1 minute ago, melanatedbtgfan said:

GH ignoring covid might be understandable. But them ignoring the Luigi Mangione situation, big pharma vs holistic medicine, the not so easy conclusions about marijuana's side effects, edibles being trendy, insurance companies vs actual medical professionals, etc is so cowardly.

Surprisingly BTG seem to be at the beginning stages of tackling big pharma vs holistic medicine due to Madison getting sued for malpractice.

Other than the Labine era, possibly, I think GH would have always avoided those issues.

I was actually thinking recently who was the richest character on soaps. Y&R is the worst in this regard. I think the Forresters, Spencers, Quartertaines, Sonny, and the Duprees are supposed to be multi-millionaires, but Y&R purports to have multiple billionaires. Victor and Devon are billionaires, I think Tucker was one, and Victor had to pay billions to Victoria, Nick and Abby so a nothing character like Abby is a billionaire through her father, again through her husband, and a multi-millionaire through the Abbotts (but manages a restaurant in her spare time). Nick is a homeless billionaire. Michael and Lauren, Christine and Danny are millionaires but they have no homes and when they want a romantic night out they rent the same hotel room that anyone else in Genoa City would use. Even Esther must be a millionaire now because she owns half of the Chancellor house. Esther and Sharon both work as executives by day and also serve coffee at night. Every new character who joins the show has some kind of company or startup and is the CEO or co-CEO and can horse trade around the various companies with all the GC power players. And these companies can be transferred to someone else with the swipe of a button or given back if you kidnap somebody, or something.

Even the relatively "poor" and unemployed characters like Audra and Holden still seem to wear designer clothes and hang around the rich people places all the time and are able to fly back and forth across the country with no problems.

One thing I liked on GH recently was when Jacinda mentioned she had a 401k for the first time in her life. Soaps used to mention that type of thing to add a little color.

For contrast, here's an example of 1980 Y&R story line regarding Paul. He'd fathered a child (Heather) out of wedlock with April. April was a single mother on welfare living in the apartment next to Chris and Snapper. Chris and Snapper were always fighting about money and at one point Chris told Snapper it was kind of ridiculous to be a doctor's wife living next door to a girl on welfare (he was notoriously cheap).

Heather got very sick with meningitis. She hadn't been vaccinated because April didn't know any better. April and Paul are described going into her room wearing PPE and masks. They decide to get married to give her a name before she dies. But in doing so, April is no longer eligible for welfare, but Paul doesn't have any health insurance, so now he's on the hook for enormous medical bills. He's working in a mechanic shop but can't get extra hours because the price of gas is making people drive less. Victor Newman brings in his car and he left $500 on the seat. Despite desperately needing the money, Paul returns it to Victor and makes a friend for life.

You can see in that example there's about half a dozen really mundane things that would light up social media today as being incredibly controversial. Those kind of layers are gone.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by BoldRestless

Also you have the issue of today's 60 yr old soap characters looking 20 years younger due to enhancements.

So the generational aspect is even harder to portray as those actresses don't look like grandma.

This is a repetitive answer, but Dallas really pushed the drama permanently towards wealth. There are ways to incorporate realism into stories without removing the element of escapism. A really wholesome character turning to adult content creation out of desperation over losing job and being on the brink of losing their home would be a good mixture of realism and soapiness.

21 minutes ago, ReddFoxx said:

This is a repetitive answer, but Dallas really pushed the drama permanently towards wealth.

There was wealth and business on soaps before Dallas.

Y&R had the Chancellors and the Prentisses. GL had the Spauldings. I'm sure I'm missing some.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by kalbir

A wealthy character can fit whatever shortcuts a plot may require. Money pays for planes and helicopters and ships. And motor vehicles.

A wealthy character is like an escape hatch. No financial restrictions.

Now almost everyone has the resources of a wealthy character.

28 minutes ago, kalbir said:

There was wealth and business on soaps before Dallas.

I think it's more down to the 80s Reagan-ism, the worship of wealth and letting the villain continuously get away with it due to perceived viewer popularity. The Ewings and the Carringtons were originally bad guys, but became more and more "aspirational" as the 80s trudged on. That's still something that echoes in soaps today (see: "Dupree strong" for the billionth time).

And while I certainly don't want soaps to go back to being morality plays, but I can't help but feel that the bad guys getting their comeuppance in major ways just... don't really happen that much anymore? Instead it's very much "ruh-oh, how will they get out of this mess this week?" (again, see JR).

Those 1970's wealthy characters were somewhat relatable. Philip Chancellor ran a factory, they had a grand house and some servants but that was it.

Lance Prentiss was another level above-he had a private jet! So settling into a lakehose in Wisconsin was a stretch, but at least he and Lorie did jet off to various locations.

I wish it had have been specified what Chancellor and Prentiss did.

When Victor was introduced, again he was wealthy, with a ranch and some business interests but not at billionaire level.

Soaps shoot themselves in the foot by making characters fabulously wealthy and internationally known, yet tend to be selective about how public their lives are. Some things are all over the media, while others that would draw attention seem to be ignored.

7 hours ago, BoldRestless said:

For contrast, here's an example of 1980 Y&R story line regarding Paul. He'd fathered a child (Heather) out of wedlock with April. April was a single mother on welfare living in the apartment next to Chris and Snapper. Chris and Snapper were always fighting about money and at one point Chris told Snapper it was kind of ridiculous to be a doctor's wife living next door to a girl on welfare (he was notoriously cheap).

Heather got very sick with meningitis. She hadn't been vaccinated because April didn't know any better. April and Paul are described going into her room wearing PPE and masks. They decide to get married to give her a name before she dies. But in doing so, April is no longer eligible for welfare, but Paul doesn't have any health insurance, so now he's on the hook for enormous medical bills. He's working in a mechanic shop but can't get extra hours because the price of gas is making people drive less. Victor Newman brings in his car and he left $500 on the seat. Despite desperately needing the money, Paul returns it to Victor and makes a friend for life.

You can see in that example there's about half a dozen really mundane things that would light up social media today as being incredibly controversial. Those kind of layers are gone.

Thank you for posting this, I didn't see that storyline and had no idea. All I had seen was website summaries saying "Paul married April for the baby" but no details. It's these details and all the layers that matter. It's the layers and nuances of character situations, that are missing nowadays.