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My life as a soap opera fan

NOTE: This is a long post. Also, TW: brief mention of sexual assault.

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,” Mary Oliver wrote in Wild Geese.

The love of a good story is one of many things I inherited from my mom. In books, on film. And for years, every afternoon on TV, in the form of daytime serials, also known as soap operas.

American soap operas are a bit of fascinating history. They started as filler between advertising, paid for by sponsors to keep listeners glued to the radio, so they’d keep hearing those ads.

I was lucky enough to watch soaps during their golden era, from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s. Soaps expanded from 30 minutes to an hour, and in that ‘golden era’ those shows captured life in a community and told fascinating stories, real stories rooted in reality and the human condition.

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“Soap opera” can conjure up different connotations. Some people think of shows like Dynasty and Dallas, entertaining stories rooted in escapism and over-the-top, outrageous behavior.

My favorite shows were more traditional shows, the “kitchen sink” dramas. Every show had their star-crossed couples and tortured love matches, of course, but my favorite shows also showed family conflict, people struggling to be themselves, class conflict…..a lot of very real stuff happening in my life, then and now.

The first story I followed was Guiding Light. I watched GL - on and off - until its final episode. To me, GL had the perfect mix: some romantic conflict, a few friendships, and a community full of family connections. I eventually began to watch GL’s “sister” show, As The World Turns. ATWT also had that same balance of romance and family.

I craved the kind of families I saw on the screen - the Bauers, the ever-expansive Hughes family, even the gothic and slightly twisted Spauldings. They were complicated and sometimes messy, but there was no doubt they loved each other.

The “light” was a recurring motif for Guiding Light. In early days, the light was a candle burning in the window of the minister’s study. Later years of the show had a lighthouse in the show’s fictional setting of Springfield, representing the guidance of friends and loved ones, the light that leads us back home.

It was a dramatic juxtaposition to the solitude I felt in my own home. For most of my teenage years, I was only a few steps away from being a completely feral wild child, with an absent, alcoholic father and a mother who had frequent health issues (mental and physical).

I was a quiet, solitary kid around the rest of my family; watching people interact on TV felt a whole lot like watching quietly from the sidelines when we visited Grandma’s house. I’d sit quietly on those visits and try to understand what was being said - and what was bubbling under the surface. Who’s fighting with who? Who’s on the shit list this week?

The hours spent in front of the TV offered a bit of temporary respite, as well as a few friendly faces. Some of those characters felt a bit like a substitute family, the parents we’d all wished were our own, characters we wish we could befriend or be like, good, bad or messy!

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that these shows - a form of fun, fizzy entertainment for many - helped me in many ways.

I think trying to explain a storyline or scene to someone who didn’t watch a show can be a fool’s errand - a lot of the nuances are lost on someone who doesn’t have all the history or context.

But I think maybe the clearest and best explanation would be to tell you a bit about one story on Guiding Light - one of a number of stories that resonated with me over the years.

Reva was the type of character who did all the wrong things for all the right reasons. But she was at a low point, completely defeated, and decided it was time to end it all. I watched as Reva leapt off a bridge, and decided that no, she didn’t want to die. She was going to fight to live.

The story struck a chord because I was at a similar juncture. I was a teenager, fighting bullying and violence at school for years, and adults were starting to join students in the attacks. I’d considered suicide several times and even made a half-hearted attempt at it.

I felt less alone after watching those scenes. If someone as strong as Reva thought about suicide, I thought, that makes me feel less ashamed and alone.

As The World Turns: Watching Hank (Brian Starcher) come out as a gay man to Iva Snyder (Lisa Brown) was an earth shaking moment; it was the first time I seriously contemplated the possibility of coming out to friends and family.

Years later, I learned about the show’s creator, Irna Phillips. She was inspired by the sermons of Preston Bradley, a Unitarian minister. The “guiding light” was the candle in the window of the minister’s study, offering solace and guidance to members of the community. Phillips herself was an unmarried woman, devastated after the loss of a baby, seeking that sense of family and community that eluded her.

