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A post about something loathesome
Okay, so I haven't posted on this board for some time. So sue me if I speak my mind - which means to say, not that often.
Today's rant ... soaps. And why they, and most television, are the closest thing I have to something I hate.
Soaps are loathesome shows. They predate the cheap and cheerful fashions of modern day Daytime TV, all camp gardening, camp home and beauty makeover shows, camp auction and car boot sale bargain shows and camp and tawdry chat shows by some years.
Soaps predate the obnoxious fad of docusoaps, "World's Best," "World's Worst," "World's Scariest", "From Hell" and ghastly "reality TV" shows by as many years. They have a pedigree, like old and mature gut worms.
And, like gut worms, soaps are a cultural parasite.
A true parasite keeps its host alive, while at the same time sucking out more than its fair share of nutrients which would otherwise turn the host into a healthy specimen. The host becomes slow, sluggish and often bloats out - all the better to allow predators to catch and kill the host, thus allowing the parasite's eggs to spread to the next part of its cycle.
Soaps fulfill all of the criteria of parasites. The money that would otherwise be used by TV programmers to come up with genuine, culturally relevant TV shows is siphoned off by the soaps to produce more of the same tired old plots.
Of which there are three, endlessly recycled: births, marriages and deaths.
More frequently seen than the others, the Great Soap Marriage is the staple of many a soap plotline, because it is the easiest to put together, it requires no additional cast members to be added to the cast list and it requires no current actor to leave the soap ("be written out of the script.")
It allows the audience to sit back and weep sentimentally into hankies when the priest utters the same, tired, boring f*cking words; it allows the obligatory moment of so-called "drama" when someone invariably pops their head up to object to the marriage the moment the priest states "If there is anyone present who objects to this marriage, please say so now or forever hold your peace."
Soap marriages become an excuse for the most tired - sounding, tedious marriage vows in all of human endeavour, as the scriptwriters fumble to put words in the mouths of their puppets and, instead, come up with lines of unutterable cheesiness such as:-
- "You are a part of me, you complete me, like the stars in the sky, the wind beneath my wings."
- "I swear to you, I will always love you."
- "As the ocean is to the shore, so I shall be to you,"
etc. etc. yadda yadda pass the f*cking sick bag.
Another loathesome thing, as far as I can tell, is the way that one particular soap uses sexualised poses and images in the opening credits to grab the viewers, mostly male, and lure them in to watching the damned soap alongside women. The soap is an Australian abomination called Home and Away, and its opening theme sequence shows all the cast's faces drifting lazily across the screen.
What really sets my teeth on edge with this sequence is that, as the images of the universally pretty women are just about to leave the screen, they are always shown dipping their heads slightly, looking askance at the camera and giving it that "come f*ck me" look. Just as they are going off screen, mind you: and no, there's no sign of the same behaviour in the blokes, or in the old biddies who also populate this abhorrent piece of Aussie excrement. Only the women, some of whom are supposed to be barely legal, even sometimes f*cking underage.
Frickin abominable.
What's my point in all of this? My point is very simple.
Soaps con women into believing that everyone has a soulmate waiting for them Somewhere Out There.
I've met women who strongly believe that Their Great Soul Mate lies just outside of sensor range, waiting for them to wander around a corner and Bump Into Them. This ... fiction ... is about as realistic as tales of Bigfoot or Nessie. Yet still millions of women are conned, daily, into believing that this myth is true.
And the most dangerous perpetrators of this ghastly myth are soaps.
Yeah, soaps have a lot to answer for.
Do I have any answers for this? Not as yet, beyond the usual "Switch off the bloody TV set and go and use your time in an interesting way."
Today's rant ... soaps. And why they, and most television, are the closest thing I have to something I hate.
Soaps are loathesome shows. They predate the cheap and cheerful fashions of modern day Daytime TV, all camp gardening, camp home and beauty makeover shows, camp auction and car boot sale bargain shows and camp and tawdry chat shows by some years.
Soaps predate the obnoxious fad of docusoaps, "World's Best," "World's Worst," "World's Scariest", "From Hell" and ghastly "reality TV" shows by as many years. They have a pedigree, like old and mature gut worms.
And, like gut worms, soaps are a cultural parasite.
A true parasite keeps its host alive, while at the same time sucking out more than its fair share of nutrients which would otherwise turn the host into a healthy specimen. The host becomes slow, sluggish and often bloats out - all the better to allow predators to catch and kill the host, thus allowing the parasite's eggs to spread to the next part of its cycle.
Soaps fulfill all of the criteria of parasites. The money that would otherwise be used by TV programmers to come up with genuine, culturally relevant TV shows is siphoned off by the soaps to produce more of the same tired old plots.
Of which there are three, endlessly recycled: births, marriages and deaths.
More frequently seen than the others, the Great Soap Marriage is the staple of many a soap plotline, because it is the easiest to put together, it requires no additional cast members to be added to the cast list and it requires no current actor to leave the soap ("be written out of the script.")
