This is a piece written by a friend of mine from the AOL OLTL boards. It expresses what many including me are feeling about this show. It is real good food for thought.
Some weeks ago I decided to cut way back on my viewing of the show, and stop posting on these boards. I was very unhappy with the writing, and some specific dramatic choices made by TIIC (in particular Todd's knocking Tea unconscious). I was also very stressed over the tone of the AOL boards. But I am still involved with people off the public boards who follow the show, and I am continuing a weekly press review of OLTL that I've been doing for over a year. One of the things about doing my weekly report is that I have to read every scrap of published information about the show. I read all the interviews and articles. Over time, you get a real sense not only of where the show is going, but why. I think we have a real problem with OLTL right now because of a difference in over-arching visions between the Executive Producer/Head Writer and the existing fan base. A couple of things I read just this past week sort of focused my attention on this.
One was the JFP interview with Michael Logan, in which she talked about John Bolger as a "matinee idol". I actually could see what she was getting at in her description - a sort of 1930’s brooding good looking, strong, manly man who would sweep a woman off her feet. But it underscores where she is in her preferences, and how she is directing the show. I think OLTL has moved from a place where there were smart, independent women to a place where there are a lot of dumb, dependant women who neeeeeeeeed strong men in their lives to guide and protect and fulfill them. On the other side, the show is populated by strong-willed men who ride roughshod over women. Llanview has become a 1950’s Harlequin Western Romance town.
While I have ranted about the stupidification of Tea, which has been profound, the reality is that virtually all the women in Llanview have been dumbed down and made to seem helpless without that strong right arm to lean on.
Look at what happened to Nora, when she thought she saw Bo and Georgie together at the Lodge. The character, in a totally uncharacteristic manner for Nora, completely lost it, because she thought her man might be boinking some chickie. That was just not Nora - as many Nora fans pointed out at the time. Nora, who had been both strong and smart to that point, all of a sudden became a sniveling, slobbering mess? Because she had lost Bo - her man - her sole reason for living? Yuck. The old Nora would have confronted the situation head-on. Instead, what did she do. She got drunk, danced on the tabletop in a biker bar and tried to seduce Sam. Obviously when she was driving down the road throwing her jewelry out the window, she tossed her brains out too.
Viki is now crushed because she lost Clint to Lindsay? Excuse me? Viki could have had him anytime she’d wanted him in the past couple of years. There has been nothing in the writing of Viki that would lead us to find this believable. She was getting along just fine without Clint, didn’t want him, ran the paper with flair and brains - was in control. She is now crushed over Clint’s marriage? Ha! And then, look at the Viki-Kevin dynamic. Kevin’s treatment of his mother and his employer is both abusive and outrageous. She tells him to do something, he refuses. She tells him not to do something, he does it anyway. Clint backs up Kevin. I thought Viki owned the paper. Instead of being fired, or demoted, Kevin, who clearly has demonstated contempt for his mother and her authority, is promoted, so that he can continue to do whatever he wants at the paper, regardless truth, justice or objective journalism. This is an outstanding example of the new axiom at OLTL : "Get out of the way little lady, and let the real men take care of things."
As I said, I have ranted about Tea’s stupidification for a long time. This is where I first noticed the phenomenon, which pre-dates Pam Long, but doesn’t really pre-date JFP. This was a smart, "ballsy" character, who I loved on her own, as well as with Todd. She has been emasculated (and I chose that world deliberately!) to the point where she is unrecognizeable to me. Her existence is now defined entirely by men who have manipulated and abused her, in the name of love - and she’s let them. She no longer practices law, her brains have gone south, she has no life apart from a significant male. I know a lot of anti-Tea people think that is the essence of the character, but I never saw her as a weak, malleable respondent to male direction and manipulation before JFP. She used to be a driving force on her own. And the anti-Tea gang should take a step back, take a deep breath, and cast their eyes over other women in Llanview, because this dumbing down has not happened just to Tea.
