Too bad most of the catfights on daytime soaps these days are so wimpy. Often, one woman gets slapped, and she doesn't even strike back. I've never seen a real-life slapping match between two women (though I've been involved in a couple with other guys, and I once saw a man smack his wife in the lobby of Red Lobster), but isn't hitting back the whole point of getting slapped?
Instead, recently on daytime TV, if the slapped woman doesn't turn the other cheek (see Abigail's reaction to Carrie's sucker punch on Days of Our Lives, or Carrie's reaction to Sami's), she jumps on her adversary, and they start... wrestling. That's not the way Krystle and Alexis used to do it on Dynasty. Sure they did their share of wrestling, too, but their fights were so epic because because they fought like women, not girls -- actual punches where thrown (usually by Krystle, who always won).
Over the past two weeks, General Hospital and The Young and the Restless both took us into the fighting ring with hysterical-for-all-the-wrong-reasons results. (GH's knock-down-drag-out even made The Chelsea Lately Show!) Nothing can beat the classic bitchfests on the dearly departed One Life to Live: Karen slaps Edwina, Viki slaps Echo, Phylicia slaps Nora, Natalie tries to slap Evangeline and misses, Marty slaps Natalie, Natalie slaps Marty, Marty tosses Natalie off a roof (all on different episodes!), Blair throws Tea out of a window, Tea returns the favor. Still, I appreciate that the remaining soaps continue to honor an ancient TV tradition.
Round one: Carly vs. Connie on General Hospital. Daytime Emmy winner (and 2012 nominee) Laura Wright's version of Carly has been slapped by so many of GH's leading ladies during her run on the soap: Robin, Emily and, of course, Sam, whose palm has connected with Carly's cheek on at least three occasions that I can remember, most recently, several months ago during one of Jason's semi-regular hospital stints (the one after the car accident).
It was nice to see Carly finally being proactive in girl-on-girl violence, and no female character in recent memory has needed taking down a few pegs more than Connie, the alter of Kate, Carly's rival who is suffering from DID, the same split-personality disorder that spawned some of the all-time great fight scenes on One Life to Live. But did it really have to be over a man? Johnny Zacchara is hot and all that, but he's not worth getting your hair tousled over unless he's doing the tousling.
The most disappointing aspect of the fight was how wimpy the tough-talking Connie turned out to be. She'd just clocked her shrink over the head leaving him near death and she couldn't work a single swing into her Carly showdown. What a waste!
Round two: Jill vs. Genevieve on The Young and the Restless. Apparently, only one pot can call the kettle black on this soap featuring the most maddeningly self-righteous characters on TV. Neither Jill (Emmy winner Jess Walton) nor Gen (Emmy winner and 2012 nominee Genie Francis) would qualify for a prize this Mother's Day, but there was Jill demanding that Gen stay away from her own son, Cane (the type of name that only exists on soaps -- or in the bible). When Gen dared to critique Jill's own mothering skills, or lack thereof -- slap!
No way am I buying that a woman who once pushed her husband over a balcony wouldn't slap Jill right back, but it's not every day that you get two soap legends wrestling in the mud. Alas, the action was mostly offstage. At the end of one scene, Gen was fuming over the slap and a fistful of mud (both courtesy of Jill) that was soiling her elegant white jacket. At the beginning of the following scene, the two muddy broads were being pulled off each other by their respective sons, the ones who'd gotten them into that particular mess in the first place.
For the next round -- and I'm praying there is one as soon as Walton returns from her six-month leave of absence -- I hope they take off the gloves for real, and Gen shows Jill the same lack of mercy that she's regularly shown her ex Colin (the one she cackled down at from her balcony perch). This catfight is begging for a rematch!
A Diva Smackdown Hall of Fame
Sami vs. Nicole on Days of Our Lives
Erica vs. Natalie on All My Children
Jessica vs. Natalie on One Life to Live
Viki vs. Dorian on One Life to Live
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