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Soap opera - and television in general - is by nature conservative. Sponsors are cautious. They don't want their shows to offend the sensibilities of their viewers and cause them to tune out. Risks are frowned upon. So shows generally follow the tried and true formulas.
Conservatism can be a good thing. Soaps thrive on long term commitment of their viewers. People tuning in expect to see a certain familiarity from the characters, storylines, and overall approach. Something that follows their expectations gives them an easy comfortable shoe to put on, a fantasy world to enter into, to escape the pressures of day to day.
Yet viewers don't want to be bored either. If too predictable and trite, a show will not attract an audience. Therefore shows - and OLTL is one of them - have from time to time pushed the envelope, to do something that is just a little bit different, or present something in a way that is unexpected, challenging and even uncomfortable.
Risks of course do not always succeed. Sometimes they fail. It takes good planning and execution as well courage on the part of the network to bring across an unusual story that breaks into new ground. In this article I (with a little help from my friends) would like to recognize OLTL for some of the risks it has taken during its 30 years history.
(1) Storylines and Social Significance
"I think that much of the early years - the Agnes Nixon years - was consciously ground-breaking. The stories at the time were written to address and sometimes even redress society's hot spots. Later, some innovations were really organic, stemming from the preoccupations of the changing writers and the headlines of the day. Those years were less ground-breaking, IMHO, than reflective of our lives. ... When I was watching OLTL in those early days, I was totally absorbed in the drama. I especially loved family sagas, and OLTL was rich in them. At that point in my life I wasn't watching for trends or firsts, but I was certainly aware that this show was telling stories I didn't see anywhere else. And I liked it very much. I didn't feel preached to, only involved, challenged and, in a curious way, respected. Other shows did not really draw from real life headlines to the degree OLTL did. Or with such responsible research behind the drama. Think of when OLTL went to Odyssey House for the drug story."
[Tante Joan, e-mail, June/98]
Basing stories on current headlines might seem like a surefire way to draw viewers - what better way to make sure people can relate the on-air dramas to their daily life? But this approach is risky too. Often, headline-making stories are controversial. People might take sides, or be offended at how the issue is presented. It is a tightrope - one that OLTL from its early days has not been afraid to walk.
Some of the earliest storylines, 1968-1972, tackled issues of race, illicit drugs, and sexual freedom in a socially relevant context. Probably the most well known example is the "passing" story of Carla Gray, who was played by actress Ellen Holly. That story, of a woman of black heritage pretending to be white, was a study in self-acceptance versus societal pressure. According to Ellen Holly in her book "One Life: The Autobiography of an African-American Actress", the social relevance of the story sent shock waves throughout daytime and lit up storms of protest. It also gained the show unusually high ratings and attracted many black viewers.
Also in those early years, OLTL gave us the story of Cathy Craig, a teenager who became a drug addict. She went to Odyssey House, New York, for rehab, where real-life drug users were part of the story. In another storyline of around the same time, Dr. Joyce Brothers appeared as Meredith Lord Wolek's therapist when Meredith dealt with post-partum depression and the birth and death of a child.
More recently, a memorable "social impact" story was the homophobia storyline from 1992. In that story, the town's minister, Andrew Carpenter, was accused of having an affair with Billy Douglas, a young gay parishioner. The fallout from that story impacted the whole town and highlighted the Carpenter family relationships, as it was revealed that Andrew's father, Sloan Carpenter, had refused to accept the homosexuality of Andrew's brother, William, who had died of AIDS. Andrew and his father were reconciled when Sloan finally accepted his son's homosexuality in a ceremony involving the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Rape is obviously a sensitive subject, but judging by the frequency with which it is portrayed on daytime, a rape story in itself isn't necessarily risky. But OLTL presented the 1993 story of the rape of Marty in an unusually challenging way. The circumstances were almost ordinary - a garden-variety frat party. The whole brutal act (which was fortunately more suggested than directly shown, in an upstairs room) played out over a backdrop of everyday partygoers downstairs unconsciously dancing to popular music of the day. The three frat-boy rapists weren't the subhuman monsters we usually see in that role. One of them, Cousin Powell, was even part of the Lord family. They could have been boys next door, our neighbors' sons or brothers - or - maybe, even our own? That, and not any graphic portrayal, was the real shock of it, and the real storytelling risk - making it a bit too true to life, too real, bringing it a bit too close to home for comfort.
