Part I: How I Became a Television Scholar (and Why Soaps are to Blame)
Like most, I grew up in a time when we as a society worried less about childrearing. I could go on all day bike rides with no way to be reached and the old adage “be home before dark” was a comfortable send off for summer play. Once indoors, it was a time when the hype about media’s bad influence was not quite what it is today. As a product of the 80s I grew up on the expected fare of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and The Polka Dot Door, but beyond that the choices weren’t what they are for parents today, nor was there the incessant fear that exposure to our parent’s programming choices would forever (or temporarily) damage us. And thank goodness for that or I wouldn’t have the career I do today.
During the first part of my childhood my mother stayed at home and although I never once saw her planted firmly on the couch in the caricature of a soap-obsessed housewife, she often had the ABC soaps playing in the background throughout the day (and she admits to having followed certain shows at certain times, such as the infamous escapades of Luke & Laura on General Hospital). I’m not sure at what age I actually started attending to what was on the screen and “watching” in the sense that I was following a narrative but I have some early recollections of being seven when a character my age appeared on GH, Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough). It isn't until middle school that I can recall actually following storylines. My timing could not have been better. I started watching soaps seriously at a time featuring some very important social issues storylines and perhaps it was that first exposure to the important work that soap operas do that impacted my later academic studies.
Some of these storylines that I remember appeared on One Life to Live. One focused on the coming out storyline of network TV's first gay high school character, Billy Douglas (played by Ryan Philippe in his breakout role). The second involved the trial surrounding a gang rape that occurred in a college fraternity house. A few years later I remember vividly General Hospital's AIDs/HIV storyline featuring the above-mentioned Robin Scorpio and Stone Cates. (Stone died of the disease and the program then realistically potrayed Robin living with her HIV diagnosis for almost two decades thereafter).
By the time I was in high school I considered myself a soap fan. My grandmother got me a subscription to a soap magazine and VHS (yes, VHS!) tapes of famous soap weddings as a gift one Christmas. I sent off fan letters and received "autographed" pictures of some of my favorite actors (including one from McCullough).
As I got older and busier I started being a bit more selective about which soaps I followed. Though the summer would often find me picking up all the ABC soaps again (including Port Charles and All My Children), due to recording space (in the VCR age), during the school year I usually only followed General Hospital. (And I still follow it today). But even my loyal watching of just this one soap opera changed the trajectory of my career.
Here’s that story:
“One day a soap opera fan went off to graduate school, discovered feminist theory and media scholarship, and decided that finally she could find a way to justify her not quite secret (but not quite advertised) love of daytime drama. Long before she really understood what completing a doctoral degree entailed or how one went about writing a dissertation, she began fantasizing about how she would be the first to uncover the feminist value in this so-called lowbrow genre; she began coming up with unique and complex readings of her favored programs that would dazzle academia; and she began rationalizing how her project would finally give her the opportunity to attend ABC’s Super Soap Weekend, a fan conference she could never quite find the justification to spend her hard-earned money or precious time on. As the years stretched on that girl grew up and, alas, she realized that she was almost three decades late in being the first to argue that soap operas are feminist allies. Likewise, she realized that many (although not all) of her earth-shattering analyses of the soap had been done by academics who came before her. But, that latter pipe dream – that a college degree would finally land her a plane ticket to Florida, entrance into MGM Studios, and a weekend with fellow soap fans – well, that did happen. And she was able to end her dissertation on the cultural artifact that she loved with a narrative account of her ‘research’ conducted at that fan conference.”
So that was how I got my start as a television scholar. Although I rarely write on soaps today, I know I owe my love of serial television to them. And because I link my career specifically to General Hospital it is no surprise that I have found myself pleasantly surprised by its recent increase in ratings.
Part II: How to Save a Soap: Bring on the Nostalgia (and Bring Back the Supernatural?)
General Hospital first aired on April 1st, 1963 so next month it will officially turn “fifty.” (I remember the program celebrating its 30th birthday when I was in high school back when I thought thirty years seemed like a long time for anything. Now I can hardly believe there has been twenty years sandwiched between these two big birthdays and that I have witnessed both of them as a viewer). If asked a year ago if I thought the show would make it to this big anniversary I would have been skeptical since times have not been kind to the genre as of late.
Through most of their decades on television, the number of American soap operas fell into double digits. By the mid-2000s this began to change as ratings continued to drop. One of the first to go was ABC’s Port Charles (in 2004), followed by Passions (in 2007), and then Guiding Light (in 2009). It was the end of Guiding Light that really broadcasted the message loud and clear that soaps were in danger of extinction. (Guiding Light had been the only soap to have successfully mastered the transition from radio to television and had remained on the air for 72 years, making it the second longest running program to date.) Next to fall was As the World Turns (in 2010) and then there were just six soaps left.
At that time I felt pretty good about the potential longevity of General Hospital because it was the only show part of a big “soap block” and I thought it was sitting pretty in a three program line-up along with All My Children and One Life to Live. That confidence was shattered when ABC announced that it was cancelling GH’s bedfellows; All My Children and One Life to Live drew to a close in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
With only four soaps lingering in the televisual landscape I was depressed. I predicted that GH or Days of Our Lives would be the next to fall and it was hard for me to muster up the energy to follow the program I had watched so faithfully for years as I was convinced I was viewing its final days. (Of course my reluctance to watch was also fueled by the fact that I had fallen over 100 episodes behind and that my GH collection was consistently filling up my DVR queue.) After having watched for over twenty years, I almost walked away from the show. And then a storyline stopped me.
