It is the five year anniversary of the column. In April 2020, I was approached to write this column. It was rather unfortunate timing considering the pandemic had shut down production of the soaps and Days was going to be the only soap airing for months. Nevertheless, I agreed, and five years later it is still going. This month, I’m going to do something a bit different and reflect on things I’ve learned from soaps.
10. People Are Going To Do What They Want
Dramatic storytelling on soaps often involves controlling behavior and disapproval. Parents not liking the boyfriend or girlfriend their child is dating. It could be career choices. Y&R’s Victor Newman has spent many years interfering in the lives of his children and grandchildren. He even went as far as to have his daughter Victoria arrested on her wedding day to Billy. That’s way beyond the normal dislike of a son-in-law.
Being exposed to stories like this helped me come to the realization that people are going to do what they want. I can have my opinion and give advice if I deem it necessary, but it isn’t my life. If someone wants to have a messy emotional affair, that’s on them. If someone wants to invest in cryptocurrency, it isn’t my money. Why should I fret over things I can’t control? Victor Newman would enjoy his twilight years more if he’d learn that and stop being an 84-year-old busybody.
9. Being Petty Isn’t Always The Right Choice
Everyone knows head writers have a hard job. Fans are almost always mad at them. They have to deal with actors’ egos and network notes. Not to mention the work of writing a long story for over 200 episodes a year. It is easy to see why they’d want to do petty things like call out fans and punish actors. I understand the impulse, but it isn’t wise.
In 2007, Megan McTavish decided to kill All My Children’s Dixie by having her eat poisoned peanut butter pancakes. Allegedly, it wasn’t Megan’s decision to fire Cady McClain, but Cady had been publicly dissing the writing on the show. The ridiculous death for Dixie was absolutely a punishment. She could have died a hero or had a tragic death like Gillian. Instead Dixie died by eating pancakes!
This choice was the final nail in the coffin of Megan’s soap writing career. Fans had been complaining about her for years for decisions like undoing Erica’s abortion. Fans are willing to go along with a lot, but an aborted fetus returning from the dead was enraging, and Dixie’s death pissed them even more. Megan was fired shortly afterwards and she hasn’t worked on a soap since then. She probably could have kept her job a little longer if she hadn’t been so petty.
8. You Don’t Have To Forgive Someone
Just because being petty isn’t always the right choice doesn’t mean you have to forgive someone. Soaps and life in general place a lot of emphasis on forgiveness. Characters forgive the unforgivable a lot. Victims forgive their rapists, people hang out with someone who once tried to kill them, etc. It could be viewed as a necessity of the genre, but it does get to be absurd.
I prefer when characters are allowed to hold a grudge. GH’s Carly has never forgiven Ric for holding her captive in a panic room when she was pregnant with Morgan. Days’ Sami has never forgiven Nicole for stealing Sydney as a baby. Not everything is forgivable and you aren’t a bad person if you don’t have mercy on someone who wronged you. Forgiveness is a choice, and you aren’t required to give it to someone.
7. It Is a Bad Idea To Have Sex At Work
Soap characters have sex at work fairly frequently. B&B’s Forrester Creations only has two offices that multiple characters share, but that doesn’t stop them from boning at work. I wish more characters would talk about how unprofessional it is. No co-worker wants to see or smell that. Not to mention the poor janitorial staff having to deal with the aftermath. Maybe Hope For The Future wouldn’t be constantly being cut and rebooted if Hope had looked at more QED reports and not been so focused on her afternoon delight.
6. If You Cheat, You Should Confess
Soap characters cheat all the time. People in real life also cheat all the time. They think no one will ever find out about them straying, and they are often wrong. A coverup makes everything worse. If they confessed, they’d give their partner the dignity of making an informed choice about the relationship. It also cuts anyone who found out from being the one to expose it. Ted from Beyond The Gates is about to find this out the hard way as his affair is exposed.
