It's a Cold World After All
I was reading a message board where someone asked what they missed from their soap? Nearly every reply said they missed any sense of happiness. Then someone I was emailing about another soap told me, she was tired of all the conflict on her soap. You know what? So am I!
I know soaps can not be about happiness and joy all the time and they have never been. But now soaps seem to be about misery, coldness, and hatred all the time. Some shows seem so distant and disconnected, even characters you've known for years are hard to relate to. Yes, soap fans are far more jaded and knowledgeable about the patterns in daytime storytelling, but all they want is a human story they can relate to. And people, believe or not, do not spend every day hating everyone they are around.
So many soaps are stuck in nothing but pain and misery; you really have to squint to find the nugget of happiness and joy. Here we are during holiday season and what do these people have to be thankful for? What does anyone in Genoa City have to be happy for? What does anyone in Oakdale have to be happy for? What does anyone in Pine Valley have to be happy about? Where is the happiness and joy in Springfield? And neither dimension in Port Charles is breathing easy this holiday season. Season's tidings couldn't perk up most of Llanview and when is anyone in L.A. ever really happy? It's clear to me, the goal of this generation of writers is to destroy families, couples, friendships, and ties that bind so we the viewers can all wallow in the pain and misery that each character is going through. Let us all wallow in Paul's pain for morphing into a rapist on Y&R. Let us all wallow in Liza's misery for pushing her pregnant sister through a window (very unbelievably might I add) on AMC. Let us all wallow in Jessica's pain as she desperately tries to keep secret her affair with the man who might let a kidnapper and murderer go free on ATWT. Let us all wallow in the grief of the Santos family as they deal with their not so dead leader on Guiding Light. And let us all grieve for GH's Brenda, Sonny, Jax, and Courtney, who have too many love interests to chose from and not enough alcoholics to blame their troubles on.
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