As the Social Issue Turns
Some of my all time favorite soap stories fall under the category of a social issue story. You know those public service announcements in a storyline kind of stories. It can be anything from a hot button issue like gang rape or a tried and true issue like interracial romance. But as much as I have loved many, if not most of these stories, what always bothers me is how quickly the story is forgotten. With the exception of one black/white romance soaps have featured as a social issue story, all of them have broken up. GL's Down syndrome child Meg, has barely been mentioned, let alone seen. OLTL's infamous gang rape resulted in one of the rapists becoming a popular fixture on the show. For all of OLTL's understanding about AIDS, there is no regular character suffering from the disease. We all know how Y&R's previously serious stand on rape has pretty much been shot to death. AMC's Bianca has been used as a guinea pig for two social issue stories and yet, no one bats and eye when that kid skips a meal and she still has no love interest! And that isn't even including all of the illness awareness stories where someone gets the disease of the month, but is cured and it is never spoken of again. When you look at it this way, doesn't all of those special moments of tears, family, and drama seem a bit cheap?
I know what you are thinking, "well Sarah, don't look at it that way then." And I gladly wouldn't, but in the days of skilled writers like Marland, Bell, and Malone, it was a little easier to let those things go, because the writing would be so strong and it would resonate for a much longer time than a few weeks. Also because the purpose of their stories were mainly to educate. I personally feel if you are going to do a social issue story, you have to want to educate the audience. This has to be a story you feel passionate about, with characters you care about, and selfish reasons like a writing Emmy or an actor's demands for a good story, should not factor into it. Malone wanted to educate people about AIDS, Marland wanted to educate about incest and rape, and Bell wanted to enlighten people about the danger of date rape. That was noble. Except now current writers only see the material results of strong ratings and Emmy wins. So lately, we've seen writers who fall short of genius and sometimes border on being hacks, trying to drum up a social issue story of their own. You can tell by the way the recent social issue stories have been put together that the purpose is to get the ratings up first, get an Emmy for an actor second, and if you can educate, well, that's a bonus. Unfortunately, that means that they've missed the point and it shows in the story.
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