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SMNTY Classics: Are soap operas underrated in TV history? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told your protection to i Heeart Radio, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: today we have a throwback for you. This is from
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a long time ago. I don't think we normally run
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: ones that are this old. But before I get into
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: why we're rerunning it, Samantha, have you ever watched any
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: soap operas? Yes, yes, I have so. For a while
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I had a friend who was really in Two Days
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of Our Lives. My mother was really into Young and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the Restless, so between the two I would watch during
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the summers. Obviously UM and knew and there was one
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: character who was evil named Samantha No that I would follow. Yeah,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I do like the evil Samantha. You didn't like the evil,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't, but I had to follow her, of course. Definitely.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever seen a soap opara outside
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of UM. You know. I love the funny cameos, like
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: remember when this big actor was in this like part
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of the By the way, I inadvertently watched ten minutes
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of one at I think of waiting. Oh, I was
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: waiting somewhere and I was like, wow, the acting is
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: really bad, like and and the actors in it. Some
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of them are all school but it's because they're trying
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to I'm so sorry, y'all. They're trying to become relevant.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: And so the whole conversation was about social media, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, what is happening. That's a whole side note. Yeah,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think soap operas are very specific type
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of entertainment that shouldn't be dismissed. Like I think you
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: can like a thing like that, you should feel bad
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: about it, but it knows what it is clearly, it's
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: resonated and you know, I got us my random Star
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Wars fact. But Star Wars is often known as space
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: space operas sometimes space soap opera because you've got all
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: your family connections and like, oh my god, that's my dad,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's my sister. Uh So, I don't
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: think we should outright dismiss it. But the reason this
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: is on my mind is because, like a month or
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: so ago, as we're recording this, Days of Our Lives,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: which has been on the air since the nine, has
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: moved to not a current sponsor, but could be a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: future past sponsor. Peacock NBC Peacock streaming service is a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: big deal. It was a big deal. Uh, it's a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: lot of people were talking about it. A lot of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: people were really upset, and a lot of people kind
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of funnily and sometimes kind of agestly pointed out like,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: no one who watches it is gonna be able to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: figure out peacock. I mean, to be fair, my mother
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: would struggle. Okay, well it's I think it is fair
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that all these streaming services can get complicated. And that's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: all I'll say about that. Also, who wants to pay
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: extra money for soap operas that you were able to watch? Which,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: by the way, again, my mother recorded these, yes, and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: she would get piss if we accidentally recorded something else
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: on that VHS. She had one specific tape dedicated to it,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the tab. If you didn't put the tab incord, Oh
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: it was drama. I would love if somebody, a listener
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: would just right in and explain the plot of Days
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of Our Lives and as condensed a method as you can.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are long running, popular shows. They are
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: award winning eight Emmys for daytime drama I believe, for
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Days of Our Lives, so they resonate people like them.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: But please enjoy this classic episode brought to you by
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve cameras. It's ready. Are you
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: welcome to stump Mom Never told You? From House top
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to podcast. This is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Molly and Kristen Kristin. I have news for you. I'm
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: not actually Molly and her evil twin Holly. Oh god no,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: And I've been sent here to steal the baby that
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: was secretly put inside you by robot. There's a baby
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in my womb? Where's the you don't even remember because
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you have amnesia? Oh shoot, that explains everything. That explains
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: why I don't know where I am right now. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you're in love with your cousin. He was always handsome.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: That goes with a mind. Um, that's a perfectly plausible
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: way to start the show. If we were doing a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: soap opera, Yes, because soap operas, I think we think
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of them as these over the top shows with lots
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of melodramatic plot points. There's always an evil twin. I've
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: always on an evil twin, well like minus the evil twin.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You're saying, if we were doing this a soap opera,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom never told you? Pretty much? It is a
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: soap opera, you know, twists and turns, gender, heteronormativity, progress,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: anti progress. I think we moved too fast to be
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a soap opera because if you've ever watched a stip upper,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: it takes two weeks for like the waffles to come
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: out of the toaster. Yeah, there was one incident. The
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Time article did not state which soap it was on,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: but it said that it took seventeen days for one
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: woman to get out of a revolving door to just
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: kept having flashback after flashback. I hate it when that happens.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: It's really awkward. There's a revolving door to get into
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: our office building here in in in Atlanta, as you know, man,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: imagine being stuck in that for seventeen days and to
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: keep having flashbash. I don't know if I have that
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: much shock too, flashback too. Yeah, they move super slow,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So I think we move a little bit faster than
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: a soap opera. We we may have the plots and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the ups and downs, and uh, the twists and turns
