Do Soaps Glorify Cheating?

Cafe Society
1

I worry about the Soaps promoting cheating and deceit. Soaps make it seem so exciting and glamorous, don’t they? I’d like to think the majority of Soap-lovers have more sense than this, but it just doesn’t seem like this is the case…no more than how (most) boys have this urge to act out WWF moves when watching wrestling by wrestling a sibling, friend, or pillow.

So, what the Soaps teaching women of all ages about society’s rules? I’ve even seen some “chick” magazines say “that little white lie is OK as long as you’re not caught”. Yeah, in a pig’s eye!

What do you think?

  • Jinx
2

My mom’s been a big Guiding Light fan for like 25 years. I know that there are only a handful of characters who aren’t on their third or more marriage/divorce.

I doubt they would influence wives to cheat. I’d think they’d have more sense than kids doing wrestling moves. I wouldn’t think it is any worse than a wife watching a Brad Pitt movie and being jealous that she’s married to a pig and not him.

3

Splanky, I hope you are correct. I have become jaded by events I can directly link to the Soaps. Well, some grown people still have a lot of maturing to do… Hmm, Maturity! Maybe that’s what it all boils down to. - Jinx (a fellow Charm City resident, too.)

4

I pay little attention to soaps but from what I gather nobody stays happy for very long before moving into another bed. Is that glorifying it really? There seems to be a lot more misery and repercussions than joy and happiness.

5

Yep, it’s all “monkey-see-monkey-do”! If’n it weren’t for them damned sin-filled soap-operas, nobody would ever mess around/lie/drink - everybody would be a good, God-fearin’ man or woman (as the case may be)…

6

Yes, soaps glorify cheating. However, that doesn’t necessarily lead to fans emulating that behavior.

Fans almost universally condemned the Christmas episode of General Hospital this year for focusing on two married men spending the holiday with their mistresses (who are also married). Conversely, the Christmas episode of Days of Our Lives was praised because it showed married couples celebrating with their families.

The soap fans that I know see the shows as fantasy entertainment which in no way reflects reality or serves as a guide for living.

7

Who? Jason and Jax? That’s just stupid…because Jason’s wife was with Jax! One isn’t a “real” marriage and the other is over (though I do think Jax was a cad for sleeping with Brenda efore getting a divorce…I don’t like Jax anymore)

8

Personally, I was more disturbed by Jason and Jax not recognizing that the preacher was actually the evil twin of Sarah’s illegitimate child from her liason with Brooke during that snowstorm after the plane crash that was taking Julia to a cancer specialist after she found out she had three months to live.

I mean, c’mon.

9

No.

I no longer watch - but I spent far too long being addicted to OLTL, and when I was little watched ATWT and Guiding Light when my mother had them on…

Soap heroines don’t tend to cheat. They get widowed a lot, they get cheated on, they lose their memories and fall hopelessly in love with other men - but they don’t tend to knowingly cheat. Soap villanesses tend to cheat, but they pay for it by leading lives of misery after they cheat. The rules are slightly different for the men (it tends to be that if a hero does cheat, he pays the price for cheating, but can eventually be redeemed.)

From my observation, there are generally always negative consequences for bad behavior and they’re way more immediate than they’d be in real life.

10

Soaps are driven by conflict, punctuated by some matrimony.

The Greatest Soap Thread (Luke and Laura) /Wedding featured a mini-cameo from Elizabeth Taylor - who cursed their marriage. Then a fight with Scotty. Then a dissapearing Laura. Then Demi Moore (etc…!)

You want lemonade on the porch? Pull up a chair next to Tom Horton (Macdonald Carey) and his wife Alice Horton (Frances Reid).

11

SpoilerVirgin, I think the soap fans you know are definitely not the ones who populate the soap boards on line. :wink: Many of them, at least in my experience on several boards, tend to take their shows way too seriously (IMHO) and some go further, identifying with characters to the point of ripping the actor/actress who plays the character for something the character did. Now that’s over the top in my book.

