  marries Chance, Nate is matched with Elena/Amanda.

Jack hooked up with Kerry- she was written out.

That's just off the top of my head.

[Faulkner]

There was a story on Insecure the first season very similar to that (at Molly’s law firm), and it was very well-done.

[KMan101]

Being too skittish to tackle these topics IS (another aspect) what has helped kill these shows. You can tackle "hot topics" in ways that aren't even noticeable to the casual eye. It's just about making the effort. When they try it's shot down. 

 

CBS and NBC seem to have ... diversity problems. Which, considering the toxic environments we've heard about there, this is really no surprise. I still think a certain man at Sony isn't called out enough ... interesting how he's over both Y&R and Days. Just saying. Although Days, SADLY, does better, so ... CBS?

 

I'm also tired of them catering to a very very small section of the audience who just happens to be loud on Facebook.

 

I was thrilled Paulina called out the lack of the diversity in Salem. SHE'S RIGHT. I knew a certain section of the so called audience would flip out and right on cue ... they also showed themselves when Deidre poosted a photo of herself with Jackee, which was likely deliberate so they'd show their asses and was likely in support of her.

 

And may I remind everyone, Leo on DAYS played by Rikaart, was "too gay" for executives. I'm just saying. There's a big problem in daytime. They have no idea what they want to be and they're too afraid to be anything but what they think "we" want. They have no clue. 

 

There's also another section of the audience of all the soaps that seem unwilling or unable to call out bad crap that these shows shove out to us. It's that they're afraid to be critical because that somehow means they'll cancel the show (or they just don't care).

 

Oh, and of course there's the even smaller section that only watches for a couple or a character and flips out when they aren't the focus, taking it out on everyone else who dares get airtime or comes back to the show (Franco stans are showing their asses on social media). 

 

And finally, there's the other group that seems to want a Hallmark movie and they don't seem to have any idea how a soap opera works. They just want couples holding hands. And then when you call them out for it, they get defensive and totally move the goalpost.

 

They're trying to cater to all of these and failing. If they even try at all. It's time to just ... write.

 

Frankly, with such mismanagement, it's actually amazing we even have four soaps left.

Edited March 18, 2021 by KMan101

[rlj]

Wait wut, Lily hired Amanda, who is darker than her Mom

[prefab1]

Oh, good point! But maybe that could be something that Lily or Amanda would bring up in her defense, and maybe that could lead to a more nuanced discussion of various forms of prejudice and stereotyping.

 

I'll admit I'm not a very frequent viewer of Y&R these days, but it just strikes me that as the most realistic (relatively speaking) of the soaps currently on the air, they'd actually be well-positioned to write stories that are relevant to current discussions concerning race and class. And it would be a way to generate some actual character-driven drama.  

[Faulkner]

Lily spoke about implementing diverse hiring practices for ChanceCom, which was just an empty nod to our political climate.
 

I think soaps have a challenging situation. Aging, conservative daytime audience + the limitations of network TV. Primetime dramas on broadcast can be formulaic, but they have a broader, often younger audience who can tolerate more. Streaming can be more niche-oriented, which often results in more interesting work.
 

But even with AMC’s move to streaming, you had longtime fans who resisted a lot of the innovations (cursing, more explicit sex, etc.) I would love a fresh, dynamic daily soap without a lot of the baggage old soaps have, but that’s a tall order.

[BoldRestless]

When I watch old clips I'm constantly thinking "wow, they would never have gone with that choice today!" Remember when KSJ adlibbed that line "you're gonna wish you'd never messed with this black man" when Neil was confronting Kevin? KSJ talked about Greg Rikaart being shocked because it wasn't in the script, but they left it in and today I'm sure they would have cut it. They are so afraid now to lose any little bit of their audience to anything "controversial." They were even afraid to have Chance say the word "period" when he was talking to Abby about her not being pregnant. He literally said "aren't you on your ---" and they cut away before he said it, I was laughing so hard, like it's not 1950.

 

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy because the show is so stale and boring that there's no new viewers coming in or old ones coming back, so they have to fight even harder to keep the little audience that's left, so they become even more afraid to do anything that might offend anyone...

[Faulkner]

I will say that I like Sally needling Phyllis a bit. It’s like Phyllis vs. a younger version of herself.

[Faulkner]

It’s interesting. I think there are a lot of parallels between the soap audience and Bachelor Nation:

https://www.thecut.com/2021/03/bachelor-finale-cant-handle-racism.html