If Ted had told his wife Nicole the truth years ago, they possibly could have reached a place of understanding and forgiveness. Or Nicole could have left him. Now Nicole is going to learn the truth from the wig enthusiast side chick Dana Leslie. It is going to be so painful to hear that her husband cheated on her and had a kid with a nutcase and he lied about it for over 20 years. His actions were already horrible. The lies just made the fallout bigger than it needed to be.
5. It Is Okay To Have Different Opinions
I’ve been on Soap Twitter since 2012. I’ve witnessed a lot of arguments and drama. I’ve been a participant in arguments and drama. The lesson I’ve learned is it isn’t that serious if someone has a different opinion. If someone doesn’t like one of my faves, that’s fine. If someone thinks I’m an asshole, that’s fine. There are probably fans who enjoy arguing about which fictional woman should get a fictional dong, but I’m not one of them. It is like fantasy football, but not as sad.
If you really don’t like someone, you can block or mute them. Given everything that is going on in the world, it makes sense to opt out of unpleasantness as much as you can. It is one of the few things you can control.
4. If You Want To Keep A Secret, Try To Be Discreet
So many soap characters with secrets talk about it in public spaces or in mansions where other people live. It is even worse when they monologue to themselves about the damn secret. They must want to get caught because they don’t try to be discreet. A semi-intelligent person would know not to be all, “no one must know my terrible secret!” in a restaurant where other people are eating chicken fingers.
3. Enjoy Things While They Last
Nothing lasts forever and that includes couples on soaps. Many of my favorite couples on soaps ended with one of them dead. Does that diminish my enjoyment of them? Not at all. I still have fond memories of Jonathan and Tammy on Guiding Light. Just hearing Jammy’s couple theme song “Unbelievable” by Kaci Brown brings a smile to my face.
This also includes talented actors who you know will leave to try and get jobs on films and primetime. Most GH fans knew Nicholas Chavez would leave when his contract was up. As The World Turns in the ’80s knew Julianne Moore was going to be a star. Soaps are a fairly stable career for a lot of talented actors, but some are going to leave and try to branch out. We should enjoy the time we had them on our shows.
2. Change Can Be Good
Because nothing lasts forever, you should embrace change. The most consistent form of change on a soap are recasts. They are a necessity of the genre because they want to retain important characters and keep families intact. Even British soaps have recasts and they love killing important characters off.
We’ve had a bunch of good recasts recently like Cherie Jimenez, Kristen Vaganos, Van Hansis and Alexa Havins Bruening. They all play important characters with a lot of history and ties and they put in the work to understand the character they play. Recasts like these are why I get so excited when a new actor takes over a role so I can see what they bring to the character. Even when a recast is bad, it just makes me appreciate the prior actor more.
1. Never Give Up
My friend Tiggz used to scream from the rooftops that a network needed to make a new daytime soap. I’d tell him that it was impossible and that no network would spend millions of dollars making a new soap after the number of soaps had been whittled down to four. It turned out I was wrong and it wasn’t impossible because we now have five soaps on the air.
Michele Val Jean and Sheila Ducksworth worked hard and got Beyond The Gates on CBS. They even got the NAACP and Procter & Gamble involved. I remember when Procter & Gamble didn’t want to be in the soap game anymore, but Michele and Sheila did the impossible and got them back in. It is so inspiring that this new soap was created and I’m proud of everyone at Beyond The Gates, CBS, the NAACP and Procter & Gamble that made it happen.
Dispatches From Soap Land
*I actually do like Joss and Vaughn. Bryce Durfee is 36 years old so it technically could be considered a Hop On Pop story, but at least he isn’t almost elderly like the other Hop On Pop stories on GH.
*I don’t take any illness stories on B&B seriously. Finn will probably make Liam some special apple juice and he’ll be fine.
*The big story on Y&R is that the Abbotts got a new couch. What riveting storytelling. I’m sure it will sweep the Daytime Emmys.
*They need to recast Tomas on Beyond The Gates. Alex Alegria is very handsome, but he’s way too stiff.
*Thank you for reading my column. Even if you hate reading it, it still means a lot that you’d take the time.
