Love and Ideology in the Afternoon

Book excerpt: "Why do I like soap operas?" Laura Stempel Mumford asks, and her answer emerges in a feminist analysis of soap opera that participates in current debates about popular culture, television, and ideology. She argues that the conventional daytime soap has an implicit and at times explicit political agenda that cooperates in the "teaching" of male dominance and the related oppressions of racism, classism, and heterosexism--so that they seem inevitable. All My Children, General Hospital, Another World, One Life to Live, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless: a close reading of their texts will also answer some larger questions about television and its place in the broad landscape of popular culture.