Fans,
Most of us prefer not to think of DS in the "soap opera" category; yet, historically,this was the format under which it was produced and the lens through which its home network of ABC viewed it. (Two of the most entertaining clips on the DVDs are interviews with a gentleman who was put in charge of publicity for ABC's daytime schedule during the mid to late 1960s. His story about what happened when a couple of board members insisted on watching an episode of DS and were subsequently baffled by "Uncle Barnaby's" teeth is hysterical.)
One of the mainstays of the soap opera format is the Bitch character that audiences love to hate. I believe the most celebrated of these women in the entire genre was played by an actress (probably retired now) who is famous for having been nominated for an Emmy 20 times but never winning. If memory serves, this actress had to go mano a mano with Sarah-Michelle Gellar when SMG was a deceptively innocent-appearing young actress on the soap.
I was thinking about Angelique (known to a certain circle of my friends as "the WB," short for "Witch Bitch") and how she does, and does not, conform to the soap opera stereotype of the Bitch. Probably the original portrayal of Angelique in 1795 comes the closest to the archetypal Bitch although in a more literary way than I think is common on soaps. Ang doesn't just want Barnabas; she also wants the entitlement, privileges and status enjoyed by her mistress--"all the pretty things I have been denied" (there's a wonderful scene with Ben Stokes where she goes on about how she's going to have it ALL). Her occult powers add an extra edge to her role as the conniving villainess, but initially, the character is a wronged woman who has been stepped on (if only in her own mind) by others and is determined to get revenge.
Cassandra upgraded the bitch elements an extra knotch. She wore clothes that were more chic and fashionable than even Joan Bennett's, manipulated her husband outrageously, was two-faced and duplicitous. and went through some turn-on-a-dime mood swings. When she crashed and burned, she ravaged the scenery brilliantly.
Probably the most classic soap bitch of all the Angelique characters was the PT1970 version. A friend who's a huge Angelique fan actually refers to this one as "certifiably insane." The whole Angelexis business allows for even more blatant instances of duplicitous, equivocating, manipulative behavior. Manoeuvring Maggie into wearing the same dress she herself had worn at last year's ball was a classic Bitch sequence.
The thing I find compulsively watchable with how DS handled the "bitch" stereotype is that the writing and acting always gives insights into why these women behave this way. So, they never degenerate into cardboard cutout stereotypes. With other "bitches" on the show such as Laura Collins, Minerva Trask, Samantha Collins, and the superbly unforgettable Suki Forbes, we've always understood that each woman had her own take on what had happened to her and a good reason (even if only in her own mind) for acting the way she did. I think it's one of the aspects that sets DS apart from other soaps. of that day or any other.
cheers, G.
