April 14, 2011 marks a sad day in television history.
ABC's cancellation of All My Children after 41 years and One Life to Live after 43 years signified the end of an era.
In the early 1970's, 19 soap operas were on the air. After these new cancellations take effect, a mere four daytime dramas will remain -- a number that hasn't been seen since 1954.
Soaps have famously been called the Rodney Dangerfield of television because they often don't get the respect they deserve. How many other scripted programs produce and air five new episodes a week, 50 weeks per year?
Daytime soap actors are the workhorses of television. They routinely memorize up to 60 pages of dialogue a day -- or more -- and have little to no rehearsal time. They are some of the hardest working, most talented and yet lowest paid professionals in the entertainment industry.
Soaps have been a launching pad for the careers of such diverse stars as Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Marcia Cross, Nathan Fillion, James Earl Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Melissa Leo, Eva Longoria, Ricky Martin, Demi Moore, Julianne Moore, Kelly Ripa, Meg Ryan, Susan Sarandon, Christian Slater, John Stamos, and Marisa Tomei, to name just a few.
Recently, stars such as James Franco and Eric Roberts have signed on for brief soap stints because they find the work challenging. It's a good way for them to stretch their acting muscle in much the same way a theater role might.
Any primetime show featuring recurring characters, storylines and cliffhangers -- from Star Trek to Friends to CSI to Mad Men and everything in between -- owes its heritage to soap operas. Without the storytelling techniques pioneered over the last sixty plus years by daytime serials, these modern-day shows would have lacked the blueprint for creating entertainment franchises of enduring popularity.
Soap operas are more than just entertainment. They are a way of life, passed down from generation to generation. There aren't many forms of entertainment that a grandmother, mother and daughter (or son) can all watch together and share their memories of certain characters, many of whom never leave.
In college, it was almost a rite of passage for many students to plan class schedules around soaps. Even if you never watched a soap opera, chances are you've heard of Luke and Laura, Bo and Hope or Erica Kane. These characters have become part of our national lexicon. When they disappear into history, a piece of us dies with them -- the piece that remembers where we were for Luke and Laura's wedding or the moment when Susan Lucci finally won her Emmy after 18 losses.
For me, the loss is for the young girl that used to stop by the drug store on the walk home from junior high to buy Soap Opera Digest on the sly with lunch money, because she wasn't allowed to watch soap operas at home. However, Days of Our Lives was always on at my grandmother's house, and I instantly became hooked on the romance and the drama. I always wanted to be a part of that world in some fashion. My first job out of college was writing for Soap Opera Weekly magazine.
So, yes, I take the demise of soaps personally since they have been a huge part of my life. I feel sad for my former colleagues in the soap press who will lose their jobs as a result of these callous cancellations, as well as the casts and crew who are now out of work, some after more than 40 years on the job.
Anyone who shares my sentiments should enjoy the four remaining shows (The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless) before they too pass into the twilight.
Though a talk show and a cooking show will inherit the time slots of All My Children and One Life to Live, these new shows will never replace soaps in the hearts of millions. On the bright side, the spirit of soaps will live on for as longs as we have series television.
Do you have a favorite soap moment? Share your thoughts below.
Lesleyann Coker is co-author of Boob Tube, a novel that goes behind the scenes of the soap opera industry. Download it as a free ebook at Amazon for Kindle or Smashwords (all e-reader formats).
James Franco photo by David Shankbone.
Follow Lesleyann Coker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LesleyannC
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I have shown my appreciation to them by spending money on their products . Hope others do the same.
We feel this move by Disney/ABC is age discrimination against what they refer to as the "over age 49" demographic. These shows and their stories are a national treasure as are the senior citizens of this country that watch them. These shows are woven into our national culture and family histories. Generations of families have shared in these stories.
Hoover has joined our cause by pulling all its advertising from ABC as of April 22nd. We, the fans, will continue to target all Disney/ABC sponsors and boycott their products and services as long as they continue to support a Disney/ABC that has no interest in its audience or respect for the senior citizens of this country.
In the meantime, Hoover is enjoying unpresidented customer appreciation, loyalty and patronage that no amount of advertising dollars could buy.
I know there is no easy answer to this mess; as I am also outraged and upset about being "written-off" as a viewer because I'm no longer in the network's target demographic. I just worry about the collateral damage to the hard-working professionals employed by ABC/Disney who had no influence on the decision to cancel AMC and OLTL. I just don't believe they deserve to be damaged by the fallout; but I understand that's how boycotts and other mass actions work.
Again, I have admitted my bias; and know that any show can be cancelled, and it would be tremendously rewarding to be able to marshal the influence to keep our favorites on the air. It would be great if the soaps remain on the air; but if that's not feasible, then I hope the casts and crew go on to comparable, if not better things.
However, the soaps lost points over the years by refusing to adjust to the times. I've made a comment before that there seemed to be no Arab Americans, Asian American, Native Americans, gay people, handicapped people or overweight people on any of these shows. As if they didn't exist in their corner of America. Umm..don't they exist in EVERY corner of America?!? The shows became detached from those of us who grew up watching them and were part of a rapidly changing American tv landscape that had little time for super rich people who were never unemployed, never gained weight, never unmarried (for long) or never dead. I will miss what they represented, but I think their time has come and gone.
OLTL had a part-Asian character, Blair; who inexplicably transformed into a Caucasian for reasons that were never addressed except with joking references to "how different" the 2 actors looked in the show's retrospective photo montages.
OLTL and AMC have or once had gay characters; but seldom showed them experiencing much happiness; or ultimately shunted them off to the unseen margins of the town.
OLTL had a few Native American characters as "local color" when the main characters visited the Southwest in the course of some historical investigation; usually involving the Texas-born Buchanan clan.
Main characters have become temporarily disabled; but could usually afford rare, experimental medical procedures that quickly restored them to full functioning.
For obvious reasons, vampires, cemetaries, coffins, werewolves, ghosts, etc. But the action for a kid was too slow so it wasn't until I discovered the series is out on dvd that in the last couple years I've been collecting and watching them. As I'm not connected to cable or dish I can devote time to a number of episodes in one sitting.
It's hokey by today's standards of "horror" films. But for this now middle age dude it takes me back to both the old Universal monster films as well as my youth.
It was a half-hour show (a throwback to soap opera's beginnings on radio), and at 30 minutes there's no time for pussyfooting--the script must get straight to the point. Many soaps were shot in New York, but to my knowledge RH was the only one actually set in New York. This gave it a real sense of time and place--and as New Yorkers, we get a kick out of all the local references. The actors were recruited from Broadway, and the quality of their work was consistently high -- led by Kate Nelligan, long before she became a Star Fleet commander, as the Ryans' headstrong daughter.
But the best thing about it was plausibility; everything that happened on RH could conceivably happen in life: there were no evil twins returning from the dead, no miracle cures of untreatable diseases, etc. The writers had to move the story without relying on those stale soap devices.
Favorite moments: The annual St. Patrick's Day episode, where the gang would gather at Ryan's and sing the old songs. With such troupers as Helen Gallagher and Malachy McCourt in the cast, it was the best St. Pat's party in town.