MIT Creates Class About Soap Operas

An anonymous reader writes "Wikipedia apparently wasn't enough. There had to be a course on the much needed subject of soap operas at MIT. Here's the Course Description: "The television landscape has changed drastically in the past few years; nowhere is this more prevalent than in the American daytime serial drama, one of the oldest forms of television content. This class examines the history of these "soap operas" and their audiences by focusing on the production, consumption, and media texts of soaps. The class will include discussions of what makes soap operas a unique form, the history of the genre, current experimentation with transmedia storytelling, the online fan community, and comparisons between daytime dramas and primetime serials from 24 to Friday Night Lights, through a study of Procter & Gamble's As the World Turns."" All I really need to know I learned from my evil twin, who fathered my unborn child, who has a extremely rare disease that only one of my many CIA contacts, who is also sleeping with my wife, can cure.

Comments

Soap Operas Will Destroy Our Society

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Soap Operas are among the most damaging and destructive influences in our society today. I have witnessed first hand the pain and suffering they can wreak upon the people who watch them and those close to them. An unending visual diet of petty pickering, gross injustices, squabbling, two bit storylines and overblown melodrama can wear down the common sense of even the most stoic individual, turning them into a capricious, cantankerous, shrew with violent mood swings who starts flaming arguments at the slightest provocation.

I can say with surety that no child of mine will ever, ever be allowed to watch a soap opera of any kind. I would rather they were smoking crack. At least their are clinics for that.

Re:Soap Operas Will Destroy Our Society

[Locke2005]

Or as I tell my wife, "Hey, if you wanted to listen to a disfunctional family with people arguing all the time, you could just have a conversation with me!"

Sounds like Fun

[Detritus]

I'd be interested in how the American soap operas compare to their counterparts in other countries. From what I've read, telenovelas are very popular in Latin America. When I lived in Hawaii, a local TV station used to play a Samurai soap opera series from Japan.

Space Operas

[Aladrin]

Will they include Space Operas like Firefly, too? As much as I love that show, I have to admit there's a ton of drama there.

And how about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?

Kyle XY?

I guess the question is: Where do you draw the line? Is it only about ridiculous shows that are on around 2pm? Or does it include all shows that are heavy on drama, especially far-fetched drama.

Before anyone defends Firefly from the 'soap opera' label: River. Seriously, what is up with her 'abilities'? The gun scene where she closes her eyes and shoots 2 people dead at once... Seriously!

Finally!

[Locke2005]

An MIT class that my wife could actually get a passing grade in!

Class?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Will they publish the list of methods and public properties?

It was a good class...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was actually one of the six or so students taking the class. This class probably won't be offered again, and actually happened this time last year - it's only just got round to being put on OpenCourseWare.

You should check out our class blog at http://mitsoaps.wordpress.com/ - it's not active anymore, but it'll give you a better feel for what we're doing. To answer the question about where you draw the line - the answer is you don't. Obviously we have the US 'soaps', but something like Friday Night Lights is as much as soap as As The World Turns. Furthermore, the US may only show daily soaps during daytime, but plenty of countries (such as the UK) have soaps in prime-time and bringing in top 5 ratings.

Soap opera really boils down to episodic character based story. This means the genre really encompasses an awful lot of TV. It's basically any show which you watch for character development across time rather than a formulaic drama. A good test of whether a TV program is 'soap opera' or not is the syndication rule - if you can present episodes in a random order and the audience will still understand the majority of your program, it's leaning away from soaps.

Once you actually *watch* daytime soaps (and until I took this class, I hadn't), you realise there's actually not much difference at all between soaps and their prime-time counterparts. The fans are much the same, the shows elicit the same reactions and emotions - the only real difference is the sheer volume, suspect acting, and low-budgets.

Theory of RelativeTV

[NetSettler]

Hmmm. Maybe they'll have me come lecture about my not-terribly-famous Theory of RelativeTV.

Soap operas can have drastic economic consequences

[HungWeiLo]

In 1992, a Hong Kong soap opera The Greed of Man caused a 10+% drop in the Hang Seng Index. Ever since, the stock market there drops whenever the star of that soap is in anything on TV, completing that probably self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re:...And?

[porcupine8]

Read a little more of the website, and you'll discover that MIT students are required to take 8 humanities classes while they're there, and that the humanities faculty includes Pulitzer Prize-winners and other notables. Strangely, even MIT doesn't think that giving someone only science or engineering classes will serve them well in the long run.