Dear Editor
Dear Editor Soap Suds Allow me to respond to Marvin Kitman's attack on General Hospital, which I only recently came upon ("The Soap Sickness," NL, November 30, 1981). In this country, thank God,...
...Finally, I think the concern some critics show over college students and teenagers watching soap operas is ridiculous...
...Before you can "save the world" you must have some love for and interest in the individuals who make it up...
...As a veteran of many college classes, I can personally report that they are often "inane drivel" as well...
...His life is the dramatic equivalent of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony...
...One of my greatest enjoyments is watching Tony Geary portray Luke Spencer...
...The prospects for democracy are certainly less promising south of the Rio Grande than north of it, and on the north side they are declining daily...
...Luke is alive because Geary sweats, stumbles, stutters, goes uncombed and unshaven, and makes no attempt to hide his receding hairline...
...He is selfish, antagonistic, jealous, capricious, and capable of doing almost anything to satisfy his needs...
...Most of the women and old men who went to the polls feared what the government would do to them if they did not vote far more than the wayward bullets of a few thousand rebels...
...Naturally, a nonviewer could not appreciate the beauty, drama, romance, and suspense of the ceremony...
...Besides, GH is shown at different times across the nation...
...I trust Kitman was not referring to him when he wrote that the acting on GH is "flat, insipid and plastic...
...No actor who has so little regard for his own vanity on screen could be accused of being plastic...
...GH incorporates a lot of fantasy, especially in the "Ice Princess-Freezing of Port Charles" subplot, but that does not undermine its accurate and telling human characterizations...
...An interloper would probably not understand the humor of GH either, because it is easygoing fun between friends and lovers, the natural type of bantering and teasing that most of us experience day to day...
...In this country, thank God, we are still entitled to pursue whatever legal pleasures we choose, whether or not our more intellectual critics consider them frivolous...
...Jekyll and Mr...
...Moliere's farces, much of Shakespeare, Dr...
...Take for a few examples the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, The Arabian Nights, The Decameron...
...He might think Luke's fight with Laura's ex-husband was overly dramatic, for he would not know the deep-seated hatred between the two men...
...I am sorry that Marvin Kitman cannot be touched by a beautiful wedding, that he cannot relate to two people having a romance, and that he cannot join in the pure fun and fancy of watching daytime entertainment...
...The Super Bowl is live...
...The election itself was more an example of the weak trying to survive than a tribute to democracy...
...She said, "No...
...His love affair with Laura was pursued in the romantic tradition of Romeo and Juliet, Anna Kar-enina and Count Vronsky, Petrarch and his Laura, and Ponchielli's star crossed lovers in La Gioconda...
...They do not take it seriously...
...Tony Geary's Luke Spencer is my reason for watching GH...
...He demands our attention and empathy...
...There is not a single discernible female face in it, despite Paul Sigmund's explanation in the accompanying article: "They [the victorious Right) also played on the anti-Communist feelings of the lower classes, especially women...
...Watching soaps is a form of recreation not too different from frisbee throwing, video games like Pacman, or goldfish swallowing...
...Hyde, Gulliver's Travels, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lost Horizon, 2001, and Raiders of the Lost Ark...
...In bringing the volatile Luke to life, Geary uses an unlimited number of facial expressions (some very, very subtle), a relaxed and graceful body language, and many vocal tones, pitches and accents...
...The risque sexual element has been blown out of proportion by media hype anyway...
...GARY L. GORDON...
...The youth of the '60s and early '70s unfortunately found out that "saving the world" can sometimes be "absurd to the point of being nonsensical," too...
...A stranger would not be expected to sigh when the newlyweds danced to "Fascination Waltz," for he would not understand the significance...
...Most GH fans, especially the young, tune in for a little fun...
...It is not intellectually fair to judge any dramatic presentation by viewing just a small section of it...
...The drawing is sexist by even the most lax American standards...
...Though I do not wish to argue that all GH plots are fine literature, I would remind Kitman that many of our greatest books, plays, movies, and television programs have by no means restricted themselves to a "realistic" portrayal of life...
...She was probably more afraid of the Immigration and Naturalization Service cross-checking the registration rolls than of Ronald Reagan and William Clements (our Republican Governor) remaining in office...
...New York City DOROTHY SAWYER El Salvador Del Bach's cover drawing of a line of voters at a Salvadoran polling booth (NL, April 5) is disturbingly misleading...
...I think the identification of young people with Luke and Laura is a positive sign...
...Incidentally, the proper day for the Russians to attack the United States would be Super Sunday...
...Luke and Laura's wedding was a delight to their friends...
...Kitman might compare his "attending" the wedding with going to a party where everyone else was acquainted, but he did not even know the host...
...The guerrillas have no record of gunning down women and children at random...
...Bach's young studs, whether they had joined up with the rebels or the government, were off fighting, not voting...
...He combines the street-wise kid with the urbane young man seeking wealth and respectability...
...yet he is also warm, compassionate, loyal, humorous, and ever so captivating...
...In my own district in Texas I recently asked a Chi-cano woman if she would like to register to vote...
...Austin...
...Luke expresses every human being's aspirations and suffers everyone's frustrations...
...Television news footage confirmed Sigmund's analysis, panning up and down lines of women and old men...
...Not only is the Super Bowl the biggest television event of the year, it is also of no social value to the nation or to mankind in general...
...Basically, traditional morality is still stressed on all daytime dramas, GH included...
...He represents the best and worst in all of us...
...the government security forces do...
...Geary's Luke is certainly the most complex protagonist on TV...
...Soaps mirror life, not vice versa...
...There is nothing flat or insipid about either the actor or the character...
...It is his loss...
Vol. 65 • May 1982 • No. 9
