GH: May 2024 Discussion Thread

[allmc2008]

Miss Susan?

[Contessa Donatella]

Having not been fortunate enough to see anything before summer 1970, I'll have to take your word for it.

I just mentioned it from the medical POV, not the political. 

Certainly in the 90s with Stone & AIDS & Robin & HIV & Monica's breast cancer, we were about as detailed as one probably could get. 

[carolineg]

You aren't wrong.  I just left today's episode with a feeling of "that's it?" but it could just be because I don't care about Gregory at all lol. 

[Contessa Donatella]

1950-ish, an actress actually named Susan was a hit in several movies & then had an awful car accident & ended up in a wheelchair for life, paralyzed from the waist down. Someone came up with an idea for her to play an attorney on a soap, as is. Pretty much the audience hated it & felt they were trying to play on their sympathies & make them feel sorry for her. (And, they kinda were.) Didn't last long. Then, sadly, she died within the next year. Sorry but I can't remember the two last names, real and reel. Oddly it is the first known example of star billing & one of these collectors actually found the opening for me. Plus, he gave it to me! They make a nice cottage industry side hustle, selling rare & unusual videos or digital files of them. If anyone wants his email address, I can oblige. 

I don't care about Gregory at all either but I felt the death montage was brilliant. Before that I was just Aw Phooey, come on & die. 

[Jdee43]

Has there been any dialogue about what happened to Jackie Templeton?

[Vee]

Her name was Susan Peters and she did brilliant work after her accident in a noir film called The Sign of the Ram where they used her disability, and her life ended very tragically for unrelated reasons. This is all wildly off-topic, just like RKK being a serial sex pest regardless of whether or not someone had a personal relationship with a friend of theirs.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes & no. They addressed her not being there. Something about how awkward it all was when the truth came out. And, that being why she left & stayed away. I'm not sure it was very satisfactory to the fans that were bugged about it.

And, Vee is correct, but it was the kind of topic drift that many people say fits.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Contessa Donatella
combine

[DRW50]

They were, yes. Unfortunately, the response to those (ratings drops and the ushering in of Guza and his sicknesses) does make me wonder again if soap viewers just didn't want to see the real life illness plots.

I didn't see any of the older plots either - if there were a large amount of painstakingly realistic illness stories on soaps in the '50s and '60s and '70s, my apologies to the people who wrote them.

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, I know. I was the exception to the rule. I ate it up. The humanity, the DRAHMA. But, I know of plenty of people who groan & say "Too depressing!".

No, I think your OG thought is correct.

[DRW50]

We have, yes, with people who lash out at the story and even send out threats and act like lunatics, but seeing people act physically sick over the whole thing and go on about how Drew was her abuser...that was what felt new to me.

[Vee]

Most of those storylines are famous and very well-remembered and praised to this day though, so in the long-form analysis decades later does the ratings drop (and IIRC Labine leaving voluntarily, to do Heart and Soul which didn't pan out) matter?

The key issue with Gregory's ALS story was not about portraying it onscreen, it was about dragging out his time on the show for years to the point people were sick of the character long before this. He's had some lovely scenes over the last few months and has worked very well with JE, but it was time to be finished. And if you had a show the caliber of Labine's and a character as beloved as Stone or Robin or Monica you could've told a long-form illness story, just like those. But the show is not in that kind of condition and Gregory is not a beloved character, so it was about finishing it. It's not a referendum IMO on doing long-term illness storylines.

That was because of a nasty choice of dialogue when the truth came out (where IIRC Drew said he couldn't and wouldn't hit her, as he said that would be his normal reaction to finding out someone sent him to prison). But no, Drew is not her 'abuser'. That was overblown nonsense AFAIC just because people hate Drew or want Sonny and Nina or Nina and Valentin. All of which are preferences they have a right to, but that isn't about portraying sex onscreen. That's just fandom.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Vee

[DRW50]

It matters in the sense that I think the reaction they had to the ratings helped lead directly to where we are today. With that said, if the show was capable of telling these stories now, I'd support them. I'm just not sure viewers as a whole would.

[Vee]

Lots of things led to where we are today. That doesn't mean I would trade any one of those stories being told for a better show in 2024.

[janea4old]

 

[DRW50]

I wouldn't say the stories should never have existed...I just meant it's depressing going back to that time and feeling the panic and the tilt toward what Guza brought in, followed by the panic over what happened when his filth stopped working for viewers, and the swerve into where the show has been over the past decade. I wish there had been a world where the stories had been better received, although I guess those trends were inevitable.