To its credit, today's OLTL is continuing its groundbreaking tradition. Handicapped people are seldom portrayed on soaps. Currently, in the story of David Renaldi, OLTL is giving a very sensitive portrait of a man with Lou Gehrig's syndrome. The part of David is portrayed by actor Michael Zaslow, who does in fact have the disease.
(2) Race
"Of all the stories that aired before I started watching OLTL, I really regret missing Carla's story. People always have such fond memories of it and it is really considered groundbreaking for soaps. If you look back into early Hollywood history (the 30s, 40s, perhaps even 50s) you'd see that Carla fit into one of the basic three types of characters black women were allowed to portray in the movies: mammy, siren, or the tragic mulatto. The mammy usually got to say a few lines of "wisdom" or sass and love her mistress. The siren enticed the white men and black men and were usually dead by the end of the movie. And the tragic mulatto spent her time trying to fit in somewhere. Usually she passed over to the white world breaking her family's heart, only to be found out eventually and tossed away. Or she'd go back on her world. But the tragic mulatto never got the man because a lot of the time the character was played by a white actress! So at the end she'd be happy back in the bosom of her family, usually doing something socially acceptable (like teaching) but alone since they really couldn't show her with a black man. It looks like OLTL took this old concept and outdid it! The medium is actually very good for something like this when done right!"
[Angela Earlye, e-mail, June/98]
"It seems to me that Carla was an important and interesting character mainly in terms of her conflicted feelings about being black and dealing with being an "out" black person in a white society. Once that was resolved, she became less and less interesting to the writers. This has always seemed to me to be the biggest problem soaps have with black characters, making them interesting people because of who they are as individuals rather than using them to focus on issue plots about racism that are rarely done with much subtlety or daring. And once the issue (such as housing discrimination) is "fixed", these characters cease to have any real reason to exist on the canvas. Michael Delaney on AMC had the same problem. The only thing interesting about him was that he was gay. Once everyone knew it and reacted, that was that. Imagine if soaps only had female characters for plots about sexual harassment or rape."
[Rhonda Reedy, e-mail, June/98]
Our soaps are a racially and culturally cloistered environment. Many of the country's diverse races and cultures might as well be nonexistent, for all we see of them on the television (and soap) canvas. OLTL hasn't really challenged that prevailing wisdom, but at least the show has allowed its minority characters to be more fully fleshed out than is usually seen. For example, in the 1990s the Gannons in their heyday and the Vegas in theirs had a very well developed family dynamic, equivalent to the "white" families.
I'd like to recognize especially OLTL's treatment of the Gannon family. For one thing, when the media portrays a mixed-race couple, it is almost always a black woman with a white man. The interracial (former) marriage of Hank and Nora reversed that scenario. A relationship where it is the man who is black is usually considered "too threatening". Too bad that by the time they came to town, Hank and Nora were already divorced, or we might have seen some even more groundbreaking stories. It's also unusual to see a black man portrayed as a genuinely evil "bad guy" - again, too threatening. So, the amount of "bad" we got in RJ, Hank's reprehensible younger brother, was a real eye opener. All in all, the Gannon family had enough layers that their stories did not need to focus on race (or romance) alone. They also dealt with broader human topics - addiction, family, kinship, jealousy, ambition, loyalty, and betrayal.
(3) Lifestyle
"We don't have poor people in Llanview. No, this is a story about rich people and richer people. We don't have any more black people. That changed when Agnes Nixon let go of the show after five years."
[Erika Slezak on the occasion of OLTL's 20th anniversary, 1988, as quoted in Soap Opera Digest, 14 July/98, p. 66]
Is it an unwritten rule that everyone on a soap has to be rich? When OLTL first aired, its original concept was to depict families from diverse walks of life. The wealthy Lords were upper class, the Polish immigrant Woleks were working class. That divergence in today's OLTL has all but disappeared. The Woleks are no longer part of the canvas. Now we have the wealthy versus the still more wealthy. The way of life depicts carriage houses, spas, palatial multi roomed houses and penthouses immaculately furnished. Clothing features designer fashion statements. Characters who start out 'poor' soon find all their worldly problems solved via $$$. In the last year, young Kelly Cramer got a fabulous inheritance from Ian Armitage. In a 1995 story, even former rapist Todd Manning became part of the Lord family and heir to millions. When Viki burned down her house (in the 1995 DID storyline) it was speedily rebuilt with no apparent consequences. I don't know about you but this sure isn't my way of life.
