pantstributor

The Dirty on Soaps

There is a part of my past I like to pretend never happened, but since Poshdeluxe is brave enough to admit to being a Keanu junkie, I must bite down and barrel forward.  That’s right, I am here to dive into the deep, dark world of soap operas.  This is a hot topic right now, and not just because the longest running soap has been canceled (R.I.P. Guiding Light).  Everyone is all in a tizzy because someone is defying the Second Law of Celeb-dynamics.  Much like the second law of thermodynamics hot bodies will always attempt to become cooler (in the case of thermodynamics, entropy, in the case of celeb-dynamics, from soap star to movie star).  Think Meg Ryan, Demi Moore, Brad Pitt, Julianne Moore, Ryan Phillipe, and fucking Tommy Lee Jones! Now, there is one man who is defying these laws!  Think of him as the air conditioner of celebrities.  That’s right, you know who this rule breaker is.  It is none other than Daniel Desario James Franco.  What is he doing?!!  Is it the economic meltdown?  Is he struggling to pay his student loans?  Is he making a bold statement about is uncrushable stardom?

This all got me thinking about what the soap opera is, and what it does for women.  (I’m not excluding dudes because I know you’re out there!)  It all brought me back to a talk Camille Paglia gave about poetry that I attended.  She is a huge figure in the feminist community and is was way badass.

That is the look she gives before she is going to eat you.  That is why I was blown away when she digressed and waxed poetical about soap operas while canonical pieces of poetry took a back seat.  Stand aside Emily Dickenson, the average woman learned more from daytime tv!  Now, a part of me (the snooty liberal arts student) dismissed this outright, but a part of me (that watched Days of Our Lives religiously in high school) rejoiced.  That’s right people, I was obsessed with Days of Our Lives, and I am here to tell you why!  And not just because Marlena dominates as demonstrated by the photo below:

Camille said that often women take a long time to process events.  We like to chew, to reexamine, to ask girlfriends for advice.  I mean, how else do you think the tradition of tea-time and girly nights got started, people?  This is perhaps why we get mad when guys give us advice.  We just want to TALK about it.  Soap operas are the shining example of this.  Something happens, like your husband cheats on your with your twin sister, you’re going to have to digest that before you claw his eyes out, right?  You were always going to claw his eyes out.  Girlfriend doesn’t need to tell you that.  But you need to talk about the pain he caused.  Soap operas are a model!  I am so with Camille on that one.

It also brings people together for a cooperative female educational experience!  I used to watch Days of Our Lives with my mom as we played nerts (the best card game ever).  We talked about how we would deal with similar situations.  Like seriously, say you got amnesia and a man who claimed to be your husband found you in your happy, new Amish home?   Do you believe him when he says that you’re married to him and an oil baroness?  I mean come on people.  You have to trust him.  He has an excellently well-kept beard.  I say yay.  Well, what happens when you get home and you find out that you have a clone, AND you are the princess of San Cristobal?  WHAT WOULD YOU DO??!!  (Obvi run away from said husband and clone to check out this island you rule.)   Just like the larger society, women have to build a structure of what should be done in certain situations, and every situation has been played out in soaps.  I dare you to try to give me a crazy one in the comments that HAS NOT been done.

Which brings me to another point, where else are you going to find these ridiculous storylines?  The one up above ACTUALLY HAPPENED, to Reva Shayne on Guiding Light.

Now, interestingly enough, there are two camps of soap opera watchers.  Those who are into the absurd form and those who are into classic soap opera form and never the twain shall meet.  On the former end of the spectrum, you’ve got living dolls belonging to mean-spirited witches (a.k.a. Passions):

and the other you’ve got love affairs all over the place (think Young & the Restless).  Y & R fans are in the ivory tower of soaps. I mean, just look at the characters, they’re normal looking, above-average attractive people who probably don’t have time-consuming jobs, but have time-consuming lusts:

You can see it in their EYES!!!  Now, every dredge can be a part of the absurdist club (they even took me!)   I mean, if you are trying to convince people that someone is possessed by the devil, you kind of have to cater to the lowest common denominator.  In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am that lowest common denominator.

Remember Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own?  Every woman needs to write.  She said other stuff too, but that’s the gist.  Soaps have even gotten a whole gaggle of women writing!  There is a whole fanfic world!  If you thought that Twilight fans were crazy, just browse through the 775 fan fiction options for Days alone.  Dude, it is so serious they have an MPAA-style rating system.  That’s right ADULT CONTENT!!  Daytime tv is too tame for these fans.  And don’t think that Y&R isn’t above that, cause they’re not.  But they do only have three pages versus Days’ 31.  I told you, there are categorical differences between fans.

So perhaps with all the gifts that soap operas give us, we should be thankful that James Franco is being a po-mo-neo-feminist and GIVING BACK!!  Huzzah my good man!!  Perhaps he wants to reach out to the true feminine element and show his support!  Also, he may just be so pumped to be chewing the scenery and practicing his manacing eyebrow lift.  But, from this interview he’s doing it just because he heard it was hard.  Good on ya, our little celebrity air conditioner.

BTW, if you want to read Paglia’s pretty awesome book on poetry, it is called Break, Blow, Burn, and it is for people, like myself, who tend to better associate with the struggles of daytime soap stars than with Dickenson.  Sorry, Emily.

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.