The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Dissertations Summer 8-2013 Life, Love, and Hegemony on Daytime TV: A Critical Analysis of Three Popular Soap Operas Elizabeth Ann Worden University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations Part of the Performance Studies Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Worden, Elizabeth Ann, "Life, Love, and Hegemony on Daytime TV: A Critical Analysis of Three Popular Soap Operas" (2013). Dissertations. 375. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/375 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi LIFE, LOVE, AND HEGEMONY ON DAYTIME TV: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THREE POPULAR SOAP OPERAS by Elizabeth Ann Worden Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2013 ABSTRACT LIFE, LOVE AND HEGEMONY ON DAYTIME TV: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THREE POPULAR SOAP OPERAS by Elizabeth Ann Worden August 2013 This study examined the worlds of three popular soap operas: Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and Young and the Restless. Someone who has not watched the three soap operas examined for this study might think that soap operas are all alike. Yet this study has demonstrated how different they really are. These soap operas are created by different teams of writers, producers, and editors—different real authors. Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and Young and the Restless are really distinct and different from each other in a number of ways. These programs depict different classes of people with different personal goals and rules for behavior; they differ in loyalty to family and differ in attitudes about wealth and power. ii COPYRIGHT BY ELIZABETH ANN WORDEN 2013 The University of Southern Mississippi LIFE, LOVE, AND HEGEMONY ON DAYTIME TV: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THREE POPULAR SOAP OPERAS by Elizabeth Ann Worden A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved: _Christopher Campbell______________ Director __Fei Xue_________________________ __Kim LeDuff______________________ __Phillip Gentile____________________ _ Cheryl Jenkins_____________________ _ Susan A. Siltanen___________________ Dean of the Graduate School August 2013 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer would like to thank Dr. Christopher Campbell, the dissertation director, and the other committee members, Dr. Kim LeDuff, Dr. Philip Gentile, Dr. Fei Xue, and Dr. Cheryl Jenkins for their advice and support throughout the duration of this project. I would especially like to thank Dr. Campbell for his kindness, optimism, and encouragement when things became a struggle. The writer would also like to thank Dr. Gene Wiggins for his tireless support when I was taking classes at the Hattiesburg campus. I would also like to thank Dr. Arthur Kaul for his fine example, both scholarly and as a teacher. Special thanks go out to my parents Alan and Mary Worden and sisters Amanda Walther and Kay Crabtree for their tireless support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………...ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………….iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW……………….………………………………..9 Audience Analysis and Soap Operas Older Adult Characters on Soap Operas Soap Operas and Prime Time Television Compared History of the Soap Opera Melodrama Reality Soap Opera and Feminism Characteristics of the Soap Opera Cultural Mythology and Soap Operas Themes in Soap Operas Mass Media Theory Fan Sites III. METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………55 Process of Analysis Days of Our Lives General Hospital Young and the Restless Definitions IV. DAYS OF OUR LIVES: MIDDLE CLASS LOVE AND WAR………....61 General Discussion of Days of Our Lives and Semiotic Analysis Readings of Prominent Families and Major Characters Analysis of Episode Shown May 3, 2012 Camera Technique in Soap Operas Camera Shot Analysis Narrative Analysis Narrative Analysis of Episode Broadcast May 3, 2012 Themes Older Adult Characters Discussion iv V. GENERAL HOSPITAL: LOVE AND WAR IN THE ER………………105 General Discussion of General Hospital and Semiotic Analysis Readings of Prominent Families and Major Characters Analysis of Episode Broadcast June 7, 2012 Camera Technique in General Hospital Narrative Analysis of Episode Broadcast June 7, 2012 Themes Older Adult Characters Discussion VI. YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS: MILLIONAIRES IN LOVE AND WAR……………………………………………………………………145 General Discussion and Semiotic Analysis Readings of Prominent Families and Major Characters Narrative Analysis of Episode Broadcast May 30, 2012 Camera Technique in Soap Operas Camera Shot Analysis Narrative Analysis Narrative Analysis of Episode Broadcast May 30, 2012 Themes Older Adult Characters Discussion VII. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………175 VIII. REFERENCES…………………………………………………………186 v 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The soap opera is a popular form of television entertainment that offers the viewer a glimpse of American life. Soap operas present the viewer with a circle of socially involved individuals who struggle with and against each other for love and financial gain. Soap operas are very polarizing. Those who watch soap operas will defend their viewing pleasure while those who dislike them will denigrate the genre for the wanton lust and greed of its characters and the implausible storylines. Indeed, this genre seems to swing from a celebration of the trivial moments of life that many may cherish to the hysteria of unlikely crises points that throw the lives of almost all characters in a soap opera into the stewpot. Excesses of character and plot have caused many people to proclaim that soap operas are low brow television fare for the lower class, uneducated, and/or bored females. As Hobson (2003) explains, “The soap opera is a form which is revered by fans, [while being] reviled by some critics” (p. xi). Many people think soap operas are not worthy of serious study. Ford, De Kosnik, and Harrington (2011) report on the negative attitude that many in American society have toward soap viewers: they are “unproductive and powerless, as housewives enraptured and captured by the weepy melodrama supplied by daytime dramas during the same hours of the day that more powerful members of American society (adult men and women employed outside of the home) are at their most productive” (p. 9). Why are soap operas important? Is it because they are on television? If that is so, then why is television so important? According to Livingstone (1998), television has great importance in society. She explains her views on television in this way: Television has come to dominate the hours in our day, the organisation of 2 our living rooms, the topics of our conversations, our conceptions of pleasure, the things to which we look forward, the way we amuse and occupy our children, and the way we discover the world we live in. Many also argue that television has come to dominate what we think, how we think, and what we think about. (Livingstone, 1998, p. 4) As Newcomb (1974) observed, “The claim has been made that television constitutes ‘the American people’s most important source of ideas … [and that] it has influenced our outlook on the world and our political decisions’” (Cassata, Anderson, & Skill, 1983, p. 37). Furthermore, Newcomb (1974) writes that “some communicologists” credit television with having the same institutional power in society as “church, family, and school” (Cassata & Skill, 1983, p. 37). Fiske and Hartley (1978) compared television and print narratives in the following way: The written word (and particularly the printed word) works through and so promotes consistency, narrative development from cause to effect, universality and abstraction, clarity, and a single tone of voice. Television, on the other hand, is ephemeral, episodic, specific, concrete and dramatic in mode. Its meanings are arrived at by contrasts and by the juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory signs and its ‘logic’ is oral and visual. (p. 15) Fiske and Hartley (1978) further explain that “television is a characteristic product of modern industrial society” (p. 14). Livingstone (1990) writes about seeing television as text: “To use the metaphor of the text in relation to television is to emphasise that programmes are structured, culturally-located, symbolic products to be 3 understood only in relation to readers and which, together with readers, generate meanings” (p. 6). Television is a powerful and influential mass medium. According to Palmore, Branch, and Harris (2005a), “The majority of research on images of the aged in the media has focused on television” (p. 316). According to Brownell and Mundorf (2001), “This is because TV plays a predominant role in influencing people’s attitudes toward aging” (p. 316). In addition, some researchers write that negative portrayals of older adults are not limited to television; they exist in the print medium as well (Miller, Leyell, & Mazachek, 2004; Nussbaum & Robinson, 1984; Smith, 1998). Many researchers view the impact of television as being greater than the impact of other forms of