All My Children: Have We Gone From Greece to Rome?

I've never been one for soap operas, but it is interesting that after 40 years the show All My Children is coming to an end. At first glance, you might be tempted to say that because of economic hardship or because we've evolved as a culture, that we're not interested in watching melodrama, tawdry human relations, and cheap hyped tragedy. But then you'd have to explain away the rest of what is still on.

We have replaced the melodrama of soaps with the melodrama of reality tv. Fictional lives being destroyed by backstabbing, cheating, lying people who call themselves friends and lovers is cheesy, we want to see real lives destroyed by backstabbing, cheating, lying people who call themselves friends and lovers. While no one would confuse Days of Our Lives with Lysistrata, it does seem a somewhat apt metaphor to say that in our cultural viewing habits, we've moved from the theaters of Athens to the Coliseum of Rome.

You see a ratcheting up effect. If this is popular, we need to create buzz by going one step further. American Gladiator leads to Fear Factor. One Life to Live leads to the Real Housewives. I have no attachment to All My Children and so don't feel one way or another about its disappearance from daytime television, but it does make me wonder "what's next?"