How refreshing then were the Vegas (and indeed all of Angel Square) when they were brought on in 1995. By depicting another newly immigrant family from Puerto Rico, they brought a much needed return to diversity to the OLTL canvas. And regardless of their ethnicity, here at last was a way of life I could recognize and relate to - down to the simple kitchen and hard working mother. What a pity that currently, that part of the show is being de-emphasized, and Carlotta has traded in her honest, simple clothing for a refurbished image and designer togs. I guess, in 1998, fantasy wish fulfillment is the genre of the day and portrayal of real working class families is just too risky.
(4) Appearance
"I think casting Timothy Stickney was a daring move ... his "look" was just not a look I associate with soaps." [Angela Earlye, e-mail, June/98]
Another of soaps' unwritten rules seems to be that their characters must look like they stepped out of a glossy magazine. The jane or joe on the street or your next door neighbor they definitely do not resemble. It sometimes even seems like having standard ideal looks counts for more than acting ability.
All of this physical (supposed) perfection on one show ends up giving an impression of bland sameness. It's nice every once in a while to see a character who looks more like a "real" person. On OLTL, some unusual casting decisions and non-typical "hunks" that come to mind are ponytailed Jason Webb (Mark Brettschneider), the charismatic RJ (Timothy Stickney), and Angel Square's master of comedy Eddie Valesquez (Jose Soto). Their non-stereotypical good looks added a dimension of humanity to the show.
Kudos also to OLTL for allowing its men to experiment with different lengths and styles of hair (for example, RJ's dreadlocks, Jason and Todd's ponytails). Some of the men have even, on occasion, grown beards! (in recent memory, Max, Cord, Clint, RJ). It's an attractive change from the standard clean-shaven look, and also adds diversity and realism to their characters.
(5) Religion
We are warned to never discuss politics or religion at polite social events. Somebody is bound to get mad. There might be arguments. Soaps pretty much stick to that maxim too. If religion is discussed at all, it is only as a peripheral afterthought, and never affects a storyline outcome. So, on OLTL under the pen of HeadWriter Michael Malone (1992-1996), it was startling to find questions of religion and faith to be a central ongoing thread of many storylines, and essential to many of his characters' lives.
A new age tarot reading goddess worshipper (Luna) - the cultish Tabernacle of Joy (Angela, Rebecca) - a devout Jew (Nora) - an Episcopalian minister (Andrew) who actually took his calling seriously - we can practically see the network PTB cringing. Surely such stories were bound to offend somebody! Kudos to Malone and to OLTL for daring to bring religious orientation into central focus on the show, as it is in many people's lives.
(6) Offbeat humor
A laugh is good for the soul - and for keeping audiences in a good mood. In the mid 90s OLTL played actor Tuc Watkins' comedic abilities to the hilt in David Vickers' storylines. But how far to go to tell a joke? Some of those "black comedies" might have gone a little over the edge of good taste:
Tina/David (1994): These two were madly in love with each other with chemistry to burn. The only trouble was that David (in the midst of a scam) was pretending to be Tina's long lost brother (and Lord Heir). David knew he wasn't, but Tina thought he was! Their "We want to but we can't" made for some hilarious moments. Should they have consummated their romance? Personally, I liked the idea - but when they finally did, many viewers were offended.
"Madeleine Helmore" (1995): Dorian created the fictitious "Madeleine Helmore" and persuaded Blair for help to entrap David in adultery. Blair lured David into bed and then tied him up, so that she could unbeknownst substitute Dorian for the actual act. The sight of the bound, blindfolded David writhing lasciviously on the bed was just a little more kinky than we usually see on our staid soap operas!
Kelly/David (1996): He was a no-good scoundrel coming on a bit too strong. She had every right to bop him on the head when he refused to take no for an answer. But what about when she buried him alive - and they played it for laughs? That was going just a bit too far, don't you think?
