Are Soap Operas Targeting Younger Audiences?

Hello again, today I am going to tackle the topic of the possibility of targeting younger age groups with the soap opera genre.

Traditionally, soap operas have been more directed towards women who are probably 20 or older, in my opinion they are attempting to lower the number from 20. I know that recently I have become more interested in trying to follow soaps, and although that may be because of my mother watching a lot when I was younger I think that the plot lines and the shows they are coming out with now are contributing factors.

Such as the show The Secret Life of the American Teenager that airs on ABC at 8/7 central on Monday nights. The plot is based around a 15-year-old girl named Amy, who becomes pregnant by a boy (Ricky) that is not her boyfriend. So there are decisions that need to be made not only on her part, but on the part of the baby’s father, the mother and also Amy’s current boyfriend Ben.

This to me, is just promoting the fact again that there are people who are under the age of 16 who are having sex and who may have the possibility of becoming pregnant. Personally I don’t think that this is really helping matters. Yes, we know that people are still going to do it. But if there are 8-year-olds watching this show, which I am willing to guess that there is, they may get the idea that it is okay to become pregnant at the age of 15 with a boy who is just another guy in your life.

The plot line on this show, is so crazy and outrageous that it is also considered a soap opera, even though it doesn’t air, during the afternoon, it still falls under that category, mainly because if they aired it during the day they would lose majority, if not all of their viewers because of them attending school.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying getting pregnant at the age of 15 is a horrible thing, it’s just not something that I would want to do, my life right now is so involved with sports that having a child is just not an option at the moment. If you were to go back even 10-15 years, on television 15-year-olds being pregnant was not even HEARD of, was not SPOKEN of. Now there is an entire show based around this. Yes this is where society is going, but some may question, is a show like this really going to help lower these types of statistics? Hmm….

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179817/

What Ever Happened to Passions?

Some people who used to watch the show on a regular basis may ask what ever happened to the crazy, magic filled daytime drama. The series was created by James E. Reilly, and produced by NBC Studios, it debuted on July 5, 1999. Passions’ last airdate on NBC was September 7, 2007, it then moved to DirecTV and began on September 17, 2007. Although, shortly after in December of 2007, DirecTV decided that they didn’t want to renew their contract for the series and couldn’t sell it to another company. The last episode of Passions aired on August 7, 2008.

Passions took place in a fictional New England town called Harmony. The many different, hard-to-follow storylines circle around a number of multi-racial families, the African American Russells, Caucasian Cranes and Bennetts, and half-Mexican half-Irish Lopez-Fitzgeralds — as well as the supernatural including town witch Tabitha Lenox.

The first time I watched this soap opera, I shook my head and quickly changed the channel, it is so out there and very farfetched compared to the rest of the soaps on TV. Even though soaps themselves tend to have crazy plot lines that are almost hard to follow, this one included witch craft. Then I got a little bit older and I got a kick out of watching the show and following the crazy plot lines. Watching this soap usually was my comedy for the day. I wouldn’t be the person to like rush home to watch it, but if I was home during the day I’d watch it also because there is nothing else on during the day time, but it was most definitely to most farfetched show along with some of the worst acting possibly on TV.

But for me, even the terrible acting doesn’t keep me away from watching these shows, in fact I think it’s the bad acting that continues to bring me back time after time. If Passions were to come back on the air I would probably still try and watch it whenever I could. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, soap operas let your mind wander and you know that they aren’t real so after they are over, you can snap back into your life and not have any issues, at least I can. Bye for now.

Bo & Hope Brady - Days of Our Lives

Their love has stood the test of time, death, lies, infidelity and even betrayal. Days of Our Lives fans new and old can visit the best the Internet has to offer about Bo and Hope Brady.
Brady and Fancy Face is what they refer to each other on the show. They are loved by all on and off the show, on and off set. The following link takes you to a my space user who created a site based on Bo and Hope.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=114045688
Ever since I can remember (again, my Mom has watched this show ever since I was a little girl) and even then it was Bo and Hope always together, so in love, and they had the most perfect relationship imaginable. Although, it wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies.
When Bo first came into Salem, with his motorbike and leather jacket he immediately had his eyes set on Hope Williams, a classy, well-known, well-liked girl. Unfortunately Hope was already engaged to Larry Welch. She married Larry but soon realized she had made a mistake and quickly divorced Larry to pick up a life with Bo Brady. But as we know, relationships never last long on soap operas. After thinking his wife had died in an explosion, he remarried twice and then after it all got back with Hope. For more details on the entire story from start to present go to http://www.soapcentral.com/days/whoswho/bo.php
Relationships on soap operas make my head spin, that may be the one thing that you may get lost on if you miss a week of your show, who is dating who this week?!
Going back to my last week’s post on how guys hate soap operas, I think this is another reason they dread it when there is a soap on the TV. Guys don’t really like talking about relationship stuff as it is, never mind having an entire show on 5 times a week for an hour a day basically all based on relationships. This may also be another reason as to why women enjoy the soaps so much more, I am willing to bet that women who watch soaps are more likely to enjoy romance movies.
Bo & Hope… Always have and I think always will be my favorite couple on TV! <3

Men and Soap Operas

“You know what is happening all the time, acting is horrible and they are dumb story lines.” Is what a typical guy’s answer will be about any soap opera. You could stop every guy on the street and I bet you’d get an answer like that of some sort. They all probably haven’t even watched a soap opera but because it is against society’s norms, none will admit to watching any of them.

Men and their egos, certain things that may corrupt their ever so perfect “Male-ish Image”, those are the things that bother me most! I know a lot of guys who tell me something very girlish and if I was to repeat it in public they would shoot me! I wish they would all just realize they all say certain things that may make them look not so macho, but other guys do it too! According to ezinearticles.com: “Men like factual things and hate anything emotional. The emotional nature and lack of facts in a Soap are probably the biggest reasons for men disliking Soaps,” Although those definitely aren’t the only reasons.
The biggest reason that men hate soap operas is because they know almost 100% that women will compare the soap plot line to their own life. They feel that women want to relive what happened on Days of Our Lives yesterday, but don’t make the mistake that they want your life to be exactly what they saw on TV, because that is definitely not the case. Although, not going to lie, I definitely wouldn’t complain if this scene from Days of Our Lives would just so happen to happen to me.
Shawn surprises Mimi --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Si5ceIjxS0&feature=PlayList&p=DB7CC3A38D64BC9C&index=0&playnext=1
I don’t understand why it is such a big deal if guys want to watch soap operas or not. So they enjoy watching them, who cares? To me it’s the same scenario as girls watching sports. Would guys think it’s weird and would girls be ashamed to admit they watch them? I know I’m not, in fact I’d prefer to watch sports on TV on top of anything else. Does that make me any less of a girl?
http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Do-Most-Men-Hate-Soap-Operas?&id=908565