This is not beautiful

I am going to take some time today to rag on a soap opera. This will seem like a diversion from our regularly scheduled material, but it connects in its own way, which should become clear tomorrow.

I think I have mentioned before that The Bold and the Beautiful is kind of our family soap opera. My mother got into it when we were visiting her family, because not only did Elda (with whom we were staying) watch it, but all of her sisters watch it. They also all do the crossword puzzle, though Mom did not pick up this habit, and the brothers do the crossword too, but do not watch the soap.

I did watch “Beautiful” (as they call it, and no, they do not use the Italian word for “beautiful”—they all just call it “Beautiful”), but I was more into an Italian soap, Al Costa del Sol, and a game show, Alta Tensione. However, I was still a regular subscriber to Soap Opera Digest at this time, so it was easy to follow along, and eventually I did start watching. It was a family thing. Eventually my sisters got into it too.

I guess that started in 2006, the first time I went with Mom. Fast forward several years, and where there were once eleven daytime soaps between the three networks, there are now only four.

Some of this seems to be intentional on the part of the networks, especially with ABC, and some of it is just more competition with television, and maybe less people home during the day, but still, things got really annoying. With Soap Opera Digest, although there were times when I watched the shows and times when I didn’t, I had always found the magazine itself to be well written and interesting, and now they just had nothing to work with.

I am picking on BB not necessarily because it is worse than any of the others, but it’s the only one I still ever see. Even when I don’t see it I hear complaints about it, because Mom still watches, but she hates it; Maria will sometimes still watch, and hate herself for it; and although Julie watches pretty rarely, she still checks the messages boards, allowing her to hate the show and the fans (and herself for caring).

(I don’t know how my aunts feel about it now. They are six months behind, so those discussions could only go along the lines of, “You think you hate it now, but just wait.”)

Many times my mother has told me I need to write to the show, and straighten them out but I am confident that there would be no use. For one thing, it has been a remarkably successful show. It was number 2 for a long time, and may even have the top slot now. That’s not as impressive when it is out of 4 shows instead of 11, but still, on their terms it is successful, and there is no reason for them to care what I say. Also, until she gives up on watching it, they might have a point. Still, that does not mean I can’t criticize.

I’m going to try and illustrate the show’s shortcomings with two current storylines. One is their public service announcement storyline, where Marcus, who got addicted to texting, was texting and driving and hit a friend. The moral of the story: don’t text and drive!

That could be an okay message, but that’s not how it’s playing out. First of all, being hospitalized is getting Anthony’s lame foot fixed, so he will actually be better off. Secondly, he is being very vindictive and resentful about it, even though Marcus just married Anthony’s good friend Dayzee, and Anthony has always been portrayed as a calm and caring man, dealing patiently with his adversity (like being homeless). So Anthony is behaving out of character, and Marcus kind of is too because he never had a texting problem before that week. Maybe it was a new phone.

Beyond that, the damage to Marcus’s car exactly matches the damage to Thomas’s car from when he and Caroline hit the pothole in the spot just where Marcus hit Anthony, or did he? Did someone else hit Anthony? Did Anthony lie down in front of the car after it struck the pothole? Does that mean texting and driving is okay?

Furthermore, there are other things going on, like this fast scene where it seems like the judge is going to come down harder on Marcus to reinforce that his privileged upbringing will not protect him, but he did not have a privileged upbringing. He had a comfortable upbringing, but then when he went to find his birth mother, her wealthy husband adopted him, even though he was already an adult, and even though the marriage ended shortly after, and even though he was just meeting his biological father at the time, who is also there. That would make more sense to do with Thomas. Also Marcus and Thomas are best friends now? And Dayzee was upset enough about Thomas’s lies to break up with him, but it has never been an issue in their friendship? And Thomas really rebounds that quickly?

I’m not saying that there are not ludicrous plot twists, but what makes them more egregious is that everything happens so quickly, with so many points left out. At some point Marcus should really have been angry with Eric for choosing Stephanie over Donna, and you can get over things like that, but they just brush it aside. Also, it is hard not to feel like they rushed the Dayzee/Marcus relationship just so he could get arrested on his wedding day, which sounds dramatic, but if you did not have time to build up anticipation, and if a week later he is going to be exonerated, that seriously lessens the drama.

That leads us to the Triangle of Doom, as message board posters have been referring to Hope, Liam, and Steffy. It has a lot of the same problems as the texting while driving PSA: events are rushed without various emotional beats being played, and where the personalities of the players change constantly. Steffy actually told someone she was giving Liam space on the same day she showed up at his house. Also, she changed from acting helpful and supportive to being spiteful and conniving in that same span. I guess it could be that she was faking the one, but that was not clearly delineated.

Probably the worst thing about it, though, is that the whole story revolves around two women who should not have any trouble finding guys both pinning all of their hopes and dreams on one loser who can’t stop waffling between them and who has been turned into a loser after starting out as an interesting character because it is the only way to sustain this idiotic mess. Well, that plus a lot of manipulation by people who never seem to suffer from it. This is not exactly female fantasy.

(This is worse because Liam is played by Scott Clifton, whom I like, but this role sucks. He plays Liam as wishy-washy and constipated. The only other possible way to play this storyline is as a total sociopath, so it’s probably the right choice, but why? Why even go this way?)

Part of the problem is that the head of the show is trying to replicate the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle, but again, that played out over decades, with other people playing roles, and it kind of sucks now anyway. Also, he has poor judgment and a weird fascination with incest, so that doesn’t help.

So the obvious question is why is anyone still watching at all? I won’t deny a lot of it is habit, but also, people get invested in their entertainment, and when it is something you can watch five days a week for years, where you watch them age and grow and develop, the degree of emotional investment can be that much higher, leading to real passion for the show. This is a wonderful opportunity for writers, actors, and networks, but years of goodwill can be squandered amazingly quickly, and not easily earned back. When you throw those relationships and those personalities out the window to move along plots, especially stupid plots, well, you see shows with rich histories go off the air at an amazing rate, and get frustrated fans who hate themselves.

How on earth can this relate to comic books?