I just don't get the daytime soap opera obsession. This relentless fervor with which friends discuss the pursuits of Katherine on "General Hospital" or Josh and Reva's relationship on "Guiding Light." I don't understand the importance some of my classmates place on scheduling courses around their daily fix of "Young and the Restless." I can't grasp the relevance of keeping up with soap opera characters through taped episodes and soap opera magazines as if they were the closest of friends.
Hoping to discover the secrets of my friend's soap obsession, I
took the afternoon off, armed myself with a television and a stack of
"Soap Opera Digest" (a weekly magazine packed with information about the
suds) and prepared myself for an afternoon of daytime fun.
Hour One
My research begins at 12:30 p.m., when CBS and ABC dish out their first servings of the day's soaps. I'm told by a soap opera loving roommate that, although some fans have one or two soaps that they regularly view, she watches all of them. Megan prioritizes the soaps that are on at a given time. She watches her favorite one, then flips to the ones of lesser priority during the commercial breaks.
And so I find myself flipping between CBS's "The Young and the Restless" and ABC's "The City." According to the latest Nielsen ratings, these are the highest and lowest soaps on television, respectively. I immediately notice the differences between the two programs. "The City," a half-hour show that's on the verge of cancellation, according to my handy "Soap Opera Digest," tries to distinguish itself through jazzy music and wide camera angles more befitting to a movie screen than my 13-inch Sony. "Y&R" (that would be soap fan lingo for "The Young and the Restless") has what I would later find to be a standard style: close-ups of characters having "heart-to-hearts."
However, the content of the suds is much more similar. On "Y&R,"
pretty blond Victoria talks to a former beau on the phone: "Don't marry
her," she passionately pleads. On "The City," pretty blond Ally insists to
her new love Neil that things with Marc really are over. But as she looks
longingly into the camera and the screen fades into a Tide commercial, we
wonder if it really is.
Hour Two
At 1 p.m. "The City" is replaced by "All My Children," "The Young and the Restless" continues and "Days of Our Lives" begins. I jot this down on the back of a Publisher's Clearing House envelope is what will be a futile attempt to keep all the shows straight.
As "Y&R" continues it's second half-hour, Ashley sits by the side of a nameless long-haired stranger's hospital bed. It seems that the badly bruised and beaten Ashley had been saved from further attack and possible rape by the unidentified hero just a few episodes before. Luckily, Ashley's friend Jack just happens to have the same blood type and unselfishly offers it to help the comatose hero.
Meanwhile, on "Days of Our Lives" (called simply "Days" in soap speak), Billie sits by the side of a comatose blond woman, wondering if this is Jill, the woman for whom her ex-love, Bo, and his new love, Hope, are looking for.
Also on "Days", a wheelchair bound Peter speaks of his unrequited love for Jennifer (the fifth or sixth love triangle I've seen today), while Celeste reprimands the evil Stephano for kidnapping her. I'm guessing that Stephano's robe is some kind of cover.
I'm now drawing flow charts to help myself understand the plots on "All My Children." Edmund talks excitedly to Demetrius about wife Sammy's pregnancy. See, the birth-to be is a surprise since Sammy had been told months earlier that she couldn't have children. Sammy and Edmund even tried through a surrogate mother, but the surrogate ended up falling in love with Edmund and then refused to give up the baby. Distraught, Sammy turns to Demetrius (who is Erica Kane's "All My Children" husband when she's not hawking Fords) for consolation. Hint, hint: the baby is really Demetrius'. Oh, and to top things off, Demetrius has some potentially dangerous blood disorder.
"I met him ... he's so hot," Joanne, my roommate drools about Mateo, "All My Children" heartthrob extraordinaire as he has a heart-to-heart with Haley.
At 1:30 p.m., another love triangle unfolds as "The Bold and the
Beautiful" begins on CBS. Sheila is whining to some guy Mike because her former lover James is getting married to Maggie. The whining starts to
annoy me and I flip the channel.
Hour Three
All the shows are beginning to blend together and I think that I'm beginning to hallucinate. The wheelchair-bound theme continues as Charlene of "Another World" (or is it "As the World Turns"?) is encouraged by her family: "You'll walk again, mom."
On "One Life to Live," I see Priest Anthony. He's in what seems
like a confessional with some woman named Cassie. "But what about our
baby?" Cassie asks. I now realize that pseudo-priests are the norm on
daytime television.
Hour Four
My last hour of soap opera viewing starts in Cedars Hospital on "Guiding Light." A candy striper and a doctor are communicating in sign language to a third woman, but this deaf character can speak, almost perfectly. I dismiss this wannabe politically correct gimmick. As my eyes grow blurry from this overdose of daytime fun, I recognize a familiar face - the guy who played the father on the '80s sitcom "The Hogan Family." He now hangs out in a bar and goes by the name of Quint. Who would've thought?
"I would do anything to see that little golddigger get dumped," "General Hospital" nurse Amy says about arch enemy Lucy Coe. Meanwhile, Bobbie is getting married to the evil Stephan (who we can easily deduce as evil by his tell-tale foreign accent).
Finally, the clock strikes four and my afternoon of daytime fun is over.
Afterthoughts
Most of us non-soap viewers usually have the impression that soaps sage]st only of gratuitous sex scenes, unreal murder mysteries and pretty, well-dressed people scheming their way to the top. Today, I found that perception to be largely true. All of the soaps I saw had characters and plots that were unrealistic, superficial and far-fetched. But they were interesting enough to keep my attention for almost four hours and allowed me to immerse myself in someone else's life for awhile.
"(Soaps) have the fantasy and romance that everyone wishes they had in their lives," Cathy, my roommate and avid "The Young and the Restless" viewer said. "It's kind of like, they have what you wish you had." For daytime soaps viewers, soaps provide an adult fairytale. Through a favorite daytime soap, we can become Erica Kane, the quintessential heroine, if only for an hour.
Copyright 1997 Anna Argasinska. All Rights Reserved.