Yes, I do watch a few soaps (GH and the now gothic PC); and yes, they do tend to glorify cheating. I don’t think that necessarily means that the audience buys into it… well, excepting maybe those fans who are over the edge, as described above. Soap characters do have a tendency, though, to take marriage vows extremely lightly; that’s not something new, though. In fact, imo the major part of the problem with soaps is that they keep recycling the same old storylines that have been around for generations, making only cosmetic changes from time to time. Most of the folks who write for soaps are part of an “old boy” (or girl) network that’s been around forever as well. There’s plenty of melodrama that they could be playing in the 21st century, that’s for sure, but I don’t think they’re really going to get into it, like having major characters in openly gay relationships–there’ve been gay characters, but they’ve been minor and there certainly haven’t been any real relationships portrayed.

Port Charles has seemingly gone completely gothic now, with vampires and the like. It’s not really my cup of tea, frankly, but the show really does have one of the best ensemble casts and I keep watching it. And yes, there is cheating on there. In fact, one male character has fathered several of the children on the show, to the point that I wonder where their “next generation” is going to come from! :smiley:

So yes, the soaps do glorify cheating, but I don’t think they’re responsible for making people cheat. In fact, the recent spate of cheating on GH has made it clearer to me that cheating hurts everyone involved. JMHO, mind you.

And I enjoyed the Days of our Lives Christmas show, Corbomite! :slight_smile:

12

Tom Horton (and Macdonald Carey) has been dead for years. That would be a good story.

People on soaps tend to fall in love at the drop of a hat, and always sleep with the person, ignoring marital status, children involved, pregnancy, AIDS, etc. No consequences.

13

I’m kinda with Jinx on this (ducks rotting vegetables and a particularly aerodynamic dead cat).

You and I wouldn’t be inspired to do what characters on a TV show do, because we are intelligent and rational and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

There is, unfortunately, a fairly large contingent of people out there who can’t, and many of the members of this contingent are soap opera addicted. More than one actress who has played a soap opera villianess has been physically assaulted by a “fan” who can’t distinguish between the actress and the character she portrays. And many, many gifts are sent for fictional soap opera babies by fans of the same ilk.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a peroxide blonde vampire, I’m feeling a bit horny…

14

Yes, soaps glorify cheating. And Jerry Springer glorifies stupidity.
Which is why I don’t allow my children to watch either.

15

I haven’t watched PC since it’s first season…is Lucy and uh…Jesus, i can’t remember his name…“Doc” still on the show and happy? Please say yes. I love Lucy, and I wish she never would have left GH.

16

I didn’t know soaps were the only venue that promoted such poor values!

I’m soap addicted since somewhere around age 5. I used to run home from elementary school to watch GH! (I was a latchkey kid too with no parental supervision and all that glorified sex!)

The main point of my post is that I never confused soap land with reality and I don’t see that as a role model for real life. I would no more emulate the cheating behavior of a soap opera than I would attempt to light myself on fire like the guy in Jackass or drop a safe on someone’s head like in the roadrunner cartoons.

:slight_smile:

17

Well… I can assure you that Lucy & Doc (Kevin) are still on the show; they did get married last year at Christmas in one of the best soap weddings I’ve ever seen, I might add. :slight_smile:

However, they have not gotten to spend much time together as a happy couple, unfortunately! Lucy is attracted to another doctor, Ian Thornhart and the attraction is mutual – they have already hit the sheets once, back before Lucy & Doc married, due to the evil, supernatural influence of Caleb the vampire; they’ve so far avoided a repeat, but Kevin is not totally Kevin–his personality has taken on parts of his psycho twin Ryan, which was brought on by his daughter, Livvie, stabbing him (accidentally, mind you) with a hypo full of some psycho-tropic drug. LOL I told ya, it’s gone gothic!

Well, she did ask, so don’t beat up the messenger…god, I just realized how crazy that storyline sounds! :smiley: