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Otalia - Guiding Light
Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 06:54 PM (21,213 Views)
tamla
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G2 landing
Hey guys!!

If you want to see another popular up and coming couple go to YOUTUBE and type in Otalia and watch this wonderful couple.

Guiding Light is America's Longest Running Soap.

It began on Radio in 1937, made the transition to TV in 1952 and has been on the air since then.

Right now there's a wonderful burgeoning romance between Olivia Spencer a Hotel Mogul and her Assistant Natalia Rivera. They become Roommates when Natalia buys a Farmhouse and asks Olivia to live there to offset costs and Olivia agrees.

When Olivia's daughter Emma writes an Essay called "My Two Mommies" it creates a buzz in the town of Springfield. Natalia doesn't get the message but Olivia does and passionately kisses Natalia which makes history by becoming the first Same Sex Kiss in the show's now 72 Year History.

If you guys can please watch it. Crystal Chappell (Olivia) and Jessica Leccia (Natalia) are fantastic!!
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traveller
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G2 landing
Hi Tamla ... As you requested I watched. Very interesting story line. I wonder how far Daytime will allow this relationship to go IF... GL stays on TV. You know, there were moments when Olivia reminded me of Helen in her "power suit". :rolleyes:
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood ..... Helen Keller

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent .... Eleanor Roosevelt

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tamla
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Yeah, I was saying on The Otalia Channel how great Crystal Chappell would be as the Helen Stewart Character in the US Version of Bad Girls.

There's a strong possibility that GL may be cancelled by September 2009 because of low ratings.

I hope not but Crystal Chappell (Olivia) & Jessica Leccia (Natalia) are already becoming Lesbian Icons on US Soaps and after the debacle on another show called All My Children with characters Reese & Bianca, many fans are rooting for them.

In fact fans from all over Europe are falling in love with them in the following Countries.

Ireland, London, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, and even Peru.

Yet for the UK Fans they can't watch it until around 12:00 AM becuase Otalia only can upload the episodes at 7:00 PM Canadian Time.
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traveller
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G2 landing
Saw this on my home page this a.m. in the entertainment section SUDS.

It’s official: Guiding Light cancelled!

This just in: Guiding Light, the oldest show on television, has officially been cancelled. Yes, ironically on April Fool’s day. Very funny, CBS. “Casts on GL and As The World Turns were told this morning,” says a CBS actor. Meanwhile, World Turns has been reportedly renewed for one more year. More in Suds Friday.

“No show in daytime or prime-time, or anytime, has touched so many millions of viewers across so many years,” said CBS daytime exec Barbara Bloom. “We thank the cast, crew and producers — past and present — who delivered this entertainment institution.”

Guiding Light began life in 1937 as a 15-minute radio serial, before switching to a 15-minute soap on CBS in 1952 (while continuing to air on radio until 1956). The series moved to a 30-minute format in 1968 and expanded to an hour in 1977.

The show will last air on CBS on September 18.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood ..... Helen Keller

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent .... Eleanor Roosevelt

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marymartin
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The ghost of Larkhall!
For anyone who likes the show and the special couple Otalia, CBS is not the only game in town. There is a campaign right now to find Guiding Light a new home. Anyone interested in helping can shoot me a pm and I can point you in the right direction to find contact information.
"Thomas is gorgeous. He's everything you would want in a man. But I want a woman."
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ekny
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In love with a prisoner
MaryMartin--I don't see anything wrong with posting that information here so people can access it even more easily, if they want. It's hard enough to motivate people to write, call, etc so whatever makes it easier for them, might as well encourage: I know people are pretty upset about this. Thanks for your help!

