One of the reasons I dislike a lot of soap operas is that far too many of them fall into the category of "suffering in mink." As a depressive who tries to be moral, I am not moved by people who think their boredom is a valid reason for abandoning their obligations. "Don't they have a right to be happy?" Not at the cost of others. Perhaps it is selfish of me to wonder why they think they have a right to be happy when I am incapable of it. Yet I do.
That is not to say I find all soap operas bad. Dickens' Little Dorrit, whose obligations are her reasons for being, and who has those obligations yanked from her, has a valid problem. So does Charlotte Vale in Now Voyager.
It's not just the validity of of Miss Vale's problems, of course. The cast is superb, including Bette Davis at her peak, the always wonderful Claude Rains as her psychiatrist/mentor and Gladys Cooper as her horror of a mother. Even Paul Henreid doesn't act as if his idea of a good time is to crawl into a damp grave. These are people who come to terms with their problems and the world... and who achieve a compromise that, while not ideal, works.
That is not to say I find all soap operas bad. Dickens' Little Dorrit, whose obligations are her reasons for being, and who has those obligations yanked from her, has a valid problem. So does Charlotte Vale in Now Voyager.
It's not just the validity of of Miss Vale's problems, of course. The cast is superb, including Bette Davis at her peak, the always wonderful Claude Rains as her psychiatrist/mentor and Gladys Cooper as her horror of a mother. Even Paul Henreid doesn't act as if his idea of a good time is to crawl into a damp grave. These are people who come to terms with their problems and the world... and who achieve a compromise that, while not ideal, works.