Who’s watching Daytime Soap Opera’s anyway?
A question that studio Execs feel they’ve answered. Is it the new influx of viewers of ‘baby-boomers’ that are retiring early and returning to long forgotten soaps? According to the networks - NO! Is it the multi-cultural melting pot that are working shorter days, or longer nights - giving themselves the option to turn on their sets? According to ABC daytime, and other’s the answer is NO! Its the 12 - to 24 market that sits in front of their sets everyday.
These viewers are not diverse, independent thinking, or even mildly intelligent. How could they be. Have you taken a look at daytime TV lately? The lack of people of color is just a symptom of a bigger problem. The recycled, contrived, brainless story lines designed to sell dish detergent or tampons to middle American white women - are even boring them to tears.
Even more shocking is the fact that the same networks have diverse, throught provoking, humorus, wildly entertaining primetime programming - featuring the same diverse characterization, daytime refuses to show you.
You will never see an Asian woman as a lead actress on any daytime soap, let alone paired with a white or Asian man. Though the largest interracial coupling right now is Asian W with White men.
You will never see an Black woman as a lead or supporting actress that isn’t anything more than a friend or prop. If you do, her tenure will be less than four years and she will then be erased from the soap history books.
Oh I could go on, but you get my drift. Even worse than the characterization - is the bias propoganda pimped by the Soap Mags (owned by the same networks) to draw viewers by highlighting long lost minority actors/actresses knowing full well that the need for color isn’t something to be explored.
But uniquely out of the ignorant, separatism of daytime TV something else has been borned. A viewership that has taken the power of their characterizations and put it to work. Fanfiction sites are on the incline and stories expertly told are becoming more imaginable and entertaining than any of the network programming. Go figure? Maybe that was the intent anyway? I for one don’t care. I’m done with daytime soaps and the execs that say my viewership doesn’t matter. Guess it’s all part of being the master of your entertainment…..
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"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." by Stephen King
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