I've been trying for months now to write an homage (a love letter, a mash note) to All My Children and One Life to Live, two of my favorite soaps of all time and the latest two to be canceled. (AMC left the airwaves in September; OLTL is scheduled to depart in January.)
But I'm all tongue-tied, all multiple stages of grief, all momentarily high-on-a-mountain-top, then dashed to the rocks below. (Very "Widow's Hill" from Dark Shadows, circa 1967, I might add.)
Which is odd because one of the reasons I wanted to start writing a blog again was because I wanted to find a way to express myself over some of pop culture I have been absorbing since "the big life change of 2011" (job, love, life--all exploding like cheap fireworks at a street fair located too close to a PEMEX station) took place earlier this year.
But for whatever reason--it's too emotional, I'm too easily distracted, I lack the mental capacity to explain it all for you--I just haven't been able to say what I want to say about the soaps.
This article by Sara Bibel does get part the way there, though. Bibel's a former soap scribe who now blogs on pop TV culture, especially the soaps (daytime and nighttime editions), for the Comcast network. I really like her voice: She's proof that you can be an intelligent person and enjoy the soaps, get them for what they are but also understand what lies beneath the surface, in terms of plots, characters, the American TV industry, and life as we know it. I don't always agree with her take on everything, but I'm about 95% there, more than I can say about most writers and most people. Let's just say that if I could do it all over again, I'd turn the clock back thirty years and become a soap writer--or Sara Bibel.
Her comments on Tuesday, 6 December's episode of One Life to Live, in which the characters are caught out obsessing over their favorite fictional soap, Fraternity Row, only to find out at the end of the episode that it's been canceled . . . well, please read it for yourself, even if you're not a huge fan of soaps. It explains a lot about why the shows mean a lot to many of us and why their cancellation and the imminent demise of the genre from American network TV is so unsettling.
I'm not so good at explaining why the soaps matter to me and to others, but I will say this: The soaps are not just the sum of their plots and their hairdos. Yeah, sometimes it is all a bit silly--I think any soap fan who doesn't take it all too seriously would agree with that statement. But at other times, the shows, when done right and with integrity, are highly engaging, addictive, satisfying, and just a lot of fun in an un-ironic way.
They're a visual page-turner, your favorite beach read or poppy melodrama come to life--on videotape, not film, with nice-looking people providing emotionally fulfilling moments, conveying the idea that kindness between family and friends still matters, and expressing your secret wish that everything will turn out fine when all is said and done. All delivered with some great laughs and a few tears and fears along the way.
The soaps are like American life (or at least American TV life) before cool and business decisions got the better of everything. Remember when?
* * *
I've never liked every soap--just the ones that get canceled, apparently. Ba-dum-bump.
Dark Shadows, The Doctors, Texas, Santa Barbara, Another World, Sunset Beach, Guiding Light, All My Children, and now One Life to Live. They've all come, and now they're almost all gone.
I especially never cared for General Hospital. I couldn't tell you why exactly. Maybe it's because I'm not really a fan of hospital dramas (except ER and St. Elsewhere, which I mostly liked) or mob wars (which is now mostly what GH is about). General Hospital just seemed like a very '80s, Los Angeles-based soap--lots of pretty people attempting to be clever and fabulous with some really dumb plots. Luke and Laura and The Ice Princess? For pity's sake.
That was the beginning of the end, as far as I'm concerned. A lot of soaps went the same route--to extremes. I feel like when the history of American soaps is written (by me, of course), that will be the modern era's jump-the-shark moment.
That and a few too many people coming back from the dead.
But despite my deep, abiding loathe for GH, I do recall this song with more than just a chuckle.
But I'm all tongue-tied, all multiple stages of grief, all momentarily high-on-a-mountain-top, then dashed to the rocks below. (Very "Widow's Hill" from Dark Shadows, circa 1967, I might add.)
Which is odd because one of the reasons I wanted to start writing a blog again was because I wanted to find a way to express myself over some of pop culture I have been absorbing since "the big life change of 2011" (job, love, life--all exploding like cheap fireworks at a street fair located too close to a PEMEX station) took place earlier this year.
But for whatever reason--it's too emotional, I'm too easily distracted, I lack the mental capacity to explain it all for you--I just haven't been able to say what I want to say about the soaps.
This article by Sara Bibel does get part the way there, though. Bibel's a former soap scribe who now blogs on pop TV culture, especially the soaps (daytime and nighttime editions), for the Comcast network. I really like her voice: She's proof that you can be an intelligent person and enjoy the soaps, get them for what they are but also understand what lies beneath the surface, in terms of plots, characters, the American TV industry, and life as we know it. I don't always agree with her take on everything, but I'm about 95% there, more than I can say about most writers and most people. Let's just say that if I could do it all over again, I'd turn the clock back thirty years and become a soap writer--or Sara Bibel.
Her comments on Tuesday, 6 December's episode of One Life to Live, in which the characters are caught out obsessing over their favorite fictional soap, Fraternity Row, only to find out at the end of the episode that it's been canceled . . . well, please read it for yourself, even if you're not a huge fan of soaps. It explains a lot about why the shows mean a lot to many of us and why their cancellation and the imminent demise of the genre from American network TV is so unsettling.
I'm not so good at explaining why the soaps matter to me and to others, but I will say this: The soaps are not just the sum of their plots and their hairdos. Yeah, sometimes it is all a bit silly--I think any soap fan who doesn't take it all too seriously would agree with that statement. But at other times, the shows, when done right and with integrity, are highly engaging, addictive, satisfying, and just a lot of fun in an un-ironic way.
They're a visual page-turner, your favorite beach read or poppy melodrama come to life--on videotape, not film, with nice-looking people providing emotionally fulfilling moments, conveying the idea that kindness between family and friends still matters, and expressing your secret wish that everything will turn out fine when all is said and done. All delivered with some great laughs and a few tears and fears along the way.
The soaps are like American life (or at least American TV life) before cool and business decisions got the better of everything. Remember when?
* * *
I've never liked every soap--just the ones that get canceled, apparently. Ba-dum-bump.
Dark Shadows, The Doctors, Texas, Santa Barbara, Another World, Sunset Beach, Guiding Light, All My Children, and now One Life to Live. They've all come, and now they're almost all gone.
I especially never cared for General Hospital. I couldn't tell you why exactly. Maybe it's because I'm not really a fan of hospital dramas (except ER and St. Elsewhere, which I mostly liked) or mob wars (which is now mostly what GH is about). General Hospital just seemed like a very '80s, Los Angeles-based soap--lots of pretty people attempting to be clever and fabulous with some really dumb plots. Luke and Laura and The Ice Princess? For pity's sake.
That was the beginning of the end, as far as I'm concerned. A lot of soaps went the same route--to extremes. I feel like when the history of American soaps is written (by me, of course), that will be the modern era's jump-the-shark moment.
That and a few too many people coming back from the dead.
But despite my deep, abiding loathe for GH, I do recall this song with more than just a chuckle.
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