He Had it Coming
Lately, spoilers have been swarming about regarding Lawrence Alamain’s return to DAYS. According to TV Guide, Sabatino’s return will be brief and involving a series of flashbacks. There’s also been word out that perhaps he has been murdered, thus the reason Carly runs to Bo for help and enters our lives once more. I especially appreciated Sabatino’s statement that it made no sense for Carly to run away with Lawrence in the end.It took DAYS only about 16 years or so…but finally the villainous Lawrence is going to get some payback. Aside from being the real reason that Steve Johnson disappeared all of those years ago (despite the rewritten history that it was all yet another Dimera plot), Alamain’s most heinous crime for most viewers was the rape of Jennifer Horton when she was pretending to be his long-lost fiancée, Princess Katarina Von Leuschner aka Carly Manning.
For the most part, Jennifer’s rape storyline was a set-up for more angst and agony in the Jack/Jennifer storyline. Perhaps in an effort to make the romance more acceptable for the viewers, Jack Deveraux was forced to see the effects of rape upon the woman that he loved and to deal with his own past sin of raping Kayla several years before. This served as an interesting redemption storyline for Jack and made for good TV.
However, in the case of Lawrence Alamain, he had no real motivation for attacking Jennifer. He was merely a spoiled wealthy aristocrat who didn’t like being made a fool of. Never once did he show anything close to remorse for his crime or even acknowledge there was a crime. And ultimately, he was reunited with his Katarina, riding off into the sunset with their kid, getting the girl in the end when he so didn’t deserve it. So if any of DAYS’ long list of Salem rapists have it coming, it’s Alamain.
This all makes me ask: What makes some rapist characters redeemable and/or forgiven while others are not?
For some crazy reason, there were rapes galore in many movies, TV shows and novels of the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. For better or worse, the lines between romance and rape were invariably muddied in soap operas. Even Bill, one of the sainted Horton clan, raped Laura during these crazy times, all part of their romance. And of course, there was Luke and that other Laura of GH that are the most infamous and historical couple where this topic is concerned. GH fans often say that their romance was “complex”, etc. Well, I’ve seen the clip on YT…and not really. Laura clearly said no, and Luke clearly didn’t listen. After the deed was done, Laura looked roughed up and upset. This was not a seduction where she said no but really meant yes. Anyhow, she ended up going on the run with the guy and having the highest-rated wedding with him in soap opera history. I don’t really blame L/L though. They were truly a product of their time. In the 1990s, once soaps recognized that rape was no joke, GH tried to make the L/L story a little more PC (politically correct, not Port Charles) by having their son Lucky find out about it, leading to much discussion and several self-damning mea culpas from Luke (earning actor Tony Geary a few of his ten million Daytime Emmy awards). The fact is a lot of 1980s soap rapists should almost get official pardons for simply being products of the insanity of their time. However, since Lawrence Alamain committed his crime in the 1990s, he gets no such free pass. So that leads to my next point…
The “charismatic actor/character” factor. The afore-mentioned Luke of GH, Todd Manning of OLTL, Tony Dimera, Jack Deveraux, Stephen Johnson (not an actual rapist but certainly gave it his best shot at raping Hope during the Miami storyline in 1985) and EJ Dimera of DAYS. All of these are characters that had been bad guy rapists but struck a chord with viewers, usually due to handsome looks and great acting…and the amoral television networks were not about to sacrifice their cash cows for the sake of some elusive and unprofitable higher moral ground. This gives viewers a nasty choice: either see the characters pay for their crimes, thus being killed off or sent to jail, abolishing them from their respective soaps forever…or just try to ignore what they’ve done, claim they are redeemed, or write the shows off as merely fiction, swallowing collective pride for the sake of seeing the favorite eye candy of choice back on the screen again. I admit I’ve been guilty a few times for that. It’s not that I have a thing for rapists. I assure you, Duke Johnson, Paul Mendez and Curtis Reed did nothing for me. However, I do believe that Lawrence Alamain was one of those charismatic cash cow characters.
Add to that the fact that Michael Sabatino and Crystal Chappell had great chemistry together (both on and off the screen). This is another reason why viewers overlook rape storylines which prevails to this day. Actor chemistry. EJAMI and OLTL’s Todd and Marti are two of such cases which have happened in recent years, so we can’t even use the 1980s Rape Insanity clause as an excuse. Therefore in the case of Lawrence and Carly, viewers turned blind eyes as Carly ran off into the sunset with the man who raped her best friend.
Still I have to say that much as I liked Carly and Lawrence as a couple and as much as I like Michael Sabatino as an actor, I am kind of relieved to see one of these bad guy rapist characters finally get what’s coming to him for a change.
Disclaimer: This blog is only about rape when it comes to fiction and soap operas. In no way do I condone rape in real life. This is only meant to serve as a topic of discussion where soaps are concerned. No offense meant to anyone.
Hey you forget the awesome Roger Thorpe from GL (yes he is a rapist but he is still awesome..by the complexity of his story, by the acting and the charisma of the actor, by his chemistry with the woman he raped,his leading lady..one of the women he raped..yes i know..but it's true..Holly was his love and sadly he raped her..).
ReplyDeleteI can't compare Todd and Marty with Ej and Sami : it's really different..gang rape is worse than blackmail for sex (kind of rape i admit and awful) : but i agree about the actor's chemistry factor.
These stories when the redemption is well made lead to complex, dark, twisted and riveting storylines. It's certainly not politically correct even more for the soap opera genre.
