The World Essay

Submitted By rebeccadag
Words: 1364
Pages: 6

In Marie Winn's article, "TV Addiction," she talks about how television is a pointless experience, people now do out of habit, instead of for pleasure. Winn believes that television is just an addiction and people aren't necessarily enjoying it anymore. To explore Winn's theories, I watched a soap opera called All My Children and tried to determine its quality. Soap operas are not very popular shows and most people, other than soap opera fans themselves, think that soap operas are terrible forms of television. I do not believe they are terrible, just made differently. All My Children is a show designed for women, ranging from ages 18-50. Women are generally the aimed audience because they enjoy the all of the drama, sex, extreme life scenarios, and possible fantasies that happen each day on a soap opera. The show is on everyday from 1 to 2 pm, when mostly mothers and college students are home. A lot of women like to escape into these fantasy worlds that the soap opera writers are creating because there day to day lives may not be as exciting as they would like. Soap operas also tend to be a guilty pleasure for mothers that may have only a little amount of time for themselves until their children get home from school. During the show, there are many commercials that are aimed at mothers as well. Almost all of the commercials had something to do with cleaning supplies, healthier foods for your children, beauty supplies and different types of medicines. It is clear they know exactly who is watching the show, and the type of products the audience is interested in. Although soap operas have many loyal female fans, they do not receive the best ratings. On the Nielsen Rating chart, All My Children was not near or even close to being in the Top 10. In fact, out of all of the daytime soap operas, All My Children had the lowest rating. Personally I believe they have such a low rating because people assume they have bad actors and overdramatic story lines. They also contain a lot of overdramatic music. When All My Children begins, there are small pieces of dramatic scenes, that will try to intrigue you to continue watching, and then begin the opening credits. It is a nice slow song, introducing all of the actors and actresses. During all of the scenes, there is always music playing in the background, fitting to the mood of the scene. When there are people upset, there is slow, peaceful music playing in the background, or if there is something dramatic happening, there is loud, thrilling music on in the background. The music really helps to give the viewer the feel of the scene and adds a lot to it. In All my Children all of the actors seem to be very good looking people. They are casted to try and influence the viewers that the show is aimed at obtaining, women. Women tend to care a lot about beauty in todays world, therefore the women are all beautiful and the males are also extremely good looking with larger, masculine bodies. A lot of the women on the show are also in the same age range of the audience, therefore it makes it easier for the audience the relate to the show. The men are also always good looking, tend to have their shirts off a lot and show off their bodies, because it makes women and mothers that don't have such an exciting life anymore, leave their world for a little while into another more exciting one. There is a lot more to All My Children than what meets the eye though. The title of the show, All My Children, gives you a little insight to what the show is really about. It is about a group of people in a town called Pine Valley, that are all related to each other in one way or another. They are very much like the "children" of this town, they all stick together during the constant tragedies that take place, just like a family would. The purpose of this show is a combination of entertainment and expanding the worlds knowledge of different issues going on in the world today. For example, the show explores