With no pun intended, the issue of sex in the daytime has become one of the hot issues of the day, as the content of the daily dramas has come under intense criticism. In fact, one critic accuses them of "peddling sex," another declaims the increasing examples of adultery being portrayed in the series, and Variety, the industry newspaper, says there is now a daytime "race to dredge up the most lurid incidents in sex-based human wretchedness."
Now, you might wonder why this was such a big deal at the time. After all, soap operas have had their R-rated reputation for a long time. It wasn't always this way, though; as Efron points out, the daytime drama "is not what it used to be in the old days, when the brave housewife, with husband in wheel chair, struggled helplessly against adversity." As Secret Storm producer Roy Winsor The soaps have shifted drastically on their axes; the fundamental theme today is, as Roy Winsor, producer of The Secret Storm, puts it, "the male-female relationship." Efron finds that "the theme of nine of the 10 daytime shows on the air when this study was launched is the mating-marital-reproductive cycle set against a domestic background." This is not to say that the outside world of hospitals, offices, and courtrooms is not present, but "the external events tend to be a foil for the more fundamental drama, which is rooted in the biological life cycle. Almost all dramatic tension and moral conflict emerge from three basic sources: mating, marriage and babies."
This complicated cycle plays out in several ways. Citing storylines from several of the current soaps, Efron identifies three key "values" that exist in the soap-opera universe: "mating, marriage and babies."
The first, and most important of the three—for it serves as the cornerstone upon which the other two are built—is mating, the search for the ideal partner, and it is not only the cornerstone, it is the dominant obsession of daytime characters. "Vacuous teen-age girls have no thought whatever in their heads except hunting for a man. Older women wander about, projecting their intense longing to link themselves to unattached males. Heavily made-up villainous “career women” prowl, relentlessly seeking and nabbing their prey: the married man. Sad, lonely divorcées hunt for new mates." In the complex ecosystem of good and bad that exists in the soap world, this is a definite good. What determines how it's spun within the story is how the search for the perfect mate is conducted. "Good" people's sex is described as "passive, diffident and apologetic," and the key is "coyness, not chastity."
On the other hand, when "bad" people have sex, "One gets the impression that villains, both male and female, have read a lot of Ian Fleming, through several layers of cheesecloth." It's often played over the top, with lines such as "I play hard and seriously—but not necessarily for keeps." Bad characters also leer, ogle, and speak in double entredees, always delivered with husky voices—when they're not already gasping, that is.
The second of these values is marriage. The dominant view is that marriage consists of two ingredients: love and homemaking.* About love, Efron describes it, as portrayed in the soaps, as "a kind of hospitalization insurance, usually provided by females to male emotional cripples." The greatest love, it would seem, is the love of dependence; a typical declaration of said love, on Search for Tomorrow, consists of the reformed alcoholic pleading to his wife, "I need you," with the wife's response, "That's all I want." That's the psychic representation of love; its symbolic representation comes in the form of homemaking. Food is discussed almost as often as sex, and plays a critical role in romance and marriage.
* As Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen could tell you, love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage; today, however, we live in the horseless carriage world.
The absence of said domesticity is a "serious evil," as seen in a recent storyline in The Secret Storm, in which "a husband’s arrival from work was greeted by a violent outburst by his wife, who handed him a list of jobs he had not done around the house. His neglect of the curtain rods was a sure sign that he was in love with a temptress who works in his office. Conversely, if a wife neglects her house, the marriage is rocky."
This brings us to the third and final crucial values: reproduction. Having a baby is "the ultimate goal toward which almost all 'good' people strive. And 'The Baby' is the household god." "Good" wives are either fighting to become pregnant, worried that they aren't pregnant, actually becoming pregnant, or trying desperately not to "lose the baby." "Good" men are not only sympathetic, they're also "fascinated by every detail of it," discussing it in intimate detail with their friends. And what of those babies whose conception comes out of wedlock? Well, that's a little more complicated. On the one hand, "The girl is viewed as a helpless victim of male villainy," of loving her man too much. At the same time, however, the same woman "has acquired the baby 'the wrong way' and must—and does—suffer endlessly because of it." However, all ends well, because she goes through with the birth despite all this (abortion being verboten on television), and thus "receives an enormous amount of sympathy, guidance and help from 'good' people."