Somehow, I’d been drawn to that same sense of community and light. (And amazingly, somehow, without knowing anything about that history, I’d become a Unitarian Universalist a few years earlier!)

Decades after seeing Reva’s challenges on TV, I met her portrayer, Kim Zimmer. I hadn’t thought about that story for years, but as I stood in a dressing room in New York, listening to Zimmer talking to others in my group, I had to hold back tears. I was there as a journalist, supposedly focusing on our group interview. But I was busy pinching myself, trying to keep from crying.

I can’t tell you every plot twist of that story, or others along the way, but I can tell you even now how it made me feel. And those feelings are, I think, what bonds us as fans to these shows.

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Soaps are often ridiculed and disparaged. And believe me, some bits of that ridicule is warranted.

In some ways, those shows are a last little strand of vaudeville. The show must go on, and the machine must crank out 260 new episodes a year. Some ideas and stories land better than others. Characters may look or sound radically different if a show has to recast a performer.

At their best, the shows I loved and watched in the 80s and 90s were like good repertory theater.

But soaps could also be incredibly myopic in their viewpoints. Most shows were lily white, with a few token African-American characters.

Angie (Debbi Morgan) and Jesse (Darnell Williams) were front-burner characters on ABC’s All My Children in the early 1980s. They were an exception to the overwhelming whiteness seen on most soap operas of that era. February 2025 marks the debut of Beyond The Gates, a soap centered on Black families.

The various townspeople were assumed to be generically Christian, though religion was seldom discussed unless it was Christmas, or a character suddenly sought out the hospital chapel when a loved one was near death. (Those deathly ill characters were usually suffering from a sudden, intense illness called “contract negotiations.”)

Perhaps most confusing was the portrayal of women.

In the plus column: a lot of shows did a great job depicting contemporary women in those years. Characters explored new and exciting choices. Women entered the workforce. They showed characters who loved their families, but also wanted more (like my mother). They portrayed powerful women who were successful in business or politics. I have no doubt those characters probably influenced millions of women.

But there was also a undercurrent of weirdness, an outdated “all a woman needs is a man” creepy vibe. And perhaps worst of all, soaps have a very spotty record when it comes to telling stories about rape. Some shows did an admirable job of showing rape for what it is - an act of heinous violence - but several shows accentuated the more lurid aspects of those stories.

The most famous example is from the most popular daytime story in history - Luke and Laura on General Hospital. Their unlikely story - a odd, edgy man in his thirties chasing after and marrying a young woman just out of high school - started with a rape that producers subsequently called a “seduction.”

That seems beyond the pale to even contemplate today. But at the time, the voices objecting to the story were dwarfed by the majority who bought into the “seduction.”

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My favorites didn’t seem to try lurid storytelling very often. The shows I loved were produced in New York City. The writers were respected scribes - one had been a playwright, another a novelist. Two of my favorite writers had started as actors on daytime, and then found their niche as writers.

Playwright Harding Lemay spent eight years as head writer of “Another World.” His book is a fascinating glimpse into the world of soap operas.

The New York shows had the added bonus of so many talented Broadway actors. Award-winning actors like Larry Bryggman, Helen Gallagher, Beverlee McKinsey, Ellen Parker and Michael Park, among others, could easily take on theater roles while relying on their “day job” as part of a soap opera’s cast.

There was a time in the 80s, following the explosive popularity of General Hospital, where it was deemed “cool” for guys to watch soap operas. Every so often, a magazine like People would talk about various professional sports players who loved watching one of the shows on the road. Sammy Davis Jr. had a few favorites, if I remember correctly, and even appeared on One Life to Live.

But in most other contexts and eras, soaps have been gendered fare, seen as content for women - and valued (or devalued) accordingly.

