Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 25, 1993 TAG: 9301250250
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MINDLESSNESS OVER MATTER
YOU MAY remember that two weeks ago I wrote lamenting the demise of "my" soap opera, "Santa Barbara." I asked readers for their recommendations on a replacement, because my mindless hour in fictitious California had become an important component of my mental health.Well, the votes are in, and "Young and Restless" (CBS, 12:30-1:30 p.m.) is the hands-down winner. Seven of the 19 votes cast.
"Days of Our Lives" got four votes; "All My Children" and "Another World" each got three; and "As the World Turns" and "The Guiding Light," one each.
(The lone GL fan, Betty Lark of Pulaski, wins the prize for Most Devotion. "I even invested in Proctor & Gamble stock because I like the soap opera," she writes!)
Eight people wrote, too, just to say they'd liked SB. Ellen McDaniel of Roanoke even sent me a copy of Soap Opera News filled with SB lore.
"Besides you and me," writes Mary L. Williams of Dublin, "I know of at least one other person who watches this somewhat kooky, but generally intelligent show. I sadly suspect that the qualities I have most admired, such as the depiction of strong-willed, intelligent women, the liberal use of literary references, and political correctness are anathema to the average soap viewer."
Well, maybe not to the average viewer - Mary P. Surface of Blacksburg and Doris Brewer of Sugar Grove won't even try to find a replacement show - but quite likely anathema to the average sponsor. "Oh, well, life goes on," sighs a "senior citizen" correspondent from Roanoke who didn't sign her name.
In voting for YR, Elizabeth Thomas of Roanoke admits that it's "what my teen-age children would call a `no-brainer,' " she says, "but that is precisely what I am looking for." Indeed. That seems what we're all looking for in a soap. In fact, one devoted AMC fan writes, "Truly, I have set aside this hour to eat lunch, read the mail or paper, and SIT DOWN!"
Sadly, despite our common acknowledgment that soap-hours are real stress-busters, the "mindless housewife" stereotype persists. That same AMC fan also writes, "PUL-LEASE do not print my name in the paper. My husband gives me enough grief about watching. I'd never hear the end of it if you printed my name!" (He, of course, never watches anything mindless, right?)
Most YR fans like the show for the reason Betty Burnett of Galax gives: "There are a lot of important issues brought around in a way that a lot of people relate to." Elfriede Harmon of Roanoke puts it thus: "There is a message of value to one generation or another."
But all the soapers who wrote (and I thank them all) understand the difficulty of finding a replacement - although Betty Wagner of Rocky Mount does suggest, "Try something else besides TV." Probably the wisest suggestion of all.
I must share this story from Dorothy Turner Holcomb of Salem, who worked in 1967 and 1968 as a publicist for Columbia Pictures Television, including DOOL.
"Due to my job I would receive each DOOL script about three weeks prior to airing, so I really lived and breathed the show," she writes. "The script called for one character to contract TB of the bone in his right thumb (he being a surgeon) and it gave him great pain and difficulty. One morning after reading a script, I awoke with a severe pain in my right thumb. I went so far as to get an X-ray. Nothing showed up. I then I realized it was mind over matter, and seemingly I was taking on the simulated pain of the show's actor. Once I realized this, the pain disappeared. But if I told Betty Corday, the show's executive producer, that if any pregnancy was written into scripts, I would have to quit."
And you think soaps don't relate to real life! Ha!
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.