the 'soap opera' thing

Post Reply New Topic

has anyone ever suggested to you to watch soap operas and mimic the behavior/gestures/expressions of people on those shows to learn how to be more 'expressive' or whatever? Did you try it and did it work? I have heard this several times.

Nope, never. Besides, SO behavior is pretty bad. If you mimic that your acting like a badly scripted fake. Though I always thought my 10th grade class would have been a great show.

that was my reaction to the suggestion...like, you're kidding, right?...plus I don't know *why* they react the way they do on those shows. Plus I don't have a mutant evil twin sister who everyone thought was killed in a car accident but really was abducted by aliens and is now back in town to bring about the downfall of humanity, particularly the socially elite of the fabled operatic enclave, so those situations wouldn't be happening in my real life anyway. But this was suggested to me by a shrink and according to her it 'really, really works' and is a cure all for social awkwardness in
AS people.

Soap operas are also an eyesore they look like this they were either using too dark of a lens or recording in a misty room

somewhat related, one idea I had was watching favorite TV shows that I don't mind watching re-runs of, and using those to practice guessing what others are thinking, determining motives, and reading emotions. Don't know if that works or not.

you've got to be kidding. that shrink should lose their license.
soap operas have got to be the most soulless, generic, empty form of entertainment ever foisted upon mankind.

I understand that soaps vary from country to country, and in the UK, as far as I know, people actually admit to watching soaps because they aren't embarrassingly bad. Here in the U.S.,soaps (a.k.a. daytime dramas) are notorious for wooden acting. It would be, dare I say it, insane to use an American soap opera as a guide on how to interact with people.

Oh, now I'm scrolling down and seeing that people have already been saying these things anyway. I didn't see any responses a minute ago.

If you act like the people in soap operas, you first need to make sure that you always stand in front of, and facing the same way, as the person you're addressing, as if there is a mirror in front of you. And you need to always look like you're in shock from whatever flashback of yesterday's episode is playing in your mind. Above all, every time you say something, you must say it as if your empire is about to crumble beneath your feet, and your evil plans are about to be exposed. Even if you don't have an empire or evil plan, you must sound that way.

no one has suggested that to me.

in my opinion Australian soap operas are not that good.

I've always mimicked soap operas as a little girl. Even now.

I hate soap operas and it's never been suggested to me.

And besides, if I imitated soap operas I'd die and come back six months later in a new body

_________________
I'm a writer, not a fighter and my pen is always loaded.

Magnús Scheving is my Icelandic rose

I'm quite fine with space opera, thank you very much.

Not Soap Operas, but drama shows have helped me somewhat. At least with imagining certain types of people's reactions to certain events. It's still all scripted and generally predictable if you start snorting glue when the show's fourth season starts in order to keep ahead of the writers.

Uh, so no. Soap Operas won't help you, at all. But a few drama shows can help you narrow down what some acceptable options are when your ex knocks on your door after 9 months, with an infant in her arms and her make-up utterly ruined and forming a viscous puddle on the corners of her mouth from crying and/or a sudden rainstorm. Only to get a phone call that very second from a woman with a voice so bland and devoid of emotion it would make even the most apathic aspie want to reach out and give her a hug, and be told that your mother just died in a freak bumpercar accident.

It's important to be prepared.

Frequently. I ignore them, because the people on such shows come across as rather common morons.

Oh, the drama! The drama! Let's have a catfight over some ill-educated turnip.

I don't think it's really necessary. Soaps are deliberately meant to be melodramatic, so if you copy them you will come across as false and melodramatic. And stilted.