September 15, 2009, - 4:31 pm
End of an Era Caused by Feminism, Crap TV: The “Men” Who Watched “Guiding Light”
On Friday, CBS will air the last day of TV’s longest-running drama, the soap opera, “Guiding Light.” ( It’s been around for 72 years on radio and TV.) Not that I care. I don’t watch soap operas. They’re stupid, boring, and a waste of time. Not to mention, cheap and tawdry.
The demise of soaps is not news to me. I wrote, years ago, on this site about soaps’ demise as most women now work and aren’t at home to watch and as the stories, people, and sets have grown stale and chintzy. Sleazy soaps upped the sleaze factor with explicit shower and hot tub sex scenes and gay story lines, but they still couldn’t compete with even sleazier daytime talk shows–Oprah and Springer–that featured real-life stories about the same thing and yenta-fests with ugly gay airheaded women (“The View”), that were about the same. Even bringing back those old nostalgic actors, characters, and storylines with tawdry updates–Rick Springfield temporarily back on “General Hospital” as an alcoholic Dr. Noah Drake–was like trying to remove the dead, long after rigor mortis set in.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal ran a full page feature on the end of “Guiding Light” (though it’s by lying, fabricating “reporter” Amy Chozick, so you don’t know if you can believe most of it). And this part made me laugh and wonder if this guy is auditioning to be Elton John’s newest ethcort, er . . . escort:
Richard Cole, a 38-year-old photographer in Hampton, N.Y, started watching “Guiding Light” when he was 14. Mr. Cole says he told his television service provider Dish Network to cancel service after the final episode airs Sept. 18. He will no longer watch television, he says.
I think it’s pretty obvious for which team this guy plays. WNBA season tickets are waiting near the wallet (or man purse).
These aren’t the days when macho pro football players watched the soap operas after practice.
And they’re no longer the days where women stayed home to take care of kids and cook and clean. Now, guys like Todd Palin are doing that.
Still, at least there’s one tiny silver lining of feminism–that these stupid daytime dramas with their ever-escalating dysfunction and sleaze are dying. Sadly, as I noted, they’ve been replaced by something far worse: Mr. Moms, Oprah, Springer, The View, and Dr. Phil.
And there’s nothing good about any of those (other than when credits roll).
Tags: Amy Chozick, Dr. Noah Drake, end of Guiding Light, General Hospital, Guiding Light, Guiding Light ending, Oprah, Richard Cole, Rick Springfield, soap opera, soap operas, soaps, Springer, The View, Wall Street Journal
When I was the only white kid on my bus in Pontiac, MI. I used to skip school a lot, since going meant running the gauntlet of bullies. Sneaking back home, I listened to Rock ‘n’ Roll radio and watched Bill Kennedy at the Movies.
I think I turned out o.k.
P. Aaron on September 15, 2009 at 4:51 pm