It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

Would we drink coffee with Agnes Nixon?

Kristy: Most definitely.  My mother watched All My Children my entire childhood and I have lots of memories of watching with her.  And I’ve watched One Life to Live on and off sine 1996.  For years of entertainment I owe the woman a cup of coffee.  But there’s even more to it.  Agnes has always been ahead of her time:  She created the fictional town of Llanview, PA way back in 1968 and peopled it with Jews, Blacks, and *gasp* Poles!  If that last one seems silly to you, do a quick tally of all the Polish-American characters currently on television.  The woman’s still ahead of her time.  Add to that she was talking about the importance of pap smears on Guiding Light in 1962 when you couldn’t say the word (or “uterus” or “cancer”) on television.  And the first legal abortion on an American television show (I choose not to acknowledge the retconned unabortion from 2006 because while I didn’t watch, I hear it was awful and not Agnes’s fault).  And making Erica Kane’s daughter a lesbian in 2000.  Mock soap opera’s as irrelevant trash all you want; modern television and American society in general owe this woman a hell of a lot.

On top of all of this, I find the woman adorable and charming.  And I am still hopping mad with the Douche-bags in charge at ABC for the way they have treated her in recent years.  So yeah, I’m buying this woman a cup of coffee.  And hopefully while we drink she’ll share some stories.  Because she’s seen a lot of television history (I don’t think it should be overlooked that female headwriters are still a rarity in television and this woman was doing it fifty years ago.)  You know she’s got a tale or two to tell.  And yeah, I want to commiserate with her about the premature cancellation of her babies.  And maybe, if she’ll let me, give her a hug.

Cammy: While I know less than a quarter of what Kristy does about soaps, and I don’t have the kind of passion about the genre that only an awesomely true fan can have–I’m there.  I, too, have childhood memories of All My Children, so that alone makes me willing to join in.  And I have oodles of respect for Agnes for having tackled the kinds of topics she did (and I so totally didn’t know she had Poles.  Rock.  On.)  And more than that?  I give her mad props for the volume of writing for which she is responsible (either directly or indirectly).  When you consider the amount of written content in long running soaps like AMC and GL…..it boggles the mind.  I can only imagine the tales of last-minute rewrites this woman must have….for this (and to see Kristy get in a fantastic fan-moment), coffee is most definitely in order.

A little bit of background to this post:  Although I’m sure it’s more than obvious by now that I have a semi-sad soap opera fixation.  What might be slightly less obvious is that I’m also a bit of a comics geek.  It might be more correct to say I was a comics geek since I haven’t read any in years due to a lack of time, lack of money, and my connection now living in another state (*waves to Russell*).  Back when I was reading comics (they probably still do this, but I don’t know for certain) at least one (possibly both, my memories are shaky) of the major comics companies used to give out prizes to readers who wrote in pointing out errors in their books.  The twist was that in order to qualify the reader had to explain why the “error” wasn’t really an error at all.

One doesn’t have to look very hard to find continuity errors in soap operas.  To be fair, I think we should be generous with them considering they have a hell of a lot more work to do than the average television writing team.  But there are a few… not so much errors, but implausibilities, that seem to happen over and over again.  Initially I was just going to list those, but I thought there wouldn’t be much skill involved in that.  Instead, I’m going to list them, and posit an explanation.

Implausibility 1:

Everyone has everyone else’s phone numbers programmed into their cell phones.  People who have never spoken to each other on screen somehow magically have each others’ numbers on speed dial.  I remember the first time Cristian came back from the dead on One Life to Live, a day later he had a cell phone with everyone’s number.  (At which point my crazy ex-roommate exclaimed, “How come he’s been be back from the dead a day and he has a cell phone, but I don’t?”)

Explanation: There’s an ap for that.  You remember getting those emails about how they were about to start putting cell phone numbers in the phonebook/selling them to telemarketers?  Well some enterprising young geek realized this was a potential goldmine.  My money’s on Georgie Jones from General Hospital; I like this explanation because it absolves me of the guilt I feel for occasionally getting sucked into that show (I broke up with General Hospital when they killed Georgie).  I’m guessing she realized that Port Charles was no place for a smart, independent female and that if she stuck around she’d eventually be required to sleep with Sonny Corinthos.  So she moved to central Mexico and started a service which allows residents to download a directory of every cell phone number in town (just like crime solving technology is more advanced in the Bones universe, cell phones are more advanced in the soapverse).

Implausibility 2:

Everyone always shows up to eat at the same restaurant on the same day causing awkward meet ups and and angst filled glances.

Explanation: Well this is explained by simple supply/demand/labor principles.  Most soap towns have a maximum of three restaurants (usually one humble diner type, one middle of the road, classic American fare place, and one schwanky establishment).  Soap towns also seem to be burdened by a minimal supply of labor.  This means that if the employees from one restaurant are eating at another, the restaurant which employs them is forced to shut down.  This means that there’s even less selection.  So eventually everyone winds up at the same place.

Implausibility 3:

Sprained ankles are an insurmountable, nigh life threatening injury.  Okay, seriously, if I see one more action oriented storyline in which a female character is completely incapacitated by a sprained ankle, I’m gonna scream (and if I were a betting woman, I’d bet this means you’ll all hear me screaming sometime this month—it is sweeps after all).  Don’t get me wrong, I know that sprained ankles can be painful.  I’ve experienced more than one.  But Chellsie Memmel competed in the freaking Olympics with a broken ankle.  Kim Zmeskal did the same with a stress fracture in her ankle.  I realize that gymnasts are tougher than the average woman, but you have to consider that adrenalin should kind of numb it out.  I’m fairly certain that if I were being shot at or my life was otherwise in peril, I could muscle through the pain of a sprained ankle long enough to run for my freaking life.  And this from a girl with no self-preservation instinct.  And this doesn’t just happen to with wilting female flower characters.  I’ve seen this device used repeatedly with characters like GH’s Sam McCall and One Life to Live’s Natalie Buchanan—both of whom are generally pretty feisty.  So what’s with the twisted ankle being an Achilles heel?

Explanation: Adrenalin tolerance.  We must consider that no matter how touch she is, the average soap heroine has her life imperiled on average at least twice year.  Add that to the occasions in which they’re only in danger of grievous bodily injury and the times their merely in danger of arrest, and you have to figure these ladies have adrenaline pumping through their systems a good portion of the time.  Eventually, as with any drug, they stop feeling the effects.  Whereas for most of us, we wouldn’t even feel the injury until we were safe, they feel everything.  And don’t get that extra adrenaline boost of energy either.  It really is quite tragic.  Perhaps Georgie can next work on developing a twelve step program to overcome adrenaline overuse?

Implausibility 4:

Every time someone has a secret that could potentially destroy lives, end lives, etc, they whisper not so quietly about it in public places at every opportunity.

Explanation: Hearing loss.  If you’re above the age of… I’m gonna say three weeks, and you live in a soap town, chances are you’ve been in some proximity to at least one explosion, gunshot,  third rate singer… which means you have at least some degree of hearing loss.  This means two things:  It’s a safe assumption most of your fellow citizens can’t hear what you’re saying and you have no clue you’re even speaking out loud.

Implausibility 5:

No one is ever dead.  Ever.  I mean, it used to only be “If there’s no body, he’s not really dead.”  Now even bodies get planted, faked, etc.  You have to figure by now funerals in soap towns are awkward occasions in which everyone sits there making whispered bets as to how long before the deceased returns.

Explanation: Death is pissed at the soap gods (I’m guessing Death was a Tad and Dixie fan).  And it won’t take anyone else into the afterlife until said gods apologize.  They know what they’ve done.