But Nothing Ever Happens

Abstract

quickly shouted down into apologetic silence. Choosing the better part of valor, let me make this clear: I am not championing soap operas per se. I should like only to plead here for recognition of certain qualities potential to this form of storytelling. The leitmotif running through the criticism of daytime radio serials is the familiar wail, But ever happens! The reinforcement, with suitable variations, is, Why, you can miss any show for a week and pick up the story right where you left itl There is undoubtedly a surplus of provocation for such complaints. However, it is no more constructive or pointed than the observation that the trouble with a yellow dress is that it is yellow. When you say of daytime radio serials that nothing ever happens, you are not extracting critical values from a set of known facts; you are actually doing no more than describing the facts themselves. To be genuinely critical, you must examine the physical structure necessary to a soap opera and move on from there. When you do so, you find a situation somewhat at variance with that represented by the blanket criticism: you find that the very nature of the soap opera endows this medium with rich possibilities for carrying serious, social meaning. (WARNING TO THE AUTHOR, BY THE AUTHOR): Social content, per se, is obviously determined by the character of the material and the honesty and depth applied to its treatment. It cannot be brought about or sustained artificially or mechanically. It can't be slipped in while the sponsor's back is turned. (REPLY): A little patience, please. There was a reason for italicizing the word medium a few lines above. This exploration is limited to the nature of the medium's potential. Any consideration of its realization is beyond the purpose of this article. (REPLY TO THE REPLY): Okay. Go ahead, but be careful. Regardless of cultural attributes that stage, screen, and radio may not have in common, they do possess measurable and comparable external time frames. Hence, the dimension of time supplies a basis for the following analysis. Comparisons of time frames are immediately illuminating. Feature films may average between seventy-five and one hundred minutes; plays, subtracting intermissions, have a running length of some two hours. The daytime radio serial, as we know it now, takes something like eight weeks to present a single, complete, story sequence. Broken down into the actual time units