The Dying Age of the
Soap Opera
By
Lisa Williams
When
“Daytime Drama” first aired, the majority of sponsors were manufacturers
of laundry detergent,
hence, the term “Soap Opera” was coined.
As Guiding
Light aired its final episode on Friday, September 18, 2009, I thought
of my mother, an avid fan for that and many other daytime
stories.
The blare
of mesmerizing dramas filled the house. She seemed lost in their world
from 11:30 am to 4:30
pm, starting with “Love of Life” and ending with “The Edge of
Night”. This was how
my mother spent the majority of her days, in the midst of fictional
characters as transitory as the soap bubbles sponsors blew
at the lonely women who
joined their world of
make believe.
A world
created in hopes of easing the drudgery of homemaking, which most
women of that era
were brought up to believe should be enough for them. To deny
reaping any satisfaction from these daily
tasks was to admit failure.
In the wee hours, when the house was silent, the discontentment of their
man-made
world filled the darkness, some would drink it away, some
would lose themselves in the
false sense of contentment
doctors would offer in hastily written
prescriptions which
dulled their “Secret Storm”. I’m sure many waited anxiously
for the day to begin so they
could join “Another World”.
“As The
World” turned, they remained still, never moving with it, just watching
as “The Days of” their “Lives” passed them by and before
they knew it, just as “The
Edge of Night” fell, dinner, dishes and finally sleep took
over. As they lay quietly in
their beds, many wondered when in fact, their “Love of Life”
would actually begin.
These
amusements, created by the media to pacify bored, lonely women,
failed miserably. The
rights of women, fought so desperately for by previous
generations, were put aside once again in the age old
attempt to keep the female “safe” in
the home where many
believed she belonged. Unfortunately,
this is where she began to
unravel, losing
herself in the shadows of wifedom and motherhood.
The loneliness my mother and many women of her generation must have felt as
“home” became a
solitary dream denying shelter. The windows to the outside world
became clouded with their families wants and
needs, leaving these wives and mothers
floundering in
discontent as they wiped away smudges and crumbs of their daily lives to
a sparkling shine,
catching sight of their own unfamiliar reflections, surrendering to their
“living” rooms,
filled with the all too familiar voices of their soap “families”.
My mother
passed away on February 4, 2009. She was
found in her home by the
housekeeper. In the
background, the soaps still told their stories, so I presume she didn’t
feel she died alone, but I do.