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of a soap opera, but we do not move that slow.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And that is one of the characteristics of soap operas,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: which is our topic for the Bay yeah, because we're
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: gonna cover like seventy years of soaps. That would take
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years in soap time. And the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: reason we decided to talk about soaps now is recently
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: some of the most long running soap operas were canceled.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: All My Children and One Life to Live. These things
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: have been on the on the air for over forty years,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and now they're gonna be gone. They're gone and there
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Now the network soaps are whittled down to only four
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of them. The only ones to make the cut are
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and The Young and the Restless. And not surprisingly, the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: type of programming that is taking over these a time
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: slots where the soaps used to be reality TV, reality
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: TV and game shows, makeover show. Yeah, they're cheaper to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: produce because, uh, soaps, even though they may seem like
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: they're taking forever. They employ a ton of writers, a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: ton of actors. Uh, they do new shows fifty weeks
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: out of the year. Those shows just twain weeks out
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of the year. There's no rehearsal time. They just have
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to keep shooting and shooting and shooting. But it's an
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: hour every day. I mean, the resources to do that
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: are insane. So they're saying that reality is cheaper. Game
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: shows are cheaper, and uh, you know, people just start
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: watching them anymore. Yeah, who do you think makes more,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Susan Lucci or Snooky? Oh gosh, actually would be kind
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of hard to tell. Maybe Smoaky does stuff. You just
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: got that that big speaking engagement where she's going to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: make more than Tony Morrison. Oh yeah, it's kind of pressing.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Let's move, Let's let's do something not so depressing, like
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the history of soap operas, which started in the nineteen
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: thirties on the radio. These were radio serials that were
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: produced specific for housewives, and they were great because it's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: kind of like how I like to listen to NPR
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: while I um, while I cooked, while I cooked dinner.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm doing one of those, uh those
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: fundraisers you know for NPR, like her Glass does. Um.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: But it's perfect because you can go about your work
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and you can just listen along. You don't have to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: sit there, you don't have to be a captive audience
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: in front of a TV. And but you were captive
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: enough that you were in the home and listening to that.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And that's why soap Oppera's got their name is because
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the sponsors and sometimes the creators of these shows where
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the manufacturers of household cleaning products. So let's say you're
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: sitting there, you know, making dinner for your husband and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: your pearls before it comes home in the nineteen thirties, Kristen,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, one of the characters on
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: your shows works in a reference to, you know, really
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: great mopping liquid or something. I love mopping liquids. I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's what they're called, because I don't clean, Sorry,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: mom um, but yeah, it's it's kind of slid in
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: there as part of the story. You don't even notice
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that it's an ad. At the next time you're in
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the story, you're like, oh, man, that character my favorite show,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: she uses this mopping product. I'm gonna buy it. Yeah,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So it's like product placement. All the stuff in Jerry
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Seinfeld's cabinets, you know, they were always mentioned on Yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So that's how they get their name. The soap comes
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: from the people who are putting these shows on the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: air and opera. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: from the very beginning was kind of set out to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: be sort of an ironic, kind of uh, put down
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: on the on the form, because opera, in terms of
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: people singing, that's one of the highest art forms you
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: can be. And they're saying that this person's life and
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it's melodrama. They're comparing it to that highest art form
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and kind of making it into a joke. They're right
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: away from the beginning the term soap opera. It's kind
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of a put down, and I don't think that it
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: ever regains any sort of cultural cachet, and so I
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: think that they're kind of, you know, they're always considered
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: a punchline, a joke, something that only women watched. And
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: that's why we kind of wanted to go through history
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and show times at which soap operas were actually pretty great.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they led all the things on television we enjoyed day,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: such as Stucky or our our primetime soap drama like shows. Yeah,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: they're incredibly formative for the type of TV that all
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of us guys, gals, teens, adults watch today. And it
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: goes back to nineteen thirty to a Chicago radio station
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: w g IN and a lady named Erna Phillips, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: she started this serial called Painted Dreams About Um. It
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was a fifteen minutes serialized drama setting the home of
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: an Irish American widow and her young, unmarried daughter. So
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the window was giving her daughter all sorts of advice,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: every little conversations that were instructed between mother and daughter
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and UH, and the show really had its background in
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the kind of fiction, little short stories that were in
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: women's magazines in the nineteen and nineteen thirties that were
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: so popular. So they're saying, these soap operas are sort
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of a you know, kind of maybe a pit stop
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: on the way from those old melodrama books all the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: way maybe to the romance novels that came later. And
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: then they borrowed the serialized format from shows like Amos
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and Andy, which was a very popular comic radio serial.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So these things were super popular. Everyone was listening to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: these most of the daytime programming in radio. Were these
