SINGAPORE — I puke whenever I watch trailers of Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, As the World Turns, etc. on TV. They are the worst, most unoriginal and disgustingly long shows.
I’m no softie. I hate it when women are stereotyped as “sugar and spice and everything nice”, weaklings who cannot survive without men (in Days of Our Lives, Jen admits that she wants Jack back after dumping him), change partners as frequently as changing gears (in General Hospital, Gia runs to Stavros after being rejected by Nikolas) and lie on the dying bed, waiting for a last glimpse of their beau.
Hello, welcome to the real world, fast.
Soap operas are stupid (in Days of Our Life, Belle and Philip find Shawn in a hole, hanging on for his dear life; he falls and they are both upset, until they hear him laughing).
They brainwash us with images of everlasting love when one in two marriages in America end up in divorce, mediocre acting (can they even act?), lousy sets and stereotypes.
Housewives and teenage girls are addicted to it. I say, with other quality programs on TV, why waste your time watching this crap?
All this is junk (in Days of Our Lives, Chloe appears in a revealing gold bathing suit and runs down the beach to Philip in typical slow-motion, with beach music in the background). They have lousy scripts and predictable endings to boot.
Actresses with plunging necklines and masculine hunks with six-packs are just puppets on the show. They stare pretentiously into the camera with solemn looks, try too hard to act natural and speak mechanically, as if they were reading straight off the script.
They are B-grade actors hoping for their big break. The amazing thing is they actually get paid. Acting corny (In Days of Our Lives, Mermaid Mimi pulls off Chloe’s hair and finds Chloe is completely bald and screams) and providing cheap laughs is their sole surviving factor.
I guess soap operas are merely a diversion for people from the real world, where reality and the truth sink in.
Like the movie Nurse Betty, they fantasize about being popular, loved for who and what they are, having Brad Pitt look-alike partners who conform to some half-baked feminist notion and lazing on beaches.
When each one-hour episode’s up, they eagerly await tomorrow’s episode, tomorrow and tomorrow.
Snap out of it.
Days of Our Lives has been running for years without a finale. General Hospital is just a parody of E.R., a far more superior production.
Watching soap operas is like gulping soda. It is habitual. Soda is bad for our teeth and contains empty calories. Soap operas feed us with a dysfunctional image of life, and soon, we’ll be living in our dreamland.
I’m happy to make “the great leap forward” and be in the humdrum of everyday life. No mermaids for me, please.
Kaishi Lee is a Reporter for Youth Journalism International.
