Wednesday, October 27, 2010 marked a special commemoration on ABC Daytime and SoapNet, as they rebroadcasted episodes. They featured shows focused upon specific couples AMC Greenlee and Ryan, OLTL Todd and Tea and GH Jason and Sam.
These episodes weren’t for a holiday or a special occasion, and just cause, someone likes these couples and they have big story on their respective shows. All My Children’s episode was from 2004, One Life to Live’s from 2009 and General Hospital’s from 2005. Considering current technology, I bet it would be very easy to find these particular episodes on the web. So other than some fans being glad that their favorite couple is being promoted or seeing a character that has now been written out, there was really not a great reason to watch these shows. While the Brenda marathon aired all afternoon, which is unlikely to interest viewers who don’t watch GH, at least all of the episodes were over five years old and two were from the 1990s. Yes, it saves money, but otherwise what’s the attraction. If they had even done clip shows focusing on these particular characters, (of course that costs money and takes time to produce), I would have been interested and looked forward to the specials.
So instead of watching these episodes of All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital, as they are so recent, I recorded the CBS afternoon line up which included their new talk show “The Talk”. Some may see this as sacrilege, but ABC showed recent reruns, and I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone who was at home saw the rebroadcasts, turned the television off or changed the channel. If One Life to Live is lower in the ratings for the week and The Talk beat them, I see that as an ABC mistake and not a CBS victory. Granted I didn’t even get through 15 minutes of The Talk as I was that offended. The episode started with the credits, the ladies coming out and a clapping audience. Children and relatives of the hosts were mentioned as it was their birthday. Then the topic of bullying came up and Julie Chen told a story of when she was at a showing of Bruce Almighty and how she was bullied. Some rude man hitting you with a pad of paper in the scheme of things is not what I consider bullying, maybe assault, but not bullying. Yes it was sexist as the guy admitted if Julie Chen was a guy, he wouldn’t have done it. This was not even close to the kind of abuse some of the teenagers have received who committed suicide. Julie as an adult journalist knows how to handle people who have crossed the line, but school children should not be expected and most likely won’t have the skills to take care of with this kind of situation. As someone who had to deal with bullying, instead of feeling like she was sympathetic, I thought how lucky is she? No one made fun of her cruelly in her entire life that she didn’t have to see every day. Wow. I turned it off before anyone else had their say as I was peeved.
Of course, if someone has watched the reality show Julie Chen hosts Big Brother, bullying happens on that show nearly every season. At times there have been complaints from contestants, but until the person does something to physically harm someone else they are not tossed out of the game. The irony is I didn’t see the complaints from Sharon about the Marie Claire article, which has caught traction in the media as I was so irritated by this story.
Since these few minutes of “The Talk” left such a bad taste in my mouth, even if I didn’t watch ABC soaps I can’t see myself watching it again anytime soon. I am able to watch news reports from both MSNBC and Fox News Channel which are completely in opposition, but not the Talk. Talk about the incongruity if you must. Turning on this show, I wasn’t expecting controversy just women chatting about various life topics. If they spoke of bullying I was expecting examples from their childhoods or being a parent dealing with cruel classmates. Being the child of someone in the public eye can cause ridicule.
I’m glad that ABC is showing their daytime soaps as normal today. Next time, they pre-empt their shows on a non-holiday I hope they choose less recent episodes, so I can enjoy them. If not, I know now, to record The Young & the Restless and The Bold & the Beautiful and have it set to stop before the opening credits of The Talk.
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