IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP!: Soaps

During the Roaring Twenties, a number of serials aimed at women were aired during the day time.In order to profit from them, the networks came up with the idea of getting companies to sponsor the episodes. In order for the ads to appeal to viewers, so many of the sponsors were soap manufacturers that the media started calling these shows 'soap operas.'

Soap Opera: "A drama, typically performed as a serial on daytime television or radio, characterised by stock characters and situations, sentimentality, and melodrama" (www.thefreedictionary.com).

“It seems we are a nation hooked on supposedly ‘real life’ soaps that are anything but.” – Anna Rush.

“I have given up watching Emmerdale and Coronation Street after many years because the storylines are so predictable and long-winded. I get more pleasure these days from cleaning my toilet.” – Patricia Gordon.

(Readers’ comments in a newspaper).

Susan Seaforth Hayes as Julie of Days of Our Lives

“You’ll never guess what happened in Coronation Street last night!”

Coronation Street is an institution that speaks to people, it was claimed on ITV’s 50^th birthday in 2005. ITV, or their viewers, voted it their greatest ever show. Prior to the advent of Coronation Street, the Queen’s English dominated but bore little or no resemblance to real life, it was said. Whereas this soap deal with “life in all its messy glory.” ITV took on the challenge of changing that. It was also acknowledged, however, that programmes about real people had been around for decades. Whicker’s World, for example, dates back to 1959.

OK, I admit I have not found or saved any interesting information on soap operas. So here is a song that some women may find chauvinistic but, really, I think it indicates the two extremes: the action-oriented male and the emotional female. I watched a few when I was younger and even got sucked in a couple of times which I find both sad and fascinating as they evidently can be emotive. I watched Flamingo Road for a while as a teenager because I fancied Morgan Fairchild and Dallas was on TV a lot when we ate out dinner together as a family. I have had no time for them since, but then I have been busy and even consider reading novels a waste of time. So soaps fall into the procrastination category of life pour moi whereas I always enjoyed a good drama series and sitcom as a youngster and watched many of those.

The original cast of Dallas

She Watch Channel Zero?! By Public Enemy

You're blind, baby
You're blind from the facts on who you are
'cause you're watchin' that garbage

The woman makes the men all pause
And if you got a woman
She might make you forget yours
There's a 5 letter word
To describe her character
But her brains being washed by an actor
And every real man that tries to approach
Come the closer he comes
He gets dissed like a roach

I don't think I can handle
She goes channel to channel
Cold lookin' for that hero
She watch channel zero

She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch

Yo baby, you got to cut that garbage off
Yo! I want to watch the game
{Where's your doin'}
Hey yo, lemme tell you a little som'in: I'm
'a take all your soaps
An' then I'm gonna hang 'em on a rope
You know what I'm sayin'?
'Cause that garbage your watchin' don't make no sense
Hey yo, lemme tell you a little som'in baby
I'm 'a take your set an' I'm 'a throw it
Out the window
G's

Two, seven, five, four, eight
She watched she said
All added up to zero
And nothing in her head
She turns and turns
And she hopes the soaps
Are for real, she learns
That it ain't true, nope
But she won't survive
And rather die in a lie
Falls a fool, for some dude, on a tube

I don't think I can handle
She goes channel to channel
Cold lookin' for that hero
She watch channel zero

She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch

Yo baby, you think I'm jokin'?
Do it look like I'm jokin'?
I ain't jokin', word up, baby
Yo, cut that garbage off now
Yo, I got the Tyson fight on, you know what I'm sayin'?
Yo, so you can't be comin' in here stackin' {aid} like that
You know what I'm sayin'?
Yo, we gettin' ready to watch the Super Bowl
We got a black quarterback so step back

Trouble vision for a sister
'Cause I know she don't know, I quote
Her brains retrained
By a 24 inch remote
Revolution a solution
For all of our children
But her children
Don't mean as much as the show, I mean
Watch her worship the screen, and fiend
For a TV ad
And it just makes me mad

I don't think I can handle
She goes channel to channel
Cold lookin' for that hero
She watch channel zero

She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch
She watch, she watch

Yo baby, can't you that's nonsense you watchin'?
Look, don't nobody look like that
Nobody even live that, you know what I'm sayin'?
You watchin' garbage, not'in' but garbage
Straight up garbage
Yo, why don't you just back up from the TV
Read a book or som'in
Read about yourself
Learn your culture, you know what I'm sayin'?

Songwriters: Ridenhour, Carlton Douglas / Drayton, William Jonathan / Griffin, Richard Duane / Boxley Iii, James Henry / Sadler, Eric T.