Soap operas
Soap operas are a genre of serialized storytelling that originated from a blend of nineteenth-century serial novels, early film dramas, comic strips, and radio programs aimed at women in the 1920s. The term "soap opera" emerged in the mid-1930s, reflecting the genre's commercial ties to companies like Procter & Gamble, which sponsored shows to target female audiences. These narratives typically present multiple characters embroiled in intricate, intersecting plots, often centered around domestic life and relatable challenges faced by women.
Pioneers like Irna Phillips crafted early soap operas, focusing on family dynamics and societal issues, and developed techniques that connected deeply with listeners. The format evolved from radio to television, with many soap operas continuing to thrive well into the twenty-first century. Globally, soap operas, including the popular telenovelas in Latin America, have maintained their appeal, addressing both mundane and extraordinary experiences in everyday life. They serve not only as entertainment but also as a significant marketing avenue, influencing consumer behavior through sponsorship and advertising.
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Soap operas
Definition Complex, episodic radio dramas broadcast in serial format
During the 1930s, soap operas became a dominant tool for developing profitable daytime network programming and captured large, mostly female audiences. Soap operas used elaborate, continuous narratives to attract listeners to their regular broadcasts and to create a consumer base for brand-name domestic products usually purchased by women.
Soap operas originated from the concepts of nineteenth century serial novels, serial film dramas of the early twentieth century, newspaper comic strips, and educational radio programs for women begun during the late 1920s. Characters such as Betty Crocker delivered instructional programming for housewives and personalized commercial messages, and programs developed a homey atmosphere, from which daytime narratives developed. The popularity of this programming combined with the development of network radio suggested that daytime programs targeting women could build listener market share and sell airtime to companies whose products, such as soap, targeted specific consumers. The term “soap opera” came into use during the mid- to late 1930s. Through market samples such as mail hooks, companies discovered that daytime soap operas, reached millions of potential customers; thus, companies such as Procter & Gamble increased their advertising on the soaps even during the Depression.
The structure of soap operas depended on the number of characters participating in parallel and intersecting story lines. Soap-opera settings often involved imagined communities from which stories evolved. Essential to soap operas was the ability of scriptwriters to connect with women by making the characters in the radio dramas come alive. Characters reflected the domestic concerns of the stereotypical listener, which included the daily issues faced by wives, mothers, or even working women. Mixed with this sense of the commonplace was often a tinge of the exotic, the notion that ordinary women could find themselves in extraordinary situations. Thus Our Gal Sunday, for example, involved a woman from a small Western American town married to an aristocratic Englishman.
Most soaps focused on a familiar domestic setting. The central characters of soap operas tended to be women, frequently in archetypal roles such as the wise old woman, the virtuous wife, and the fallen woman. Time in the programs ran slowly in terms of plot resolution but also reflected the calendar year of the listener, with special Christmas programs, for example. With the backgrounding and foregrounding of major and minor characters in ever-changing plot scenarios, soap operas were able to keep listeners’ attention with complex, multiple plots.
Pioneers of the soap opera include Irna Phillips. Although she started her radio career as on-air talent, she moved to scriptwriting at the suggestion of radio management. She used radio storytelling techniques popular in evening programming and developed daytime dramas that became the prototypes for serial soaps to follow. At the heart of her script for the soap Painted Dreams, which began in 1930 and is considered by many to be the first soap opera, was a family with its daily challenges. Since the target listeners were mostly housewives, the central conflicts focused on a mother’s concerns for her family, particularly in the changing social and economic climate of the 1930s. Phillips pioneered network broadcasting as well as product placement for soaps.
Frank and Anne Hummert were also prominent in the development of the genre. Their programs tended to connect women with unusual settings. The Romance of Helen Trent was set in Hollywood, and Backstage Wife was set on the Broadway stage. However, the central conflicts in the programs remained domestic.
Although these pioneering writers often developed multiple programs at once, they tended to remain anonymous (with the exception of Phillips and The Guiding Light). This allowed multiple writers to create continuity in the complex serial plots, so that the programs ultimately remained popular with several generations of listeners, and later viewers of the television versions of the soap opera, even when a series of writers retired, died, moved on, or were fired.
Programs developed devoted and faithful listeners, who in turn became devoted and faithful consumers of the brands that sponsored the programs. Thus daytime soap-opera programming was highly profitable for radio networks. Soap operas became a major force in radio in the United States, Latin America (radionovelas), and elsewhere during the 1930s. Though US soaps could still be heard on the radio until 1960, they began to be broadcast on television in the 1950s, with some radio soaps continuing as television soaps. In Latin America television soaps became known as telenovelas. US programs with the longest runs include Love of Life (1951–80), Search for Tomorrow (1951–86), Guiding Light (1952–2009), As the World Turns (1956–2010), General Hospital (1963–), and One Life to Live (1968–2012). With the cancellation of As the World Turns in September 2009, Coronation Street (1960–), produced in the United Kingdom, became the world's longest-running television soap opera.
Impact
Soap operas represented a niche market for an underdeveloped programming slot. By targeting housewives through stories of domesticity, soap operas made money for radio stations and for sponsors. In the twenty-first century, soap operas are some of the most popular programs around the world and soaps broadcast in one country are often popular in other countries as well.
Further Reading
Allen, Robert C. Speaking of Soap Operas. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
Allen, Robert C., editor. To Be Continued—Soap Operas around the World. Routledge, 2005.
Cox, Jim. The Great Radio Soap Operas. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008.
Levine, Elana. “Legitimating Television: The Striving Soap Opera.” Western Humanities Review, vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 99–118. Humanities Source, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hus&AN=119640633&site=eds-live. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
“Longest Running TV Soap Opera.” Guinness World Records, 2017, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-running-tv-soap-opera/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Morton, Robert, ed. Worlds Without End: The Art and History of the Soap Opera. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.
Soukup, Paul A. “Studying Soap Operas.” Communication Research Trends, vol. 25, no. 3, 2016, pp. 3–55. Communication & Mass Media Complete, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=118290324&site=eds-live. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.
“10 Long-Running Soap Operas.” Los Angeles Times, 2017, www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-long-running-soap-operas-pictures-photogallery.html. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.