The seed for this long, loooong post started a few months back, when I read a Facebook post by Ally Henny. Here’s her Facebook profile introduction: “Writer of things. Anti-Oppression Advocate. Author of I Won’t Shut Up. Podcaster. Faith leader.”

Here’s what she had to say.

I agree completely with Ally’s post. The value of the medium’s been diminished over the years - because it was seen as a medium by and for women.

Comic books share some of the same DNA as soaps - starting as content on radio and in newspapers - and now content with comic book DNA generates billions of dollars a year. Soaps get a pittance in comparison, in dollars and in respect.

There’s likely class snobbery when it comes to soaps, too. In an age where aspirational networks like HGTV encourage viewers to want more (and spend money), an old style soap seem like a relic. American audiences have never seen a show like the UK’s EastEnders, a town full of working-class people.

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I was lucky enough to get to write about my love of these shows.

For years, I’d followed the work of Connie Passalacqua Hayman, known in soap circles as “Marlena Delacroix.” After responding to a number of Connie’s posts online, she offered me a chance to write my own articles.

Connie was a great editor and teacher. (The first editor, but not the last, to tell me to stop burying the lede!)

After a while, I decided to launch my own blog, A Thousand Other Worlds. (That title was taken from the opening to Another World: “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds.”)

My blog gave a few big gifts.

The sarcastic pop culture spin of my early columns helped me land my one and only full time professional writing gig. (Thanks, clip file!)

In 2008, I was invited to go to the Guiding Light set (along with several other soap bloggers). Our visit happened about a year before the show’s final episode.

I don’t know if my coverage of that visit was the best work I’ve ever done, but from a personal perspective, it was a beautiful, full circle moment - one I will never forget.

And that led into an invitation to contribute an essay to an academic book on soap operas. The Survival of Soap Opera was published in 2010.

So many people have done great work thinking about soaps and writing about them. Sam Ford, Lynn Liccardo, Elana Levine, Damon Jacobs, Roger Newcomb and Alina Adams are but a few of those people, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to check out their work.

(Edited to add: check out Alina’s article about her own soap fandom, published this week. Her newest novel, Go On Pretending, features the aforementioned Irna Phillips as a character.)

I’ve also been lucky enough to make a few friends who were involved in the making of those shows.

Alan Locher has worked tirelessly with The Locher Room to provide hours of content and interviews with our favorites and has given so many people such joy remembering those shows - thanks, Alan.

I’m also lucky to know the wonderful Jill Lorie Hurst. Jill’s history at GL (from front desk receptionist to head writer) is a fantastic story all on its own!

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It’s been said that soaps are a dying breed. And it’s true that there are only a few daytime soaps still on the air.

But the DNA of soaps is all over more “prestigious” primetime drama. Game of Thrones is a soap with dragons. Succession was a soap with a twisted family at its core, for sure.

Mad Men may be the show that comes closest to what daytime did so well - so often the subtext or the unsaid in an MM episode was as important as the dialogue itself.

I was shocked last year when it was announced a new soap opera had been commissioned by CBS. Beyond The Gates debuts next week.

It’s a bit of the old, traditional soap recipe, in a new framework. This show centers an affluent Black family. I hope that a show centering Black stories and Black characters is a great success. It will be exciting to see some old faces and some new ones, too. I plan on checking it out.

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For years, my writerly dreams included a fantasy of being a head writer for one of these shows. (Yes, me and every other soap fan, I know.) It seemed like a dream come true to create stories for a whole town and all its inhabitants.

The reality is less idyllic (network notes! advertisers! sullen actors refusing to do a scene as written!) but still, the idea of submerging myself in a story is tempting.

I’m trying to channel those ideas into my novel, based on my lived experience but with some dramatic flourishes. Sounds like a great recipe for any story.

A continuing story is a story, after all - whether it’s Scheherazade, Dickens, Barbary Lane or Albert Square, inside those secret worlds, beyond the gates.