(7) Production
"I think Gottlieb and Malone trying to reinvent the wheel and do short-arc stories was a risk ... I think it failed and didn't serve soaps well but then when you take risks you're not always 100% successful." [Angela Earlye, e-mail, June/98]
Outside the genre: In 1991, ABC made the daring move of hiring an Executive Producer (Linda Gottlieb) and HeadWriter (Michael Malone) with no prior soap experience. After a few bumpy patches in the beginning (see short-arc stories, below), the two went on to create some of the most gripping stories ever. However, in retrospect, the network PTB must have considered that experiment a failure because they haven't hired outside the soap genre since.
Short arc stories: In 1991, new to the genre EP Linda Gottlieb and HW Michael Malone tried producing short arc stories with unfamiliar characters. The result - no one cared. As Malone himself admitted later, the short-arc stories didn't work for soaps, which must be a continuous drama. It is interesting to note that today, a few soaps are experimenting once again with faster moving plotlines in an effort to attract younger viewers (see Marlena De Lacroix, "Guiding Light: the Vision and the Fallout", Soap Opera Weekly, 18 Aug/98, p.18).
Music: A more successful innovation brought in by EP Linda Gottlieb was the approach to background music production. She instituted post production editing, which enabled a better match of sound to visual image, and OLTL was the first soap to use this technique (other soaps have since followed suit). OLTL also created identifiable original themes for different characters, and began using more orchestral cues. These developments enhanced the storylines and gave a richer sound to the show than had been heard before on soaps. Also in the musical realm, OLTL has from time to time, featured truly live performances (for example, the Chieftains episode in 1996, Erykah Badu in 1997), which must be somewhat of a risk and is unusual in this age of lipsynch.
(8) Failure of Nerve: Risks not taken
How many potentially daring or groundbreaking storylines have viewers missed out on because of failure of nerve on the part of TPTB? We will probably never know, except for one or two tantalizing rumors, and of course there are some issues that are just too incendiary to tackle.
Storylines squashed: Angela Earlye has a fascinating account of a "1996 Storyline Never Told" (see IMHO feature articles below). In the summer of 1996, viewers saw the beginnings of a leadup to a storyline of racism which was to involve the whole town. The story was stifled, unfortunately, when the network PTB became concerned about the show's falling ratings and feared to alienate viewers any further. Along the same vein, rumor has it that originally, for OLTL's 1992 homophobia storyline, it was Joey Buchanan who was intended to be the gay young man who didn't want his parents to know. It was deemed too risky to make a son of the leading Llanview family homosexual, and so that role was given to an outsider instead. We will have to imagine how those storylines might have played out if the original intentions had been followed!
Glaring omissions: Given that soap operas are a genre aimed primarily at women, certain topics have been strangely side-stepped (possibly because they would be too inflammatory?). For instance, soaps have yet to deal with abortion in any meaningful way. True, abortion is brought up from time to time, but only as a horrible idea that should be rejected. If a woman on a soap opera contemplates that option at all, it's a sure signal that her character is "bad". I would like to see this thorny topic dealt with in a way that is more respectful of the tough decisions and real situations bravely faced by many women. Would it take courage to do that? Yes, probably, but isn't this *our* genre? Another topic I find strangely absent on our soaps is lesbianism. Storylines have from time to time dealt with gay males. Shouldn't we be exploring issues of female sexuality as well?
Conclusion and Thanks
From unusual storylines, to idiosyncratic characters and innovative technical production, OLTL has pushed the normal daytime envelope, for the enrichment of us all. Over its 30 year history, the risks OLTL has taken have succeeded more than they have failed and they have given us some of our most-remembered highlights.
Finally, as a viewer of the 90s I would like to thank Executive Producers Linda Gottlieb and Susan Horgan, and HeadWriters Josh Griffith and especially (the sometimes evil) genius Michael Malone. During the early and mid 90s they crafted some of the most challenging, psychologically compelling, and thought provoking characters and stories I have ever seen on daytime, or any medium - yet all was done with an underlying sense of humanity and good humor. In those years they dared much and gained much, for OLTL was a soap not like all the others.