psychological significance of paternity can provide a useful ground against which to read the soap opera paternity plot. In addition, although I would not want to argue that all soap opera viewers are always thinking consciously about the cultural meanings of paternity while they watch the programs, those meanings do circulate through both discourse and social practice. Whether or not they bring them directly to bear on the shows they consume, culturally competent viewers understand paternity’s social significance, and that understanding provides one of the lenses through which they interpret soap opera narratives.

doi:10.4324/9780203131855-35

Chapter

psychological significance of paternity can provide a useful ground against which to read the soap opera paternity plot. In addition, although I would not want to argue that all soap opera viewers are always thinking consciously about the cultural meanings of paternity while they watch the programs, those meanings do circulate through both discourse and social practice. Whether or not they bring them directly to bear on the shows they consume, culturally competent viewers understand paternity’s social significance, and that understanding provides one of the lenses through which they interpret soap opera narratives.

Chapter

psychological significance of paternity can provide a useful ground against which to read the soap opera paternity plot. In addition, although I would not want to argue that all soap opera viewers are always thinking consciously about the cultural meanings of paternity while they watch the programs, those meanings do circulate through both discourse and social practice. Whether or not they bring them directly to bear on the shows they consume, culturally competent viewers understand paternity’s social significance, and that understanding provides one of the lenses through which they interpret soap opera narratives.

ABSTRACT

Before I begin, let me offer one caveat. While I will make references in the following discussion to the differences (and occasional similarities) between “real life” and the fictional world of soap operas, I do not intend any rigid opposition. Nor do I mean to read any television program as an unmediated mirror-image of some objective “reality.” The ways in which television imitates and/or recuperates viewers’ conceptions of reality are extremely complex, but I assume that soap operas and other apparently “realistic” programs present a version of life that viewers can recognize as in some ways coherent with their own experience. Soap operas are thus distinct from fantasy and science fiction programs, although some soaps, such as ABC’s General Hospital, have incorporated elaborate fantasy plots that try viewers’ efforts to believe in the shows’ realism.