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Console-ing Passions: Television and Cultural Power
Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and Us Television History
"HER STORIES provides an in-depth history of the production and reception of the daytime soap opera in the U.S. It offers a detailed view of the genre's life span-from its move from radio to television in the middle of the 20th century to its supposed demise (but continued afterlife) in the beginning of the 21st century. Soap operas have traditionally been considered a women's genre and thus marginal to the formation of television industry. Elana Levine reclaims the foundational role of soap operas in US television history. Levine begins by tracing how soap opera transitioned from a radio to a TV genre from the 1940s through the 1960s, focusing on how the American TV industry used the genre to hone TV production and storytelling techniques, as well as to develop the medium's commercial viability. With viewers imagined as white middle-class housewives, soaps interrogated stories of family life and marriage, purporting to serve as therapy for women struggling to cope with their home lives. Levine shows how early soaps offered real recognition of the challenges and dissatisfactions of the heterosexual nuclear family ideal, but failed to connect that unhappiness to structural forces. Next, the book turns to the boom years of daytime soaps on US broadcast network television, from the 1960s through the 1980s. Early soaps had been funded by a single sponsor-owner-for example, Procter & Gamble-but the rising popularity of daytime soaps allowed for experimentation with other funding ABC's first soap, General Hospital, was funded by participation advertising, which left more editorial power in the hands of the network. This then altered the relationship between soap writers and broadcast networks, allowing for technological shifts, evolving visual and audial norms, new narrative strategies-including comedy and recapping-and greater representation and engagement with social issues. Finally, Levine examines the slow decline of soaps from the 1980s to today. Shifting notions of the imagined audience for soaps, as well as changing technologies for recording and watching TV, have led the industry to cast soap audiences in derogatory gendered, raced, and classed terms-old, low-income, and non-white, and therefore undesirable for advertisers. Levine argues that, desperate for viewers, soaps in the 2000s turned to exploitative treatment of social difference in a way that, for her, undermines the genre's history. HER STORIES is accessibly written and will appeal to scholars and students in TV and media studies, women's studies, American studies, and cultural studies"--
- GenresNonfiction
390 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 5, 2022
Of the volumes of soap scholarship that I've read, this is the place to begin and end your study, as far as providing a comprehensive overview of the American television daytime genre/industry over time. If I was teaching a course, it would be the core textbook, etc. This probably makes it sound boring or overwhelming, but it's neither of these things, and is very compelling / readable. It cannot be easy to craft a coherent synthesis of so much information, and the results are impressive. Levine uses alternating chapters that examine the evolution of either the industry and production side, or the content of the narratives in terms of social context and representations, for each of the major eras in the genre's history, a structure which works beautifully.
April 28, 2020
For most of my thirty years, I’ve been a devotee of American daytime TV soap operas. For a solid decade (my pre-teens and teens), I watched nearly all of the then-running soaps at one point or another while simultaneously devouring any online resources that were a window into this once-mighty genre’s past. I absolutely fell in love with this beautiful art form even as I watched it die on a daily basis.
HER STORIES made me fall in love with soap opera all over again. Levine tells the story of daytime drama clearly and quite intellectually, offering more than just a fan’s recollections of characters and storylines. Every aspect of the genre is analyzed beyond just surface-level descriptions, revealing connections that enlighten even a seasoned soap veteran such as myself. Levine’s chosen areas of focus, soap operas’ femininity and their driving innovation across the general TV industry, are consistently developed and expanded throughout the book, creating broader connections between soap opera history, television history as a whole, and the history of American culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Levine’s writing style is clear and detail-oriented. She does not leave much room for confusion, even as certain topics are left open for interpretation. A reader with only a casual interest in the topic might have a hard time delving into something this in-depth, but that is perfectly okay. This (long overdue) study is clearly for soap opera diehards, and the pages are filled with quotations and excerpts from names that should be highly familiar to longtime fans. Series that have long been absent from any mainstream conversations about soaps are resurrected and analyzed alongside the legendary long-runners, leaving few salient moments from the first thirty years of TV soap opera unmentioned.
The book honors and celebrates daytime television soap opera while managing to point out the flaws in the system that had been there since the early 1950s. In that way, HER STORIES stays grounded by constantly pulling back to show how soaps fit into the bigger picture of American culture, for better or for worse.
What kept HER STORIES from earning a 5-star rating from me is that there is a tonal shift about halfway through the book as Levine increasingly centers her narrative on one particular soap opera, GENERAL HOSPITAL, with which she admittedly has more “personal history.” While GH’s influence and durability over the last four decades are very evident, Levine repeatedly turns to GH to provide examples of concepts that were also present on other soaps, often getting bogged down in point-by-point recapitulations of storylines and specific scenes. One of these, focusing on a flashback storyline written for the soap’s 52nd anniversary, is barely given true analytical treatment as Levine rests on her own personal explanation of the story to justify its lengthy inclusion in the book.
Despite this small fault, HER STORIES is a definite must-by for all soap fans who yearn for more exploration into the genre. Levine brings with her an enormous knowledge base built on personal conversations, countless articles and studies, and hours upon hours of viewing soaps from the 1950s to today, and HER STORIES is her generous way of sharing her findings.