For example i can see Ej and Sami together but Todd and Marty i don't think so and the OLTL's writers have not written the recent and controversial storyline for that. Marty has amnesia and is lied by Todd about her entire life, he lives in a fantasy where he has never raped her. It is not a redemption, he doesn't assume.
Ej assume, he had a talk with Sami about it finally, she has not lost her memory but in the futur i would like they talk about it again like they made with Roger and Holly.
And i said it again gang rape..no it's just not possible even in soap land after Luke and Laura, Bill and Laura, Roger and Holly..not possible to get past that..Roger Howarth didn't want to play a romance, you can't go too far.
But it's an infinite debate and always interesting to speak about it.
Anyway welcome back Lawrence Alamain !!
The difference with Lawrence and the EJ is that THEY ARE SOCIOPATHS. According to the backstory, Lawrence was pretending to be James and he found Katerina who was on the run after she ran off from boarding school. She fell for Lawrence and then when she found out she wanted nothing to do with him, Bo was sailing with Hope and baby ShawnD around the world and happened in on a fight they were having, and he being Bo, defended the woman, Katerina. Flash to the present, Lawrence's company GenCon was in Salem and Carly got Bo to do some environmental protests against the country. Between the two events Lawrence wanted Bo dead -- at that point we had not seen Lawrence -- he set Bo up to go to a boat which he had Nick find people to set a bomb to kill Bo, in the end it seriously injured Steve who went on the call instead of Bo. Later he used Carly to get Bo to his villa by holding Frankie, aka Françoise. At the compound he tried to kill Jack a couple of times, first with a sword fight, and then he tried to kill Jack, Jennifer, Alice, Julie, Shane, Kayla, Bo, Carly and Frankie by blowing up the tunnels they were in, trying to escape. Later he tried to unleash a virus, and Bo was a victim.
ReplyDeleteEJ, tried to kill John, had his kidney stolen, tortured Steve, tried to kill Lucas, and other things.
They were both more than someone who raped once. They habitually did things if they got mad or felt entitled. A sociopath is charming, smart, and charismatic if things go his way, but when they do not, murder or other things do not matter, because people do not matter.
Matt always wanted the rape to be apart of Jack, and even in 2006, he and Mary Beth Evans wanted scenes between Jack and Kayla to be awkward, and for the rape to be there. And I agree, and I really wanted that they dealt with the rape with Steve and Kayla's return, for it to come back out and for Stephanie and Abigail to find out, and cause angst for Jack.
Ej has had a kind of redemption but never Lawrence. Lawrence has made more evil deeds than Ej who is above all influenced by his daddy dearest..but i am rather agree about the sociopath's psychology about these characters.
ReplyDeleteSami's relationship with Ej is also totally different than the Carly's relationship with Lawrence. Ej is more grey, Lawrence is more dark.
What redemption, crying over a dead baby, even Nazis loved their kids, but that does not mean they were psycho and/or sociopaths.
ReplyDeleteHow was EJ gray, he sadistically and personally tortured Steve, and got his rocks off on doing show, he personally shot John. He did the evil himself, and then never felt bad for it. The difference is EJ suddenly was this hero, Lawrence never was.
As for the happy ending, well, it was more a case of Langan and JERk not liking Michael, and he was fired. I realize that Crystal asked to be opted out of the contract and not per se fired, but they were not really using her much, and it was obvious that JERk was pimping his favorite Billie for Bo, he was getting rid of characters and families to promote his new characters, and new family the Roberts/Reeds. Lawrence and Carly did not get a happy ending for the fans or for the romance, but because they wanted to get rid of the actors. It was different than what they did to Jack, because they wanted to keep Missy but wanted to make Jack look bad so fans would not like him and thus not care about Matt's unjust firing. JERk stated publicly he could not see how Jennifer would want Jack, and he had characters cal Jack sexless, he wanted to put Jennifer with one of his toy boy preferences.
I liked Lawrence because nobody treated him like a hero.He was the villian and the town got to hate him.He was the evil to Bos goodness.
ReplyDeleteI don't share the taste of the last post : i like/love grey, complex, layered characters on every genre (movie, prime time, day time). I am not for the "good guy/bad guy" or "the good against the evil" for me this idea is just ridiculous,simplistic even on soap land ! But everybody is free of his opinion : that's mine.
ReplyDeleteThe stupidity is that Lawrence should have been brought back in 2006, HE took Steve, and Matt/Jack was on at the time, and despite the whole triangle storyline, Jack and Jennifer and Kayla were more protagonists to his antagonist than Bo. But especially J/J, he tried to steal the paper from Jack, he tormented Jennifer who kept the rape secret, and he taunted Jack because he knew Jack also raped. I liked Lawrence as a villain, because he was a villain, and I loved the chemistry between him and Jack. I loved how Jack was not whitewashed in the storyline, that his rape came out, and that Jack did not act sanctimonious and hypocritical, he admitted to everyone that what Lawrence did was no different than what he had done. Yet, it also was shown that after the fact there was a difference, Jack owned up to what he did, Lawrence never did. With the Jack and Lawrence conflict you had Jack, who was gray -- unlike the sociopathic pig EJ -- and you had Lawrence who was the dark character.
ReplyDeleteBut that said, I really would have preferred it had it then come out that despite Lawrence trying to kill Bo, but Steve the one hurt, in the end it was the ISA who took Steve, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Juvenal, "Who will guard the guardians?"). It would open a big can of worms, and then they could have also brought back Charles Shaugnessy as Shane, what did he know, did he lie to everyone, or was he a pawn as well.