Arts
General Hospital Is the Most Violent Show on Television
And why an A-list star would agree to be on it.
This Friday, James Franco begins appearing on General Hospital, a casting stunt that’s attracted more attention to the long-running soap opera than anything since Elizabeth Taylor slapped on a turban and cursed Luke and Laura’s nuptials in 1981. Franco (Milk, Pineapple Express, Spider-Man, a number of charming, self-skewering Web videos) has been extremely vague and mysterious about what he, a talented, up and coming, A-list actor is doing slumming it on daytime, revealing only that it has something to do with a “performance art” film he’s making. Asked why he had chosen General Hospital over the six other serials still on the air, Franco replied, “I really don't know the difference between [soap operas]. The one difference is that General Hospital has developed this whole organized-crime thread.”
Despite its title, General Hospital is no longer a show about doctors, nurses, and their love affairs. It is a show about gangsters, gun molls, and their love affairs. Franco’s character (cleverly named … Franco), will be another one of these thugs, as the ABC trailer promoting his appearance makes abundantly clear, introducing him as an “artist whose canvas is murder,” and as a man so dangerous, “no one is safe, not even an expert killer.”
The number of people who know, let alone care, that General Hospital has become a show about the mob dwindles every day. When Luke and Laura were married almost three decades ago, 30 million people tuned in. Today, the show’s audience hovers between 2 million and 3 million. (This is not particular to GH—all soaps have seen dramatic declines in viewership.) As they have become increasingly marginalized, soaps have become weirder and more particular, like some species left to mutate on the Galapagos, maintaining vestigial elements no longer seen on mainland television. Sometimes the diminished status creates something socially useful. In 2007, Luke and Laura’s daughter Lulu had an abortion, to little fanfare, something that just about can’t happen on prime-time these days. Mostly, however, GH has taken advantage of the lack of audience to create a lawless, backwards universe, where killers are heroes and children are praised for bludgeoning their stepmothers to death.
Of course, it’s a daytime soap’s prerogative to create cheap, outrageous, morally dubious plot lines. General Hospital, on the air since 1963, has done it all: amnesia, long-lost twins, and dead people coming back to life. The mob has played a part on GH since the late ‘70s, but for more than 20 years it was held in check by do-gooder citizens more worried about an evil weather machine threatening to freeze over their city than about drive-by shootings. But for the last decade, Port Charles, where GH takes place, has been overrun by gangsters, becoming a stomping ground for firefights, hostage crises, and serial killers. Two years ago, two female characters who had been on the show since they were children were brutally murdered by a serial killer, the psycho son of a mob boss; this year, the 11-year old son of another mob boss was shot in the head by a sniper. It’s safe to say GH has become the most morally confused, violent show on television.
Willa Paskin Writer, pop culture junkie
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Comments
Despite its drawbacks, General Hospital has some fabulous actors
By: mariposaverde928 | Mon, 02/08/2010 - 17:05
Maurice Benard and Steve Burton are very believable as mobsters. I'm glad that the writers allow the viewers to see the humanity of characters that most would write off as irredeamable. I feel this way, because life is not black or white, even when we wish it was! General Hospital's characters often take many different sides of a story and play it out. Kudos to them! Jonathan Jackson as Lucky deserves an Emmy. You make it sound as though acting for a soap opera is something to be ashamed of; I totally disagree. The actors put in many, many hours and have to learn many pages of script. I think that you are not giving the show and its actors the respect they rightly deserve.
Linda Q. from Philadelphia
GH's propensity for violence,
By: formerGHfan | Mon, 11/23/2009 - 18:48
GH's propensity for violence, complete lack of respect for women, and it's inability to finish most of the stories it starts has driven many viewers away. THANK YOU for shining a light on this!
GH's sole focus is on two mob characters and all the other characters- like Franco's are shiny toys that the show and the writer forget about after they play with them for a few moments. The show is an odd combination of mobsters, rating stunts(fires, explosions, etc..) and plot points. Any redemable qualities to this show have disappeared in a hail of gunfire.
There are only mob families left. The once great Luke Spencer is a loser drunk who disses Laura and his family. But hey- if you think you would like to watch a kid murder his step-mother with an ax or see a pregnant women get shot in the head- GH might be the show for you!
Ironically, there is no love, no romance, or even consistant storylines on GH anymore. No wonder no one is watching. The news is less depressing.
General Hospital
By: Suzidoll | Mon, 11/23/2009 - 14:30
The problem with GH is that the producer, Bob Guza, and his writing staff do not understand or respect the conventions and limitations of the melodrama genre, which is the primary genre associated with soaps. Melodramas exhibit conservative values in their themes and subtexts, always supporting our social institutions (marriage, family, law & order, justice system, etc.), though on the surface of the narrative, they often employ risque plotlines or events (adultery, illegitimacy, temptation, etc.). Viewers get to see the sex and romance, but have the satisfaction that the bad will be punished or redeemed through sacrifice. Guza and his staff are more interested in the gangster genre, which is a genre famous for criticizing social institutions by pointing out their weaknesses (the corruption of law & order; the ruthlessness of a capitalist economic system). The two genres do not mesh at all, and Guza and staff are blissfully unaware of this, leaving them open to criticism because storylines rub viewers the wrong way, fizzle out because you can't reconcile the plotlines of both genres in the same story, or feature characters who are quickly used up because there is no room to redeem them. It's simply bad storytelling and poor character development resulting from the abject ignorance of pop culture basics on the parts of the producer and his writing staff. Too bad; they've taken a long-running show with an interesting history and bashed it to pieces.
GH
By: shutuplena | Sun, 11/22/2009 - 00:35
I have to say, Willa's article was a little ridiculous. Although her protrayal of the characters were pretty accurate, the contempt it seems she has for the show is juvenile. This show's been around forever - and I've watched it forever. Her harsh criticism seems a bit over-the-top. It's a soap opera people!!!! GH happens to focus a great deal on the mob. So what! It seems to have worked for them all these years. As with any show (soap opera or not) when it's been on as long as the soaps have, you're going to run out of storylines. There's only so many love story/triangle stories you can do, so so what if there's violence in there too. It's not like it's so realistic. I think Willa should focus her contempt elsewhere, on real things in the world that should be critiqued so harshly, and stop watching GH. I guess you can tell, I'm a true GH fan.
Trying out Roles
By: Sihaya | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 16:40
I tend to think of the characters in soap operas as cast members themselves. Have you ever watched those mystery shows like"Murder, She Wrote" or "Nero Wolfe" where the same cast appears every week as a different set of characters? The actress who plays the victim this week may be a suspect next week. On soap operas one actor gets to play a whole lot of characters who have the same name, location, and maybe profession. It's like somebody yells "Switch!" and, in a way, it's great fun. Haven't watched GH since the days when the plots revolved around terrorists vs. secret agents, though.
Funny Article
By: ameliapeabody | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 15:11
This article made me laugh because, as a longtime General Hospital viewer, it captured all the ridiculous elements of the show. However, I do have to say that when the storylines are good they can be pretty captivating. Yes, the show is pretty violent, and yes, the morals are lax, but how is this different from most popular primetime shows? I'm not watching right now because I think the writing has been pretty bad, but I don't think GH is much different from popular shows like the Sopranos or Grey's Anatomy in terms of the morality.