Strange Similarities: Comic Books and Soap Operas

"Like sands through an hourglass so are the days of our lives.... Excelsior!"

Yesterday, I helped my sis set up a new laptop and wireless internet. While I did this she watched Days of our Lives. It struck me that I still kind of new what was going on even though I hadn't watched it for 5-6 years when I watched it with mom over a thanksgiving break. Then we discussed how weird soap operas are, and it hit me, they have the same oddities as comic books.

Time:
In both comics and soaps time is a fluid thing, it can stretch out or it can rush past whole pieces of time. Stacey pointed out that one Friday show featured a boy hit and killed by a car at a New Years Eve party. The Monday show featured his funeral... but it was suddenly Valentines DAY! Comics have similar problems, many popular hero's like Superman and Spiderman have been around over 40 years. But they do not age. The idea is that time is different a monthly comic may only take the time of two or three days. If this were the case the heroes could still be young but they should be in the time period of the 70s. But they are not, Spiderman has an iPod. (With great downloading power, comes great responsibility.) They are still somehow modern.

Nonstop:
Both comics and soaps have been in production for more than 40 years uninterrupted. This creates an extremely convoluted storyline since dozens of writers had creative control over that time period.

Smut:
Soaps feature a cavalcade of beautiful people, male and female, who are up to the worst kinds of sexual antics. In comics, the girls all wear spandex outfit, although to their credit they are not as naughty as soap opera girls. I can see housewives wanting to fulfill fantasies with soaps. But in comics the girls are often beacons of virtue above reproach, I wonder why. I assume because the average comic reader sees himself as a Knight... plus the little loosers will come back every month hoping this is the month!

Death:
Nobody stays dead. Every year on Days people come back from the dead! Why? Because they left the show thinking they'd get other work then didn't. Deaths in soaps are usually not very definitive to support this. "His ship when down in arctic... nobody survived." Suuuure they didn't. In comics the deaths are far more graphic and definitive. For example being blow up in an Airplane while handcuffed to the bomb. Many comic deaths feature actual burials where the dead body is there, no denying it. Luckily reality is more flexible in comics and there is always some cosmic being ready to raise you from the dead. Death and resurrection are so common in comics there is an expression, "Nobody stays dead but Bucky and Uncle Ben." Uncle Ben is Spidermans uncle who he let get killed by acting selfishly. Bucky is Captain America's WW2 sidekick who blew up over the arctic ocean (Cap fell in and was frozen in ice until thawed years later). Although recently Bucky has come back from the dead as a reprogrammed soviet so I guess the expression is now, "Nobody stays dead but Uncle Ben." (Flashbacks and alternative realities don't count.)

Fluff:
In any given hour of Days there is about 15 minutes of actual stuff. In any given comic there are three or four pages of actual stuff.

Selective Advertising:
Soap operas: You get adds for soap and the Ipex bra.
Comics: You get adds for video games and the Ipex bra.

Nonlethal violence:
Often in both mediums there is extreme violence or dangerous situations that would kill any normal people but not our beloved characters. For example which of these scenarios is a comic book and which is a soap opera:

1. Trapped in a bank vault running out of air
2. Trapped in a building scheduled for demolition
3. Aboard an airplane crashing into the ocean
4. Having a deadly virus that your arch enemy has the antidote to
5. Trapped in a cave it.
6. Marooned on a deserted island
7. Forced to pretend to be working for a bad guy to keep the bad guy from doing even worse bad stuff to others.

Pretty hard to tell sometimes, and I'm sure some of those have examples of both comics and soaps.

The Cliff Hanger:
Soaps and Comics love to end with a cliff hanger. Then the next time they begin they act as if it never really happened or it wasn't a big deal and move on.

Trivial-escapism:
Soaps: Are meaningless fun, at most they waste an hour of your life, at worst they suck your soul away.
Comics: Also meaningless fun, at most they waste $2, at worst you end up living in your moms basement and she sucks your soul away.

Fan Control:
One odd couple on days (a chubby lady and a hot doctor) were going to break up, but the fans wrote so many letters they got a rewrite into a happy married couple. In comics, DC set up a hotline to vote if Jason Todd should live or die (he was Robin to Batman at the time and generally not liked). When the results were in Jason Todd got blown up by the Joker. (Of course recently he came back from the dead, of course.)

Unfulfilled Fantasies:

Soaps: They let women feel like there is still romance in the world and that hot doctors are out there ready to sweep you off your feat.

Comics: They let boys feel like they have some control over the world around them and that there are scantily clad women out there waiting for you to web-sling-sweep them off their feet

Well, those are the obvious similarities, but what about the things that appear to be different?

Viewers:
Soaps: Stay-at-home moms and college girls.
Comics: Teenage boys and grown men with Peter Pan problems. (Many comics are written now for an exclusively over 18 audience.)
Where is the connection? I think it lies in moms controlling teenage boys and college girls ignoring young men with Peter Pan problems. Somewhere in there is a transmission of values from woman to man.

So what to do with these problems?
Sometimes Soaps and Comics try to explain these problems away. Like someone being in a coma for 20 years or Captain America being frozen in a block of ice after ww2. But usually you just have to suspend disbelief. I think the only course of action is just to enjoy you fun but don't let it take priority over the real stuff of life.

I hope Stacey enjoys her "stories."