I learned that General Hospital had “killed off” Robin Scorpio, the character who I had grown up with. I felt I had to catch up and watch her final scenes. And so I did. And then when, in typical soap style, her death included a body “burnt beyond recognition” I needed to watch to see if she was really dead. And, of course, she wasn’t. By then I had caught up to the present (with some necessary skimming), ABC had renewed the soap, and I had been sucked into a variety of storylines that highlight the strategic ways in which the show is trying to increase its ratings. (Strategies which have been successful, I should note, as the soap rose to the number two slot in the coveted ratings category concerned with female viewers aged 18-49). Here are some of the ways in which GH is reviving itself at age fifty:
Strategy One: A Soap Opera Merger (Port Charles Welcomes Llandview Residents)
General Hospital started integrating characters from One Life to Live into its storyline, including Todd Manning, Starr Manning, Detective John McBaine, and cameos from other former OLTL favorites like Blair Cramer-Manning and Téa Delgado.
Strategy Two: Allusions, Illusions, Delusions, and More – A Turn Back Toward the Supernatural
Soaps have a long history of integrating supernatural aspects into their storylines. Port Charles, a spinoff of General Hospital, spent the final years of its life focusing on gothic storylines, the largest of which centered around a love story involving vampire Caleb Morely (Michael Easton) and Livvie Locke (Kelly Monaco). When GH brought Easton on to continue his OLTL role as John McBaine it created an interesting narrative conundrum since he had formerly played a different role in this same fictional town. This was further complicated by the fact that Monaco, who played his then-love-interest Livvie, was now playing a different role as well, the character Sam Morgan. In a truly postmodern move, the show alluded to this fact by creating a storyline that found John and Sam drawn to one another and often remarking that it was if they had known each other in “a different life.” I smiled and thought it would end there… it didn’t.
As the show decided to bring back more and more old characters (see strategy three below), the writers decided to embrace the mystical elements of its fallen sister soap head on. Although I initially rolled my eyes (“Surely, it isn’t going THERE again!” I thought), now that Easton has reprised his role as Caleb Morley, and there are plots about vampire hunters and angels mixed into this medical drama, I find myself strangely intrigued. (It has been the decade of the vampire with Twilight, True Blood, and such… so I guess why not go there again?)
Strategy Three: Blasts from the Past – The Return of Old Characters
GH is quite obviously attempting to raise its ratings by tempting old viewers to come back to the show. It has recently just brought back a plethora of former characters (so much that one might think she is watching an episode from the 80s). Back on the screen together recently include: the trio of Luke & Laura Spencer and Scotty Baldwin; another former love triangle consisting of Mac Scorpio and Felicia & Frisco Jones; the complicated quartet of Anna Devane, Duke Lavery, Cezar Faison, and Robert Scorpio; the comical Lucy Coe and hubby Kevin Collins; and the resurrected A.J. Quartermaine. Is this strategy working? Well, it is for me. With each reappearance I smile the smile of a soap fan who knows the writers are writing these characters back in for her. The soap is even returning to previous famous storylines (such as the ridiculous plot pertaining to The Ice Princess) and annual events (like the Nurse’s Ball, a fictional event planned to raise money for HIV/AIDs research. The actual show would then in reality sell paraphernalia related to this event to raise real profits for this medical research. I’m dorky enough to have bought two “Nurse’s Ball” T-Shirts in the past… and worn them).
Conclusion
Despite the recent success that GH has had climbing back up in the ratings I am afraid the writing may still be on the wall in terms of the future of soaps. (My money is on Young and the Restless and Bold & the Beautiful lasting the longest). But I hope that I’m wrong.
As someone who studied this genre formally and informally for so many years, I continue to have a great appreciation for what it is and what it does. Soaps have often been the first to tackle important social issues (many of which pertain specifically to women, e.g. abortion, domestic abuse, etc.). They are the only type of programming that allows viewers to age indefinitely alongside characters – to watch them experience similar milestone moments at the same pace (high school graduations, weddings, the births of children, etc.). The longevity of the soap provides viewers with a chance to have an intergenerational dialogue about the narratives on the show (with grandmothers, mothers, and daughters often watching the same programs).
I don’t often spend a lot of time wishing on the televisual stars or worrying about televisual trends. Usually if a genre seems to be on a decline I rest assured that genres have cycles and they’ll come around again. This will not be the case with the soaps. Once they exit the daytime airwaves they will never return. Although their influence will continue on in primetime (for more on this see my previous post on recent network melodramas), viewers will never have that experience of watching a narrative stretch on 260 days out of the year.
It would be great if the next decade found me watching GH in the background while my daughters grew up. It would be interesting to see if they would be attracted (at some point) to the narrative happenings on the screen. It would be wonderful if one day, as adults, we spent time chatting about the show. But, for now, I’ll celebrate the fact that I was able to watch as long as I have, and that the show reached this important marker in its history. For now I’ll simply say with a smile: “Happy Birthday 50th General Hospital; And Thanks for Helping Shape Me into the Television Scholar I am Today.”
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