(I'm not saying they shouldn't PM you or anything like that: just that posting it right up front saves everyone a step & there's no reason not to! :) )
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marymartin
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The ghost of Larkhall!
Here are two links with contact information in the first. It takes you to the soap central board. Go to the thread at the top with contact information in the title.

http://boards.soapcentral.com/showthread.php?t=456086

The second one will take you to CBS and a poll about whether or not Natalia should marry Frank. Please go and vote 'no' as much as possible. Poll ends tomorrow. (Thanks ekny)

http://www.cbs.com/daytime/guiding_light/vote/
"Thomas is gorgeous. He's everything you would want in a man. But I want a woman."
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cagey
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
Hey Tamla -

We are all soap addicts now.


I'm sure one of the reasons this board has that dusty windy sound is that many of us might be caught up in Otalia.

Would any of us like to share some thoughts - which I think all of us have had - about the filmic and textual things we are seeing? Okay, let me just suggest a place to talk about what we are seeing,? I hesitate to say grown up cause I am just as weak as a kitten in the face of some good otalia. :D
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Jeanna
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I said SIT IN THAT CHAIR
Many of us from this board are spending time over on the Otalia board, it's true. <G>
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traveller
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Yes, quite a few of us are at Otalia. Don't get me wrong. I am a devoted N&H fan but GL is presenting a fabulous piece on Olivia and Natalia falling in love with each other right now. Great soap angst and the writing and acting is wonderful. I have to say that Crystal Chappel reminds me of Simone Lahbib. It is uncanny how similar some of their facial expressions are and the .... eyes ... WOW !!

Crystal Chappel is even on twitter. Her followers are at 1200 already. She is going to be twittering to us on Wednesday. Come join in.

The site is http://twitter.com/crystalchappell
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood ..... Helen Keller

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent .... Eleanor Roosevelt

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marymartin
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The ghost of Larkhall!
I think you can tell from my avatar who my current obsession is. :wub:
"Thomas is gorgeous. He's everything you would want in a man. But I want a woman."
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Jeanna
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I said SIT IN THAT CHAIR
traveller
May 25 2009, 11:12 PM
I have to say that Crystal Chappel reminds me of Simone Lahbib. It is uncanny how similar some of their facial expressions are and the .... eyes ... WOW !!

Yes, I agree. I thought that and saw a resemblance awhile ago (also, in the instinctive intelligent level of acting as well.)

Also, CC said she'll be messaging on Twitter from the set...
H&N Music Vid by me and ekny

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marymartin
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The ghost of Larkhall!
Does anyone but me see a little bit of Nikki in Olivia when it comes to self-destructive tendencies, and often acting/speaking before she thinks? I have this sick feeling that Olivia's fragile ego when it comes to deserving love is what is going to launch the NMFSF (Natalia missing from springfield) storyline to explain Jessica's absence during her maternity leave.
"Thomas is gorgeous. He's everything you would want in a man. But I want a woman."
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abzug
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In love with a prisoner
Hi everyone! I haven't been on the board in a while, and haven't been following this thread, so what I'm about to do is very bad form. But ekny suggested via email that a post I made on TWoP's Guiding Light thread might find a better audience over here. And given cagey's post from a couple weeks ago about looking at some of the show's textual meanings, hopefully this will fit right in. It's about the scene where Olivia meets with Sister Anne, and then about the scene right before the wedding shower when Olivia helps Natalia put on the necklace.

I love that Sister Anne scene. It's so rich and ambiguous and emotional. I think it's interesting, also, that the writers used a female figure to represent a more open, less judgmental religious perspective, as compared to Father Ray. We've got Sister Anne and Natalia both explaining God and religion the same way (it's about love), and we've got Father Ray coming on loud and clear about Church beliefs, and what God wants Natalia to do. It seems to parallel the very female-centric environment where this relationship has developed and flourished. And as much as everyone says Frank is a good man, he hasn't exactly been portrayed that way, in the context of this relationship. So it's almost like, they're re-emphasizing the way love blossoms in a female-only world, which is appropriate for a lesbian storyline.

