Up till my late teens I was hopelessly addicted to soap operas. I remember when I was in high school I was usually the first one out the gate when the home time bell rang at 5pm because I was always rushing to catch my favourite soap at 6pm.
Later on in campus, I got into a physical fight with a few girls because they wouldn’t let me watch my soaps. One of the nuisances of hostel life is sharing a TV and we never wanted to watch the same things. Soap lovers were the minority so the other girls usually got their way and I just got sick of it.
Anyway, I eventually grew out of the addiction. I recently ‘accidentally’ switched to a telenovela station and ended up watching a few episodes. I found myself groaning and rolling my eyes over the overused clichés in soaps that in my opinion need to die immediately. Here are the most grating:
Family members coming out of the woodwork
It is not a ‘good’ soap opera unless there is an evil twin/ child /parent /sibling who suddenly appears that none of the other characters ever knew existed. In addition to that, someone always discovers they were adopted.
Apparently , the men in soap operas sowed a lot of wild oats when they were younger because they eventually meet the illegitimate children they had no idea existed and will hate them on sight until they discover they are their children and will start loving them and they live happily ever after. Aarg.
Falling in love with your sibling
Now, before Isabella discovers that Juan is in fact her long lost son who was stolen from the hospital shortly after he was born, Juan will meet and fall in love with Isabella’s other child – his sister- Mariana.
Isabella, after discovering who Juan is, will try everything in her power to sabotage the relationship before finally coming clean. Yikes!
Wedding woes
Weddings in soap operas (unless it is the last episode) just never go according to plan. The bride or groom is a no show, someone shows up and breaks up the wedding or a natural disaster wipes out the wedding party.
Funerals never go smoothly either. A fight will always break out. I can’t.
Back From the Dead
If you watch soap operas regularly, you will always get a sneaking suspicion that the person who has just died in the new soap you are watching isn’t really dead because people in soaps are always coming back from the dead.
After Pedro ‘dies’ in a plane crash and the body never recovered, he will burst in when they are reading his will with an amazing story of how he survived the crash.
Baby woes
A pregnancy by any main female character is always followed by baby themed misfortunes.
Either she won’t know who the father is or will suffer an accident that will threaten the life of the baby or the baby will be stolen from the hospital only to reappear 25 years later intending to marry his sister. Aarg.
