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One of the defining characteristics of soap opera dialogue is the exposure
of private feelings and experiences. Characters--be they doctors, lawyers, mobsters,
or bartenders--almost always discuss personal matters with one another. Although
revealing one's innermost thoughts to colleagues and acquaintances is not commonplace
in real life, viewers readily accept the extraordinary level of intimacy exposed
in a typical soap opera conversation--even when the conversation is taking place
between characters who don't know each other well.
Despite my recognition that such revelations of private feelings are commonplace
in soap operas, I still found a recent conversation between Carly and Melissa
troublesome. On the surface, this conversation is so typical of the soap genre
that I think most television viewers would quickly recognize the dialogue as a
soap opera conversation. Since the dialogue seems typical, a first-time viewer
who knows nothing about the characters or their stories might accept the conversation
at face value. As a long-time viewer, however, I reacted with great discomfort
to the following dialogue:
Melissa: Excuse me. Are you all right? Carly. Are you OK?
Carly: I feel like I'm dying. I wish I could.
Melissa: Can I help you or--
Carly: Nobody can help me. My husband left me and he's not coming back. Not to
me, anyway. And it is all my fault.
Melissa: I'm sure that's not true.
Carly: No. I blamed Zander and Alexis, even Roy, and he warned me. And I wouldn't
listen. I wouldn't. That whole time I was blaming everybody else, it was me. I'm
like a--a poison. Everything I touch I destroy. I betrayed Sonny. I drove him
away.
The first problem with this dialogue is that Carly is not the kind of person
who easily reveals her vulnerabilities. Carly is defensive to the point of being
offensive. This conversation would have been more believable if Carly had first
told Melissa to shut her mouth and leave her the hell alone, before being coaxed
to reveal what was bothering her. But in this scene, she tells Melissa with just
the teeniest prompting that she wishes she could die because her husband has left
her and it's all her fault. The second problem is that this is not the type of
conversation Carly would have with most people, let alone with someone she barely
knows. This is the confessional dialogue Carly would have had with Jason, had
he been around, or perhaps with Mike or Bobbie. The third problem is that Carly
is discussing with Melissa people whom Melissa does not know. Melissa doesn't
know Sonny. She doesn't know Alexis. She's only had superficial interactions with
Zander at the hospital. And she certainly doesn't know anything about the nature
of the relationships among these people.
Carly: He used to love me. He used to look at me and he'd smile. And then
he'd hold me, and I knew that I found the one person that--I can't--I can't breathe
without him. It is like this part of my heart has been ripped out of my body.
Melissa: I've been where you are. I know the pain.
Carly: Well, how did you get through it? How can I?
Instant solidarity! Melissa knows Carly's pain! And Carly, who could eat the
likes of Melissa for breakfast, asks Melissa for help in getting through the pain!
A first-time viewer would have every right at this point to believe Carly is crying
on her best girlfriend's shoulder.
Carly: I can't live with the pain, and I can't make it stop.
Melissa: You know what? It's going to get better. I promise you that. I know that
it seems like sometimes you just--you can't even go on. But hour by hour and day
by day you do, and gradually the pain subsides. You're not all doubled over. You
do learn how to breathe again and you learn how to stand, even if you're not standing
with him.
Carly: You're still in love with Roy, aren't you?
Melissa: You know, I probably always will be.
Carly: How did you forgive him after he betrayed you?
Melissa: For a long time, I couldn't.
Carly: Well, did he do something? Did he say something one day that just made
you change the way that you felt?
Melissa: No. I just realized that my love for him was greater than my hurt.
How does Carly know that Melissa and Roy had been lovers? How does Carly know
that Roy had betrayed Melissa (by snitching on her brother Leo)? Bobbie would
have been the most likely source of information for Carly and yet I'm fairly certain
Bobbie has never told Carly about Roy's past with Melissa. In fact, when Bobbie
told Carly that she had broken up with Roy, she told Carly that she had been hurt
because Roy had helped Carly with her betrayal scheme without discussing the matter
with her. Bobbie then added, inexplicably, that she thought Roy had helped Carly
betray Sonny because he was envious of Sonny, and not because, as Carly insisted,
he cared about Bobbie and her family. Bobbie never mentioned Melissa as a factor
in her break-up with Roy, let alone mention Roy's betrayal of Melissa.
Carly: But some people can't forgive betrayal. My mother can't forgive Roy,
and I don't think that Sonny will ever be able to forgive what I did. And all
I was trying to do was protect what we had.
Melissa: Because you love him.
Carly: Yeah, but he doesn't see it that way.
Melissa: Well, not yet he doesn't.
Carly: But do you think he ever will be able to, ever?
Melissa: Carly, give it time, ok? I know that he's trying his damnedest right
now to shut you out, but if he's anything like me, his heart's not going to let
him do it. Time can do really amazing things.
So now, Melissa is an expert on Sonny. She knows that Sonny is "trying
his damnedest" to shut Carly out. And Carly knows so little about her own
husband that she has to turn for advice to someone who barely knows her and who
has never met her husband.
Carly: It's like an angel sent you to give me hope.
Melissa: I don't know about that, but if I helped, I'm glad.
Carly: Yeah. For the first time, I feel that me and Sonny might be OK.
Melissa: Why don't you come inside, let me buy you a cup of coffee.
Carly: Oh, thanks, but I think I'm going to just stay out here, hang for a while.
It's a beautiful night.
Melissa: It really is. It's getting late, though, and I have to go back on duty.
Carly: I'll be fine.
Melissa: OK. I would feel better if you were headed home.
Carly: I will be OK. Besides, the worst has already happened.
Melissa: You be careful, OK?
Carly: Showing up the way you did, it was--it's like a sign. Everything is going
to turn around for me. I know it.
Melissa has been elevated from best girlfriend and expert therapist to an emissary
from an angel! And then, the ultimate gesture: Melissa offers to buy Carly a cup
of coffee.
This is dialogue straight from Soapwriting 101. In fact, if the names of all
the characters were changed, I would wager that even daily General Hospital
viewers could not with certainty name General Hospital as the source of
the dialogue. I can almost imagine the writers holding this conventional bit of
dialogue as a hammer and nailing the first two characters who came along.
I imagine the writers had specific purposes for this scene. One purpose seemed
to be the portrayal of Melissa as a caring and sympathetic character. Another
purpose was to show a growing bond between Carly and Melissa, although the full
purpose of that has not yet been made clear. (Melissa subsequently did use her
conversation with Carly once as a "dig" at Bobbie.) I suppose there
was also some shallow irony in the juxtaposition of Carly's pronouncement that
Melissa must have been sent by an angel with scenes of Sonny and Angel getting
to know one another. The primary purpose of the scene, however, seemed to be to
compare Carly's betrayal of Sonny to Roy's betrayal of Melissa. The problem, as
I mentioned above, is that Carly knew nothing about Roy's betrayal of Melissa,
and Melissa only knew the barest of details about Carly's betrayal of Sonny. While
the writers' intentions for the scene are obvious, the scene failed in its execution
because the writers had lost track of who knew what, and because they forced the
characters into a conventional form of dialogue without considering that at least
one of the characters--Carly--would never have a heart-to-heart with someone she
barely knows.
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