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: kind of cereals. And then we've got old TV coming along,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and everyone at first thought this was not going to work.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: These were not, uh, formats that were interchangeable, because you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: if these housewives were cooking dinner or cleaning all of
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a sudden, they'd have to sit down to actually watch
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the show. So people thought it was not going to
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: work on TV at all. But little did they know
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: just how much stoves would take off on TV, as
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: we all very well know. And Guiding Light was the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: first soap opera to make the transition from radio TV,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and actually from nineteen fifty two to nineteen fifty six
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it was broadcast on both radio and television. Yeah, there
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: are a few years where they overlapped. Put by the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties, most of the soap operas are on television,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and uh, they expanded. What was at first a fifteen
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: minutes show became a thirty minute show because there are
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: more actors. You you had more time to like set
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: your scene. Um. And this is where we get a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: lot of the same conventions that we have today, like
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the music to provide the theme, Um, the Cliffhangers on Friday,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: so you'll come back on Monday. There's some soaps of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: doing another article where nothing happens Monday through Thursday and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: everything I'm on Friday, the Cliffhanger, so you just watch
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: on Friday because to get like up to date. But yeah,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: they start, um coming on TV and they start getting longer.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Some of them moved to an hour just because you know,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: they're making the families bigger, they're building more characters into it,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and and they're having a lot of success with the format.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And we also see the beginning of network rivalries. We
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: have CBS and Procter and Gambled team up for As
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the World Turns, which was incredibly popular, and then NBC
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and ABC did something quite groundbreaking they started the medical
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: soaps with the doctors and general hospital. Yeah. I think
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: if you're a fan of shows like er Gray's Anatomy,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you have nine three with these medical soaps to thank
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: for that, because, uh, setting a show in a hospital
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: allows you to bring in characters and have them leave
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: if they're not popular, but if they are popular, they
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: can stick around and be like the doctor's friend. So
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it was a really good setting. These soap iers figured
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: out to to bring a lot of people in to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: have a lot of really emotionally charged moments, because that's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: what happens in a hospital, right. And speaking of emotionally
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: charged moments, one place that soaps are really under underappreciated
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: in TV history is for the social issues. Social and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: cultural issues that they bring to the foreground. Granted it
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: is sometimes done in a highly dramatized and seemingly unrealistic way,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but many people not that many people have amnesia, right, um,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and you do have you know a little more, some
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: more far flung things such as murder as a result
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: of temporary insanity. But at the same time they we
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: have the first televised like dramatized abortion in nineteen sixty four.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I think it was Erica Kaine's character. I think Erica
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Kane got one later, but we did have one even
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: before Rob Wade was passed. Oh yeah, this is nineteen
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: sixty four. This happens on another world. And then in
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: One Life to Live we have the first soap to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: foreground class and ethnic differences in ninety eight by introducing
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the first African American character who, as part of the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: soap plot line, tries to pass as white, and then
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: later on probably like a million episodes down the line,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: because we know how slowly soaps move, comes out as
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a black person. We have some of the first gay
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: characters on TV who are featured in soap operas. Drug use,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: domestic abuse, alcoholism is rampant, and and soap operas, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: then just random things like oh, incest impotence, dolls coming
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to life in the Vietnam War. You know. So it's
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: like we have there's this grab bag of the most
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: sort of absurd to the most like legitimate social issues
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that aren't being talked about anywhere else. Yeah, and soap
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: operas yea. And I think that that's sort of why
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they do get that bad rap is everyone just remembers
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the over the top things. The murderers who are on
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the Lamb for like seventy five episodes, the people who
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: are in that revolving door, the doll that comes to life,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: who is one of my favorites. Um, but that that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: social groundbreaking, Uh, in terms of talking about these issues
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: on television, I think does get forgot and um, you
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: know because the people who were sitting at home watching
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: them are housewives. And we've talked before about how housewives,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: especially one second wave feminism comes along, kind of lose
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: out on their respect they deserve because people were thinking, oh,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: she's just a lazy housewives. She's got her feet up
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: watching her stories, her children are running crazy, and she's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: not getting her husband's dinner on the table, and so
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the fact that a women are watching them be there's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: women as main characters on the show, and often women
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: are behind the scenes producing these shows. I mean, these
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: shows made some women writers a lot of money. They
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: were some of the highest paid, yeah, female writers in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the business, Agnes Nixon because um, because of the popularity
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: these soap opera. So because it's such a female art form.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's another reason why it gets kind of
