This is my summary of the daytime soap section of book Glued to the Set by Stephen D. Stark. This nonfiction book focuses on 60 shows and events that made us who we are today, and is from 1997. This part focuses on All My Children though it is not solely about that program. In the book, they actually say that they contemplated having it being about General Hospital or Guiding Light instead. The chapter on soap operas is called All My Children, Soaps and the Feminization of America.
The opening paragraph ends with how people are saying that the popular television of the day meaning Law & Order and ER has been described as a second Golden age of Television. Critics state that Dickens and Theodore Dreiser inspired it, but rarely does anyone mention that a major influence for these programs is Irna Phillips. That perhaps the reason that soaps don’t get as much respect is these shows were mainly created and watched by women, air in the afternoon and this is when critics and intellectuals do not watch television.
The writer posits that the way they try to get women to watch television is to copy the soap opera model. Look at how the 1996 Summer Olympics and the political conventions were presented. They were full of stories to try to keep people watching. To be truthful the most memorable thing about the 1996 Summer Olympics to me was a local advertising for something called Doppler 2000.
Mr. Stark then mentions how soaps were “among the first dramatic shows to deal consistently with controversial topics such as sex and abortion that puritanical prime time usually avoided.” Yes I buy that and how no other television genre has such a “consistent following”. Well that’s true as there are a lot of viewers who have watched one or more shows more than half of their lives (myself included in that).
At the time, out of 10 network shows seven are at least 25 years old, due to when this book came out I figure it would be The Bold & The Beautiful, Sunset Beach and The Young and the Restless. I say that as Y&R celebrated 25 in 1998. Sunset Beach started in January of that 1997 and B&B was only 10 years old. Due to their math, it looks like The City had ended, but Port Charles hadn’t started yet when this book was written. Soaps accounted for about 50 hours of daytime programming a week, and appealed as in their early days “women particularly from non-metropolitan areas, and especially in the South.” The chapter goes into how AMC isn’t the longest running show made for television or the top rated, but has the most Emmy nominations and was “number 1 among 18 to 49 year olds.” The book goes on to explain how Agnes Nixon the creator was a student of Phillips though actually she was an employee. Nixon is the “mother of the contemporary soap opera.”
As I’ve read and heard many times before soaps were sponsored in the early days by firms such as Procter & Gamble, to sell detergent and such. They made their debut during the Depression Era in Chicago. They have an interesting quote from Irna Phillips from back in the early 1970s from Broadcasting. She said, “Relationships don’t have to be sordid to be interesting.” The “soap mom” having that opinion wow. I think soap operas have been going against that commentary for way too long.
According to the author, soaps became a “forerunner of interactive culture” as the audience was closely involved with the characters and sending fan mail. Another interesting note I did not know is that Pat Weaver the famous NBC programming director did not want soaps on his network, and to this day no NBC soap has been number one for a season.
Then the chapter starts talking about soaps on television specifically “On television, producers used the camera to close in on the faces (and as it were the emotions) of characters. More important, by changing the pace of the story as they went to a half-hour (and eventually an hour), they effectively changed the whole genre…What’s more, given five hours of programming time per week, writers can regularly deal with more issues in greater depth than can the average television show.” Also the concept of holiday shows being held on holidays is mentioned. Well all of that is true, though there are a lot less extreme close ups then there used to be.
What was funny and not true anymore, is “soaps are thus far less dependent on the constant action that traditionally drives prime-time TV drama”. Well considering how much quickly they burn through stories now, I don’t see this as accurate. In the next paragraph they mention how “plot is so unimportant in the grand soap-opera scheme of things that it is often dealt with superficially and melodramatically.” Mentions of conventions like amnesia being more common than having a cold and the person accused of murder is never guilty. Well these are plots aren’t they? They continue on with other conventions like SORAS and twins and people coming back from the dead.
Also soaps “don’t make as much use of the visuals so important to other forms of television programming.” This goes into how soaps are filmed indoors in simple rooms that resembles a stage set. Well that’s something I love on soaps, as that reminds me of theater. Instead of “action and exciting settings” soaps have more “talk” plus a focus on “character and feelings”. I find this amusing they mention this as it has felt like for years, soaps have tried to avoid what they are and have been successful in doing which is focus on characters’ and their emotional lives.
Now the chapter goes into more detail about All My Children and Agnes Nixon. Agnes once said, “Audiences are bound, not by the chains of hero worship, but by the easily recognized bonds of human frailty and human valor.” They explain how it started in black and white and then became more lavish, which later shows like Dallas and Dynasty would do. How her show had guest stars, and social issues with a multi-racial cast. Then they mention weird moments and focus on Natalie in the well and the fall out from that story. The best soap operas are notable for “Good writing and meaningful characters”. Love triangles, multiple marriages, and Erica’s marriages are all mentioned.
Then the chapter goes into how soaps influenced prime-time specifically as they would now “show the evolution of the characters depict their vulnerabilities, and capture them in them in less extraordinary situations.” They compare Perry Mason to LA Law’s Arnie Becker, which had one character who was seemingly perfect to a screw up like Arnie.
The irony of talk shows supplanting soaps is also mentioned, as they are cheaper to produce. “By 1990, ABC executives had begun to complain that the gross revenues for soaps were now less than their profits used to be.” I don’t even want to think about what the numbers are like today as that will be too depressing.
The writer states that with women going into the workplace more, that society has become more “feminized” and that while soaps have lost some traditional audience that prime time has become more like soaps. That there is a loss by this change “the leisurely pace of soaps” where “relationships develop over months, not minutes; and nuances can be played out in a way uncommon in an MTV age.” How shows can devote six weeks to a topic instead of 60 seconds, and such. That soaps in their way are comforting due to their appeal and that is being lost. The fact that someone sees this in the 90s heartens me in a way as I feel that way myself.
The article ends with “Even our political rhetoric is now bathed in personal disclosure and bathos. We live in Soap Nation: We are the children of All My Children.” The concept that soaps have influenced television so much that no one notices it is an interesting one. So even if today soaps are forgotten, ignored and disappeared their influence in television of the future has not been eliminated.
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