Soap Opera Digest Has 40th Birthday, Doesn’t Lie About Age, Tries to Stay Relevant…
I have a shocking secret– I have never watched a soap opera. I am waiting with little-to-no patience next to a line of elegantly dressed people queued in ones and twos for the privilege of walking on a small patch of red carpet. The line of nameless actors stretches around the corner of the Argyle, a small Hollywood nightclub discreetly catty-corner to the Pantages Theater. The talent poses against a simple backdrop, which shouts in red letters, “Soap Opera Digest, 40th Anniversary party.” I think uncharitably that even at the ripe age of 40, a birthday Hollywood discourages women from reaching, Soap Opera Digest must be younger than its fanbase.
I have never read Soap Opera Digest. It was that half-size magazine in the checkout line of the grocery store, a relic of my childhood. Even at a young age, the overly-orange faces with white teeth gleaming at me from the front cover were a puzzling mystery. Who liked Soap Opera Digest? Why did they read it? I didn’t know anyone who watched daytime soaps, not a grandmother, nor a neighbor. I couldn’t fathom the people so invested with Jason’s threesome with the evil grocer’s illegitimate daughter and their vegetable child, that they wanted to read a whole magazine about it.
As I dutifully snap photos, a game team of press agents is writing, erasing, and re-writing names on a whiteboard for the benefit of the photographers. I discreetly Google the names of faces I recognize. It’s like a miniature history lesson- there’s Alison Sweeney, who was once Sami Brady on Days of Our Lives, and Eva LaRue who played Dr. Maria Santos on All My Children, both now moved on. Then there’s the greying fan favorites, like Peter Bergman (Jack Abbot, Young and the Restless) and Ronn Moss (Ridge Forrester, Bold and Beautiful), brought back to please fans and revive viewership.
By the time I was in grade school the soap had begun its decline; in high school they were dying on the vine. All My Children, As the World Turns, One Life to Live, Guiding Light bled out in the triage of the early 2010s, all cancelled. Only four daytime dramas are left on network television: General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, and Y&R spinoff The Bold and the Beautiful. Soap Opera Digest’s circulation declined by over 50 percent in 20 years, while Soap Opera Weekly folded entirely. It was a frightening decline for daytime industry players, who once dominated the coveted female 18-49 advertising demographic. Even I, who can’t tell whether the star-studded carpet in front of me is actually star-studded or populated by an army of Getty stock-image models, recognize the names Luke and Laura. In the daytime soap’s heyday, the explosively popular General Hospital couple pulled an audience of 30 million viewers for their wedding episode, almost as many American viewers who tuned in to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton marry.
But then a sudden twist, worthy of its subject! Soaps came back from the dead. At the end of the red carpet, Entertainment Tonight eagerly interviews Finola Hughes and Christian Le Blanc, who’ve survived the press line photo-flash guillotine, about their most bizarre storylines. It couldn’t be stranger than the revenant reality. Y&R, B&B, and DOOL have more viewers than last year, despite them presumably having jobs and Netflix subscriptions. However, in the key demographic of female viewers ages 18-34, all four network soaps have gained and lost in a ratings yo-yo dance that might be more akin to staying on life-support than a full comeback.
So in an effort to stay on the air, writers and executive producers have begun to tell stories from viewpoints they wouldn’t have considered before. In order to better reflect their actual American audience, soaps have incrementally increased the number of actors of color and LGBTQ storylines. Thanks to the helpful whiteboard signs, I beeline toward Bradley Bell, the fair-haired executive producer and head writer of the Bold and the Beautiful and son of the creators of Y&R and B&B. Although heir to the CBS soap opera dynasty, Bell courteously parts from his daughter Caroline Catherine to describe that vision for B&B: a character Maya Avant who was revealed last year to be transgender. This season Maya (who is played by cis actor Karla Cheatham Mosley) and her husband Rick Forrester will adopt a child, making B&B the first daytime show to feature a transgender character. “Hopefully we’re leading the charge, and opening some minds,” says Bell. I reflect that a transgender storyline is more likely due to the modern fan’s unprecedented sway over storylines, rather than a suddenly liberal wave of corporate studio heads.
Away from the noise, Obba Babatundé, an MVP who’s acted in no less than three daytime soaps, explains the special relationship between soap opera stars and their fans in a stage actor’s sonorous tones. “It’s a very interesting journey, being on a soap opera because you come into these homes in a different way than you do on a television show that’s a series or a feature film,” says Babatundé. “It’s every day. And people begin to take their messages for their own life from that.” Babatundé, relaxed and resplendent in a plush burgundy jacket, says he brings what he hears from fans on Twitter into his work.
“I have the privilege of interacting with people who I may not, had it been for this medium, had the chance to interact with. So I’m extremely appreciative of fans in general, but the daytime fans…” he pauses. “They’re committed.”
Inside the dark interior of the Argyle, actors brush shoulders with one another, the open bar illuminated by LED lights and a screen flashing several decades’ worth of Soap Opera Digest covers. I think about fans, and their long memories. I’ve spotted GH-lifer Kirsten Storms, and my heart thumps hard in my chest. I stalk her discreetly across the room, and think about how I still remember the way she wore her hair as a plucky space heroine in Zenon, a Disney movie almost two decades old. My childhood favorite has already been consigned to the forgotten movie bin of history. Nothing lasts forever. But if it’s loved enough, it takes on a second life in memory and imitation. And what else is a soap opera about, but the dark and light side of human passion? “It’s all about finding love, and that’s what we preach,” Bell tells me. That’s a story that never gets old.
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-Arielle Samuelson
Photo Credit: Arielle Samuelson