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: laughed at and only remembered for you know, the demonic
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: possession of that lady on the Bold and Beautiful Well,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I think that we should point out to that One
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why we have things like demonic possession
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: going on in these soaps is because advertise zers and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the producers of the shows realized, um, you know, decades
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: ago that their core audience, those housewives were kind of
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: aging out of that um prime demographics. So they started
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to sensationalize a lot of the plot lines to draw
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: in more, um more viewers. Including today, it's not uncommon
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: for college students to get sucked into soaps. You have
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: your housewives, yes, but you also have even teenagers watching
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: them and dudes. Yeah, there was this time article in
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, which I guess is kind of the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: pinnacle of soap success Um, which pointed out some famous
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: fans of soap operas, included such luminaries as Supreme Court
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Justice They're good, They're good, Marshal Uh, Sammy Davis Jr.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Texas Governor John Connelly, Andy Warhol Uh and a few others.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So it's it definitely when it when it reached his peak,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: it was something that everyone was kind of participating in,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: but it was still like this guilty pleasure. You couldn't
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: just admit, oh, I like this because I like the characters.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: It's more like, you know, oh, I'm going to sneak
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: home and catch catch on my shouldern. And during this
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: heyday uh, as Time reports, people were getting so wrapped
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: up in soaps that some soap stars were actually physically
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: in danger when they would go out in public because
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: they were so vilified on on TV and then for instance, CBS.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: This is according to Time magazine was obliged to eliminate
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: soap opper characters who were poor because the network kept
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: receiving piles of care packages and one woman kept delaying
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: her wedding and they got this angry letter from this
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: woman who had bought like Champagne to sit there and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: watch while she had the weddings. Because I watch Champagne
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: four times, this lady hasn't gotten married yet. So yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are shows where it's easy to get
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: emotionally invested in characters, and people did um. But but
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: then it just sort of died out. I think that
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: in an effort to bring in some younger viewers, a
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: lot of the soaps were competing with each other. You
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: were loyal to one, so you couldn't branch out to another,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and all the viewership kind of got divided and more
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: women started going to work, they were not home during
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the day, so they lost a big audience there at
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: its pinnacle. May I just may I just tell us
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: out this nugget? No, I can't wait, Okay, And I
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: think this, this, this statement in Time magazine represents the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: climax of soap opera's place in our pop culture and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: since since fallen. Okay, you ready for this? Soap operas
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: are the folk tales that tug it the soul of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: a nation of strangers, for whom television itself is a bond. Wow.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: The folk tales that tug at the soul of a
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: nation of stranger that's profound. I mean, this is seventies six,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, you could maybe say in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: a in a far crosser way that maybe reality TV
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: are now are horrifying folk tales of a nation of
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: culture obsessives. I don't know, well, I think so, I
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: think that this is um, you know, soap opera start
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: appearing at night, the nighttime soaps your your Melrose Places,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You're Beverly Hills nine, I too. One. I mean, these
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: shows have very clear lines from soap operas to to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: that kind of format, something that was serialized. You have
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to see every episode Alison Dynasty before that, all the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: way to mad Men today. I think that that is
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a pretty clear line from a soap opera. In fact,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the criticism that sometimes mad Men gets it's it's nothing
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: more than addressed up soap opera. So um, we've got
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: those shows, We've got reality now, We've got reality people
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: who just you know, live out their lives in the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: tabloids and they're just as outrageous as anything you would
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: see on a soap opera. So I think that because
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: we learned so much about how to act over the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: top and crazy in a soap opera. I think we
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: kind of grew out of them naturally because we learned
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: all we can learn from them well and sim And
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: similar to how reality shows are are so cheap to produce,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: because reality you don't have to pay Joe Schmo that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: much to get on film, soap opera stars aren't paid
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: that much either. They only get about thirty five grand
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and which is about the same as someone who's on Broadway.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And they might have to memorize up to sixty pages
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of dialogue per day because they're only recorded. We recorded,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: That's not like I used the telegraph um a week
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in advance. So yeah, they are sort of um unsung
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: heroes in terms of the work that went into them,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Um a lot of more. I mean, they were expensive
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: compared to reality shows, but from what you got from it,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: You've got all these actors, all these stories. The chimpanzee
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: nurse who falls in love with a male character. Oh jeez,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I wish I'd been around for that one. Um. But
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: what's kind of amazing is, besides all the hours of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: entertainment we all got from these kind of shows, our mothers,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: our grandmothers, etcetera. There's evidence now that people around the world,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: women around the world and developing countries are getting something
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: from these kind of stories. And for that, I want
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to go to an article with the the enticing headline