Blair, although she has had some better moments, is mired in bimbohood. She can’t make up her mind between Max (give me a break) and Sam? She slept with Sam, with no build-up, virtually abandoning Starr. She took off with Max for North Carolina, dumping Starr back on Todd before the end of her first, hard-fought-for weekend visitation. We are now asked to believe that Blair now can no longer write an intelligent story for the paper, and The Sun is faltering under her leadership. Since when is Blair a stupid cipher at The Sun? And strong, handsome Max is going to ride into town, fix her story, fix her computer and save the day? I don’t care how much KdP loves her husband - this is garbage writing for Blair. Next, Max is going to manipulate and blackmail her into stealing the paper from Todd? And Pam Long laughs about how "Max may be a cad but he’s her cad!" Only a lobotomized Blair would be doing this. Today was a farce.
Kelly - poor dumb little Kelly. Kelly of the romance-novel fantasies about Drew - previously known as the leering, Peeping Tom of Llanview. I’m supposed to believe in her overwhelming love for Drew, who lied to destroy her relationship with Joey, and started the train of events which ended in the accident that killed Blair's baby? Is this because Drew is strong and handsome and manly, and so smart that he became a police officer (head of the class) by attending police academy in the town where his father was Commissioner, and nobody even knew he was there? Am I supposed to ignore the fact that Drew punched his pregnant girlfriend in the face so hard that he cut her face open, who blatantly obstructed justice in the Georgie murder case - and walked away without a qualm or a sanction from the community, keeping his job as a police officer - someone Llanviewites can expect to trust to uphold the law. Now, poor dumb Kelly is going to try to take The Sun away from her cousin, The Sun which is Starr’s legacy, because Blair hurt her feelings? All of this while being manipulated by big, strong Asa and Bo, who are going "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" behind poor dumb Kelly’s back.
Cassie, who formerly had at least some vestiges of a smart and savvy reporter, now has to accept her Hilary-role and stand by her poor, repentant man. Yes, he had an "inappropriate" relationship, but she loves him anyway - after all, their relationship defines her - so she’ll just accept and move forward. Having given up her husband and son for this man, there are apparently no slavish depths to which Cassie will not now sink. And if you don’t think her relationship with Kevin now defines her think back to the Viki-Kevin battle at The Banner, with Cassie firmly on Kevin’s side despite his outrageous behaviour, and his foray into tabloid journalism.
Even Renee stands beside (actually one step behind, head respectfully bowed) Asa, nodding and supporting his attacks on Todd, his threats, his meannesses. She might as well be veiled from head-to-toe for all the independence of thought she has left.
The two more interesting female characters are the new ones - Lindsay and Roseanne. I think they are essentially the same character at different ages. The first thing they do is try to latch themselves onto a man ( in both instances the men who wanted other women). They apparently aren’t smart enough to exist on their own. Lindsay needs a man to support and finance her in whatever schemes she now pursues. There was no suggestion whatever that Lindsay was interested in or capable of standing on her own, independent of a real man. Roseanne is only in town to get a man. Her whole reason for being, let alone being in Llanview, seems to be Cristian. Couldn’t she be running a voodoo parlour and having a separate life?
Even poor Dorian has become more defined by her man. Unfortunately, this is one of the few men who might be a plus in a Llanview relationship - and he has virtually disappeared.
All of this is going on in a community of manly men, and their worshipful, adoring women. These are men who stomp on legal niceties, punch out women, who generally use and manipulate women - women who supposedly love them, and will put up with anything their manly men do, in the name of that "love".. And even when the men are stupid, which they frequently are, they at least still have obvious independent lives, and careers - they exist apart from the women around them.
I can only assume that this comes from a vision from a long-gone era, being revived in Llanview. You can see why JFP put the focus of the show on the Buchanans - they fit her manly men image. Focusing on the Lords would have required JFP to accept Viki as a smart and strong woman in her own right - which runs counter to JFP’s world view. Based on the writing, it seems to me that Pam Long shares JFP’s world view. They share a yearning for the days before women's lib, before women worked outside the home, before women were successful professionals - really before women existed apart from their men. TIIC at OLTL right now seem to want the myth of the Eisenhower years transposed on the 1990's. We can complain about Nora and/or Blair and/or Tea and/or Viki losing their brains and backbone all we want. I think these have been deliberate choices of TIIC - JFP and PL in particular - because these particular IIC think this makes for a good story.
To me it makes for a good story in Salem, perhaps, but not in Llanview. Until and unless the writing for and direction of female characters is changed, unless all the women are given back their brains and their spines, I am afraid I will continue to find the climate in Llanview inhospitable. I am looking for a town with smart men and women, like Lanview used to be.
Apricot