It allows the audience to sit back and weep sentimentally into hankies when the priest utters the same, tired, boring f*cking words; it allows the obligatory moment of so-called "drama" when someone invariably pops their head up to object to the marriage the moment the priest states "If there is anyone present who objects to this marriage, please say so now or forever hold your peace."
Soap marriages become an excuse for the most tired - sounding, tedious marriage vows in all of human endeavour, as the scriptwriters fumble to put words in the mouths of their puppets and, instead, come up with lines of unutterable cheesiness such as:-
- "You are a part of me, you complete me, like the stars in the sky, the wind beneath my wings."
- "I swear to you, I will always love you."
- "As the ocean is to the shore, so I shall be to you,"
etc. etc. yadda yadda pass the f*cking sick bag.
Another loathesome thing, as far as I can tell, is the way that one particular soap uses sexualised poses and images in the opening credits to grab the viewers, mostly male, and lure them in to watching the damned soap alongside women. The soap is an Australian abomination called Home and Away, and its opening theme sequence shows all the cast's faces drifting lazily across the screen.
What really sets my teeth on edge with this sequence is that, as the images of the universally pretty women are just about to leave the screen, they are always shown dipping their heads slightly, looking askance at the camera and giving it that "come f*ck me" look. Just as they are going off screen, mind you: and no, there's no sign of the same behaviour in the blokes, or in the old biddies who also populate this abhorrent piece of Aussie excrement. Only the women, some of whom are supposed to be barely legal, even sometimes f*cking underage.
Frickin abominable.
What's my point in all of this? My point is very simple.
Soaps con women into believing that everyone has a soulmate waiting for them Somewhere Out There.
I've met women who strongly believe that Their Great Soul Mate lies just outside of sensor range, waiting for them to wander around a corner and Bump Into Them. This ... fiction ... is about as realistic as tales of Bigfoot or Nessie. Yet still millions of women are conned, daily, into believing that this myth is true.
And the most dangerous perpetrators of this ghastly myth are soaps.
Yeah, soaps have a lot to answer for.
Do I have any answers for this? Not as yet, beyond the usual "Switch off the bloody TV set and go and use your time in an interesting way."
Re: Well...
The same can be said of any t.v. show. Including those that you so religiously follow. Trust me, CSI (either of them) are no more "real" than any soap out there. This has been confirmed for law students (one of whom is a close friend of mine) by professors who are lawyers, judges, cops. While I may not trust the legal profession, I will say that from my experience with the justice system, there is no technology out there that even comes close to those faerytales they show on dramas like CSI or any of those other shows.
I don't watch soaps. I read books. I write. I'm online during the Soap Hour on TV, chatting to real people whom I love instead of staring goggle eyed at fictional people on the screen. Judge me on that.
You tape various shows and watch them religiously. You share each detail of each episode with me. You get as jazzed about what's on those shows as some people get over soaps. And before you react, I'm not judging you for this. Those shows are your interests. I think it's great you like them. Just allow others to like what they like, even if it's something you don't care for. You may read and be online during the soap time. But you also have t.v. shows you like and watch. As is your right to!
Two weeks later, out of nowhere, he recants. He's straight all along. Not only that ... he never was gay in the first place. The gay scene was apocryphal.
Who's being hypocritical?
He's an actor. That's his job. To play a role and make it believable. He doesn't have to be gay to play a gay role. In fact, a show that I very much like now Queer as Folk has just such a person. One of the main gay guys is played by a very straight man. He's a great actor. He kisses other men in the show (very convincingly) and is in scenes that depict very homosexual sex. Also very convincing. He's straight. I don't think that anyone holds that against him. In fact, if anything, he's to be respected and commended for not being so insecure about his own lifestyle to be afraid to play a very homosexual character. He's an actor. He's playing a character.
The TV companies certainly would not. I object to them taking money I give them, and wasting it on stuff I do not want to watch.
But other people watch those shows by their choice. And it's every bit as much their money paying for what they want to see. And you are paying for shows that you like that others may not want to see. Not everyone likes CSI, luv. But they pay for it just the same as you pay for the soaps.
Says who?
Seriously, luv, no one is forcing you to watch these shows. Would you force people to watch only the shows that you like? I'm sorry, but I choose not to watch CSI and the other shows similar to it. They're not my cup of tea. There are a lot of shows like it on t.v. So, basically, I don't watch t.v. if that's all that's on. I put on a movie. I put on music. I watch channels that don't have those types of shows. And if that's all that's on, I find something else to do. I don't stress over it. No one is forcing me to watch those shows. And I hope that it stays that way. But it's ultimately my choice as to whether or not I actually watch it.
Or, indeed, not turning the bloody thing on in the first place.
Exactly. Therefore, you can hate soaps all you want. But they clearly have a place within society as they give pleasure to some people. That's why t.v. is so blissfully diverse. To please all the viewers at some point or another. That's the beauty of being individuals. Our individual tastes. Means we can appreciate all the forms of art out there...even those types of art that some people can't stand.