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: soap operas boost rights, Global Economists says and basically they
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: did this research and it was kind of research on
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: what people in the developing world we're watching and they
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: are watching soap operas and seeing these programs with strong
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: female characters because most shows have a matriarch at the center. Um,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: with all these offshoots around and the female characters are
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: quite brazen. You'r Erica Kin's um, this is really setting
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: an influence on these women who may be living under um,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you know, very outdated gender norms. And so what acording
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to this researcher, not only are the names of soap
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: oper characters becoming very popular names in these countries, quote,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: there's evidence to support the idea that strong female characters
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: help them and in these developing countries begin to challenge
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the power relations between men and women. Whoa whoa, okay, yeah,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: big woe my my knee jerk reaction to that is
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: one grain of salt. Two correlation causation I mean that
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: that is an interesting corollary uh to to draw. But
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you can also read studies about
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the influence of TV in developing nations, and also you'll
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: have on the flip side more more body issues for girls,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: races of eating disorders go up. Self image becomes uh
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a lot more important in a sort of negative kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of way. Beauty standards change and start to Western eyes,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: so grain of salt. But I did read one article
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: about how um they've started this this um soap opper
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in Afghanistan with local actors and storylines, and I think
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: that maybe using that model of exploring different social issues
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: within your own country, I think maybe in twenty years
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: or so, maybe we'll see more about how soap oppas
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: made in these developing countries can eventually influence the people
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: who are watching them. Yeah, I could definitely see that
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: rather than something that's being important in which is kind
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of interesting to think about. When if if you've got
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: actors who are only being paid thirty five dollars and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: shows that are being watched by literally hundreds of millions
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of people around the world and potentially changing lives, that's
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: why every actor gets into show business. Change lives change life.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think that's the perfect note to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in this Mom's Stuff Cereal podcast, it's our cliffhanger. We
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: always end with the cliffhanger where we ask for your thoughts,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: what is your favorite soap opera? We should throw that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: up on Facebook and we'll see how many General hospital
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: fans we have? How many all my children to vote? Yes,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: we have passions anybody. We want to know what you
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: guys watched? Did you watch it with your parents? That's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: how I got into soap oppers for my brief, very
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: brief stint in them. But do you buy our thesis
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that soaps are totally underrated or are you ready to
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: wash the somatic clean? Well? In the meantime, let's read
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a couple of the listener males. I have one here
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: from Jordan's and uh. The email begins. I wanted to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: comment on the recent use of people with vaginas and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: various forms thereof to mean women, and I think, yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I think you do this, and it's it's kind of
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: a joke, but there's a good point here. There are
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: people who identify as women who don't or might not
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: yet have vaginas, or who don't have the other standard
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: issue lady parts, trans women, women who have genitalia that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: have been damaged, or who's genitalia didn't develop into an
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: official vagina, etcetera. Our male dominated society's definition of women
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: as a sex organ from men's use, and any thing
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that is not a sex organ and not useful to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: men is thereby not woman. It's important to be inclusive,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: um not to mention, important not to collude with the patriarchy.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So therefore the vaginant people phrasing, though meant to be funny,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you can have the unintentional consequence of saying to some
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: women that they are not women. And of course Jordan
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and everyone else, that was not our intent. It is
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: sort of just supposed to be funny. So if you
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: if you spiritually feel like you have a vagina, that's yeah,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that's why we can't. I can't promise I'll stop saying
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: vagina a lot in the podcast, but that is an
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: excellent point to keep in mind. Well, I've got an
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: email here from Kristen on our Beer podcast, and she
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: writes it reminded me of my younger, more single days,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: when I would look for guys to talk to you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: at the bar. I never talked to the guys holding
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the light beer bottles because one I wanted a guy
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: who drank craft beer like I did, and two, I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: want a guy who drank to enjoy his beer rather
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: than get drunk. So he didn't have to have all
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: those low quality, yucky beers because he was worried about
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: increase se his waistline from all those calories and didn't
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: need to skimp on costs as if your high quality
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: beers usually suggested, he probably wasn't a cheapskate. I was
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a beer snub then and continue to be one now,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and my husband and I regularly visit craft beer festivals,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: events and local breweries. So if you have an email
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to send our way, our address is mom Stuff at
• 27:23
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• 27:25
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• 27:32
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• 27:37
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• 27:39
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• 27:47
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• 27:50
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• 27:52
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• 27:58
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• 28:06
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