As for the pre-wedding shower scene: did anyone else notice that Olivia did the whole "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue" bit when giving Natalia the necklace before the shower? And then again (more memorably for me at least) at Gus's grave right before the wedding. But this first, shower-time version, it's much more positive and giving, a way of convincing Natalia to accept the gift of the necklace. The second time, the day of the wedding, it's a desperate attempt to keep Natalia on the straight and narrow path, to get her to go ahead with the wedding, to not get distracted by Olivia's emotional state. Which for Olivia, in the moment, is also a giving thing, I suppose, since she thinks she's being generous to Natalia by pushing her to marry Frank. But it also shows the limits of the traditions and rituals of marriage. The traditions and rituals work to an extent (getting Natalia to accept the necklace), but they aren't successful at keeping everything and everyone tied to a social structure that doesn't fit (getting Natalia to marry Frank when she's in love with Olivia).
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ekny
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In love with a prisoner
abzug
 
It seems to parallel the very female-centric environment where this relationship has developed and flourished. And as much as everyone says Frank is a good man, he hasn't exactly been portrayed that way, in the context of this relationship. So it's almost like, they're re-emphasizing the way love blossoms in a female-only world, which is appropriate for a lesbian storyline.

ITA. And would add: their female-only world is limited, essentially, to themselves. At least at the moment.

This whole observation could stand in as a jumping-off point for how the show has positioned the storyline, and the various strategies and compromises involved in trying to do so in the way they have chosen. Tempted to go on, but for now will just respond with a few other thoughts:

The nun, sadly, seems to be a one-off; neither character has any real female friends. Olivia, because she's a maneater; Natalia, because she lives in a bubble. Doris has proven a good ally to Olivia in private--but she's completely unreliable otherwise, both because she's closeted and because she puts her political career first. Her politics, iow, are fucked. ;) Which I am quite sure Olivia knows, and is the thing that will keep them from ever being real friends or from her being able to trust Doris until/unless Doris comes out.


I do have a great deal of trouble with the show's paternalism. I wouldn't call it anything so structured as patriarchal, it feels different to me. But anyway--take something very small, for example: the way last week was framed, beginning to end.

We start (speaking roughly) with the shot from behind Olivia & Natalia as we focus on Greg, taking in their proximity. Long shot w/o dialogue: the girls are oblivious, floating on their pheromonal cloud--and too obvious for words. Apprehension: is this going to be a Problem? Then the cuteness (which gay men might object to but is not my concern at the moment) of a nellie queen being used once again for comic relief:

G: Dorothy, I LOVE your ruby slippers! You MUST tell me where you got them!
O: <Squee!> Ooh, let's go shopping--see, Natalia, good taste buys allies in the workforce!

(It would be really nice if the show used Greg, even once, in the most trivial of ways, to show that there's a gay community in town & its members will absolutely support this couple: something as simple as Greg running interference for them to keep another character from catching a moment like the one outside the door of their suite--anything like that, minor as it may be. Not a subplot, just a beat.)

But basically, it's a triangular way of framing the scene, from the audience's POV to Our Couple--out to Greg, the (gay) man observing their coupleness. Fast-forward to end of week: shot from behind the pair again, trapezoidal this time, out to The Menfolk invading their space (DON'T get me started on Frank telling Olivia she 'doesn't have to leave' Natalia's house. I am so toxic on Frank it's not remotely funny).

Does the couple need to expand outwards, be incorporated into the community represented by the larger body of the show? Absolutely. At some point. The way in which this part of the storyline is being framed, however, remains entirely consistent with the show's paternalism: their relationship (unsexual as it currently is), needs to make space for, indeed accommodate, Guiding Light's Men. The priest, representative of the show's religious preoccupations, is a good (and real) obstacle; Frank's continued presence along with Rafe's reintroduction are more problematic.

(And btw: Rafe is the new Frank.)


Your observations about the wedding jingle are wonderful! Consensus on phrase origin seems to be that it dates from the Victorian era, but one page includes a citation claiming it's a "Puritan Marriage Custom". Ahem. Think what fun we could have with that.

Will stop there for now, see what you or others have to say. Thanks for posting, nice to see some more detailed analysis. :)
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