April 20, 2023: Soap Opera Studying: Parodies

[April 22nd will markthe 100th anniversary of the birth of the king of primetime soapoperas, . So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Spelling and other soap operacontexts, leading up to a crowd-sourced cliffhanger of a weekend post! So shareyour soapy responses and thoughts, you evil twins you!]

On what afew pitch-perfect parodies can add to the conversation.

1)     Soap(1977-81): One way to be sure that a genre has really entered the culturalzeitgeist is when parodies start to emerge, and for soap operas that seems tohave particularly happened with TV parodies in the late 1970s, including boththe short-lived Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman(1976-77) and the far more successful Soap.Soap undoubtedly satirized the mostextreme elements of the genre, including such plot elements as alien abduction,amnesia, demonic possession, mafia murders, and plenty more. But what made theshow genuinely controversial (at least withthe Catholic Church and various parent groups), and what has likewisehelped it end up on various Best-of TV lists over the years, were itsgroundbreaking portrayals of identity and social issues likehomosexuality. Soap operas have long balanced familiar formulas with envelope-pushingchoices, and this satirical soap was very much a case in point.

2)     Soapdish (1991)and Delirious (1991): Oneof the first films to send up the genre was Tootsie(1982), about which I wrote in that hyperlinked post. But in that film soapoperas were part of the setting and context for the main story, while in thispair of 1991 films soaps were the primary subject. They did so through two verydistinct kinds of stories: Soapdishis a realistic depiction of life, career, relationships for a group of actorsworking on a hit soap opera (led by Sally Field butsupported by an all-star cast); while Deliriousis a fantasy film in which a soap opera writer (played by John Candy) awakens froma car accident to find himself inside the world of his show. But both films areaiming for laughs, and so both, like Tootsie,play up and exaggerate the most outrageous kinds of soap opera stories. There’snothing wrong with that goal (it’s a primaryone for parodies, after all), but it can miss out on the kinds of culturaland social innovations that Soap knewcould be part of the genre as well.

3)     Tender Touches(2017-20): It seems to me that the 1980s and 90s were in many ways the heydayof the soap opera genre, including not only daytime soaps but also the popular primetimeones about which I’ll write in tomorrow’s Spelling Birthday Special post. Overthe first decades of the 21st century I believe the genre has lost agreat deal of its prominence (just too many ways to entertain ourselves, maybe,even in the middle of a weekday afternoon), but that shift has also opened upnew territory for parodies and satires to take the genre itself in different directions.One of the most innovative is the AdultSwim animated series Tender Touches,a boundary-pushing satire that featured (among other striking choices) both aregular and a musical version of every episode across its first two seasons. Anotherfeature of the 21st century is that the line between satires and thethings being satirized have become increasingly blurry, and so perhaps it’ssimplest to say that Tender Touchesis one of the only new soap operas to emerge over the last decade.

Lastsoap-post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other soap opera contexts or stories you’d share?