Only "bad" people are anti-baby, and the worst of them are "career women," who "actually enjoy some activity other than reproducing the species." With rare exceptions, when it comes to married woman, "even the feeblest flicker of a desire for a career is a symptom of villainy in a woman who has a man to support her." And even when female characters achieve their ideal, it doesn't guarantee happiness. "A man to support them, an empty house to sit in, no mentally demanding work to do and an endless vista of future pregnancies do not seem to satisfy the younger soap-opera ladies. They are chronically bored and hysterical." They also live in constant threat of losing their working husbands to those wicked career women. The males suffer as well; "They, too, have a remarkable amount of trouble reconciling their 'needs as men' with their 'needs as fathers.'" They're either sick with jealousy, tortured by the jealousy of their wieves, or both. They also have to worry about curtain rods.
The result, Efron finds, is a world epitomized by "a lot of drinking, epidemic infidelity, and countless cases of acute neurosis, criminality, psychotic breakdowns and postmaternal psychosis."
What we have as a result of all this, Efron says, is not the lurid, suggestive headlines we saw at the beginning of this article, but instead 'a soggy, dreary spectacle of human misery'" that begs the question: "where did this depressing view of the male-female relationship come from?" The industry experts have excuses ready and at hand; Secret Storm's Roy Winsor puts a finger on it, identifying television's role as reflector, rather than driver, of societal change: "The moral fiber has been shattered in this Nation, and nothing has replaced it..."Some of the contemporary sickness has rubbed off onto TV." Frank Dodge, producer of Search for Tomorrow, puts it even plainer: "These shows are a recognition of existing emotions and problems. It’s not collusion, but a logical coincidence that adultery, illegitimate children and abortions are appearing on many shows. If you read the papers about what’s going on in the suburbs—well, it’s more startling than what’s shown on the air."
Dr. Harold Greenwald, training analyst of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and supervising psychologist of the Community Guidance Service in New York, agrees with this assessment. "I think they’re more realistic than many of the evening shows. They’re reflecting the changes taking place in our society. There are fewer taboos. The age of sexual activity in the middle classes has dropped and it has increased in frequency. There is more infidelity. These plays reflect these problems." Dr. William Menaker, professor of clinical psychology at NYU, adds, "The theater, the novel, and the film have always reflected people's concern with the sexual life; and in this sense, what’s on the air reflects these realities of life. Increasing frankness in dealing with these problems isn’t a symptom of moral decay but rather reflects the confused values of a transitional period of sociosexual change."
Unfortunately, adds Dr. Menaker, the issue, as portrayed on television, "is mechanical and adolescent, immature. The 'love' seems equally childish; it is interacting dependency, rather than a mutual relating between two autonomous adults.* As for anti-intellectualism of these shows, it is actually antifeminine. It shows the resistance of both writers and audience to the development of the total feminine personality." Feminist writer Betty Friedan (naturally) echoes this outlook: "The women are childish and dependent; the men are degraded because they relate to women who are childish and dependent; and the view of sex that emerges is sick."
*One could say this about the Love Generation of the Sixties in general.
Interestingly enough, one could say that amidst all this debauchery, you can actually see the makings of the core morality that used to be the bedrock of modern society. For it wasn't all that long ago, in the great scheme of things, that having a family was the ultimate goal of marriage, and couples without children were almost always portrayed as having suffered as a result of a miscarriage, infertility, or some other circumstance that was invariably considered unfortunate. Again, a sign of the times—both times, if you want to be specific.
Efron's conclusions are twofold: first, "one can certainly conclude that all this 'sex-based human wretchedness' is on the air because it exists in society. And the producers’ claims that this is dramatic 'realism' appear to have some validity." However, "does the fact that a phenomenon exists justify its incessant exploration by the daytime dramas?" In other words, does the claim that "this is the way it is" really excuse its portrayal on television? The doctors Efron consulted "actively" refrained from making such moral judgements, but Betty Friedan thinks otherwise. "The fact that immature, sick, dependent women exist in our society is no justification for these plays," she says. "The soap operas are playing to this sickness. They are feeding it. They are helping to keep women in this helpless, dependent state." Playing the victim card—or telling it like it is? TV
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