you see, since i hafta be pretty well stuck in one spot when i'm nursing the twins, i've started watching more television. of course, that's the beauty of tivo, you record your shows [my goodness, that just sounds soapy doesn't it? like, hushup now, don't bother momma while she's watchin' her show. gulp.] and then watch them at your leisure.
anyhoo, i equate soaps with daytime television. and, i never in a million years would consider myself a soap watcher. in fact, i used to make fun of my friends who would actually plan their college courses around their soaps. how pathetic, i would declare, i have enough drama in my life without needing to watch someone elses! i fancied myself an anti-soap snob. i always considered daytime soaps on par with trashy "romance" novels, thinly veiled porn for women who wouldn't be caught dead at an R-rated movie, but who wouldn't bat an eye at a half naked woman in bed with two men if it's on as the stomach turns. once i even got very frustrated with a friend who insisted on watching her soap before she could go somewhere with me. why not just rent a porno and be done with it? i demanded. she insisted it was harmless because it was on daytime television. baloney. but, i digress.
the topic came up recently when smockdaddy noticed that i've taken to watching old reruns of dallas [insert yeeHAW here]. he said he never took me for a soap kinda gal.
i don't watch soaps, i insisted.
you're watching dallas, he pointed out.
but it isn't a soap. they're reruns. it was nighttime drama.
what channel are you recording them from?
i scowled, soap network.
and i'll admit that's a hard one to get around; but here's the real question, does desperate housewives count as a soap opera? if being on primetime doesn't prevent something from being a soap, then wouldn't DH count as a soap opera? because even the smockdaddy will tune in to an occassional episode with me. in fact, he knows the names of the women on wisteria lane. so, does this mean that he likes soaps, too?
"i have enough drama in my life without needing to watch someone elses!"
See MY logic is that I WATCH other people's drama so as not to cause any unneccessary drama in my own life. Come on, you know those kinds of people, the ones whom you wonder "what, is their life so boring that they have to cause drama everywhere they go?" My solution, they just need to watch a good soap opera!
Yes, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, etc all count as soap operas, but their category is officially designated as primetime soaps. I believe the appropriate term for soap operas is serials.
I'm not sure about Desperate Housewives yet.
I do have a couple I watch, but they have been so, so stupid and badly written/acted the past few months that I haven't caught them for a while, which is really saying something for me since I have been watching these soaps since I was 5.
Desperate Housewives is not only a soap, it's a morally vacant, spritually deracinated one.
Smock, this is one thing I don't share with you.
I had tried Desperate Housewives once or twice last season, because my parents watched it. I didn't "get it" I guess, because I thought it was just nasty.
Then I tried again a couple of weeks ago, because it comes on right before a show (probably a soap!) that I like--Grey's Anatomy.
Still icky. Couldn't make it past the first 10 minutes. Obviously I'm in the minority, because it is hugely popular. But I don't see the draw.
I suggest that you watch the telenovelas on the Spanish language stations. Now those are soaps to which I can relate! and it is so good for me to learn colloquial Espanol, no? Si!
BTW - someday I will record myself doing a prenatal in Spanish and put it on the blog.......