So I gather today is the day that ABC tosses aside decades of soap history and replaces it with a rag-tag crew of people talking about things that 20 other shows are already talking about. Of course, it’s about the money, not the conversation, and ABC will save tons of it even if this foray into boredom is a relative failure. Goodbye Erica Kane and All My Children, hello chat show creatively named The Chew (get it? They talk while they eat food–The Chew!).
But I hope it’s a complete failure–the kind that makes the suits (mostly male) reevaluate their choice to dismiss and disenfranchise generations of (mostly female) viewers, albeit in dwindling numbers.
Soaps ain’t Shakespeare. We all are well aware. Even at their best, they’re not the best thing on TV (General Hospital will never be Mad Men). But their narratives allow viewers and creators alike a unique opportunity to participate in lived stories over time. Even The Simpsons can’t compete with the longevity of a single soap. Perhaps most significantly, soap opera is a genre aimed specifically at women. There’s been a load of discussion about whether this is a good or bad thing throughout the years; however, it is nonetheless the case. In a media landscape where women are treated as a second-class audience, soaps add a for-better-or-worse alternative to perpetually pandering to men.
Now, of course, we can go back and forth regarding whether soaps are simply a ghetto for “women’s stories” filtered through the male gaze–and I think that’s a pretty valid argument. But we cannot dismiss that they, with their interwoven narratives and elephantesque memories, play a significant role in the history of ecriture feminine…whatever that means. Furthermore, we cannot deny the impact of the stories and families and valid discussions of topics like HIV/AIDS, sexuality, and rape (sometimes bungled horribly, see re: Luke and Laura; and sometimes handled deftly with the benefit of long-term impact that we could never get out of a mere season of TV). What’s more, these stories create a framework over time–a way to consider how these discussions change. While a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of a show like Law and Order seems ridiculously outdated within six months of its original airdate, soap stories build over decades, revisiting and re-imagining their own histories in order to change with the times. Characters and narratives evolve. Of course, an argument can be made that, where women’s issues are concerned, soaps can be downright reactionary, but the discussion is happening in more or less real time. We can reject the soap approach to women–that aforementioned male gaze–but we cannot negate the movement of this discussion through time and space. Soaps provide a benchmark with which to measure progress, even if they often lag behind in progressing.
Luke and Laura's Wedding in 1981 drew 30 million viewers
Lastly, we rarely give soaps their due when it comes to the way they’ve influenced prime time TV. Some viewers simply balk at the melodrama of the woman-who-was-shot-by-her-husband-with-a-bullet-that-was-meant-for-her-lover-while-giving-birth-to-their-child (yeah, this happened), but they forget to look at the tapestry–the design behind the drama. The mega-popularity of Luke and Laura on General Hospital in the early 80′s infiltrated TV at all levels, and, by the end of the decade, TV had transformed from A/B story one-offs (picture the A-Team and the freeze frame ending) to complex worlds in which viewers are trusted to follow a dozen characters over multiple seasons (ergo Mad Men). The pedigree that brings us The Chew is far less prestigious.
In fact, The Chew and its ilk, overtly striving for a female audience, take a step backward from soaps. They make no effort to legitimize women as intelligent viewers; rather, they asks far less of them in the way of participation, memory, and interaction. There is no narrative–topics are fleeting. Of course, I haven’t watched The Chew, but I’ve watched The View, which is insipid to the point of being offensive, and, since ABC is positioning this new show as more fun and less hard work for the audience, I’m guessing it’s an intellectual coma zone.
In light of all this daytime navel-gazing, I for one want to see the remaining soaps pull through this low period. As troubling as soap operas can be, I do not necessarily wish to live in a TV world without them. Sadly, however, this seems more and more inevitable. If and when the end does come, I think–on the balance–the media landscape for women viewers will be a less interesting place. Perhaps soap operas do add to a sort of media ghetto into which “women’s stories” are deprioritized by a male hegemony, but their absence will not create space for new, dynamic stories aimed at women. Their loss will just leave a void.
Luke with Luke and Laura's offspring, aptly named Lucky and Lulu