HER STORIES made me fall in love with soap opera all over again. Levine tells the story of daytime drama clearly and quite intellectually, offering more than just a fan’s recollections of characters and storylines. Every aspect of the genre is analyzed beyond just surface-level descriptions, revealing connections that enlighten even a seasoned soap veteran such as myself. Levine’s chosen areas of focus, soap operas’ femininity and their driving innovation across the general TV industry, are consistently developed and expanded throughout the book, creating broader connections between soap opera history, television history as a whole, and the history of American culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Levine’s writing style is clear and detail-oriented. She does not leave much room for confusion, even as certain topics are left open for interpretation. A reader with only a casual interest in the topic might have a hard time delving into something this in-depth, but that is perfectly okay. This (long overdue) study is clearly for soap opera diehards, and the pages are filled with quotations and excerpts from names that should be highly familiar to longtime fans. Series that have long been absent from any mainstream conversations about soaps are resurrected and analyzed alongside the legendary long-runners, leaving few salient moments from the first thirty years of TV soap opera unmentioned.
The book honors and celebrates daytime television soap opera while managing to point out the flaws in the system that had been there since the early 1950s. In that way, HER STORIES stays grounded by constantly pulling back to show how soaps fit into the bigger picture of American culture, for better or for worse.
What kept HER STORIES from earning a 5-star rating from me is that there is a tonal shift about halfway through the book as Levine increasingly centers her narrative on one particular soap opera, GENERAL HOSPITAL, with which she admittedly has more “personal history.” While GH’s influence and durability over the last four decades are very evident, Levine repeatedly turns to GH to provide examples of concepts that were also present on other soaps, often getting bogged down in point-by-point recapitulations of storylines and specific scenes. One of these, focusing on a flashback storyline written for the soap’s 52nd anniversary, is barely given true analytical treatment as Levine rests on her own personal explanation of the story to justify its lengthy inclusion in the book.
Despite this small fault, HER STORIES is a definite must-by for all soap fans who yearn for more exploration into the genre. Levine brings with her an enormous knowledge base built on personal conversations, countless articles and studies, and hours upon hours of viewing soaps from the 1950s to today, and HER STORIES is her generous way of sharing her findings.
April 4, 2020
An academic and thorough look at American soaps from their inception in the 1940’s to their major decline in the 2010’s. Each section of the book visits eras of soaps while examining the business behind them and the structure and art that powered them. While “my” soap, All My Children, didn’t get as much focus as I might have wished (I’m just dying for a thorough history of that show, I think), this book gave me all the information and more about soap operas.
TV historians, take note! HER STORIES proves American soaps are an integral and fascinating aspect of television history. Write about it more, please!
TV historians, take note! HER STORIES proves American soaps are an integral and fascinating aspect of television history. Write about it more, please!
October 5, 2020
Excellent book! Such an interesting and informative look at soap operas. I never realized their impact on American television was (and still is) so great.
September 30, 2020
The purpose of Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History is to establish an in-depth history of daytime sop operas and how it has evolved and changed from the 1940s to the 2010s. It also establishes the connections between daytime soaps and the economic relationship with US television broadcast networks.
This research will provide numerous resources to people researching many subcategories in media studies. From American broadcast networks, to soap operas, daytime television, gender studies in media, etc. It is a large contribution to the field of media studies and will prove beneficial to a large variety of researchers. This piece is so well researched that almost anyone studying media studies would be able to take something from this piece to utilize in their own research.
The main framework for this piece is the economic and social influence that daytime soap operas had on network television. It also works to define our cultural understanding of gender and how network television ultimately becomes a culture industry and how network television and soap operas form our cultural opinions on gender and femininity.
One issue I do take with this text is in the title. Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History is a text based on the heteronormative and white topic of soap operas. There was a book published in 1995 (25 years prior) titled Her Stories by Virginia Hamilton which is a compilation of stories and tales from female African American storytelling tradition. I worry that utilizing the same title will negatively impact the importance of Her Stories by Virginia Hamilton, causing visibility issues when researching each title.
This research will provide numerous resources to people researching many subcategories in media studies. From American broadcast networks, to soap operas, daytime television, gender studies in media, etc. It is a large contribution to the field of media studies and will prove beneficial to a large variety of researchers. This piece is so well researched that almost anyone studying media studies would be able to take something from this piece to utilize in their own research.
The main framework for this piece is the economic and social influence that daytime soap operas had on network television. It also works to define our cultural understanding of gender and how network television ultimately becomes a culture industry and how network television and soap operas form our cultural opinions on gender and femininity.
One issue I do take with this text is in the title. Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History is a text based on the heteronormative and white topic of soap operas. There was a book published in 1995 (25 years prior) titled Her Stories by Virginia Hamilton which is a compilation of stories and tales from female African American storytelling tradition. I worry that utilizing the same title will negatively impact the importance of Her Stories by Virginia Hamilton, causing visibility issues when researching each title.
February 7, 2024
Academic look at tv soap operas from the 1950s thru 2020. The author discusses both the industrial, production conditions and the storylines and cultural import. I learned a lot about the popularity of soaps in the 70s/80s and they also reflect broader social trends/television trends.
July 2, 2024
Do not be daunted by the page count; this is actually a rather slender volume with an extensive bibliography. Not sure if anything new or groundbreaking is put forward but a good overview of the rise and fall of daytime drama on American broadcast television.
August 29, 2023
Didn't agree with all of Levine's assertions (especially about Marlena's possession) but great book for a soap fan
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews