Soap operas have been a major part of television history, anyone who owns a TV has at some point in their lives watched a soap opera show. These programs have highly influenced popular culture. The monograph Her Stories by Elana Levine highlights the impacts soap operas have had on the US broadcasting industry as well as on “cultural constructions of gender and social identity”. Similar to the popular girls in high school, soap operas can be the trendsetters for what is and is not acceptable in our society. Soap operas often set the standard and definitions for gender and sexuality, many teens grow up watching these shows that can ultimately determine and impact each generation’s cultural beliefs. 

In Levine’s own words, Her Stories “is American television history, a lens through which to see the economic, creative, technological, social, and experiential path of television across seventy years that exposes its gendered structure” (6). This age was the start of the “cultural construction of femininity” as well. In the 1940s these serials were mainly viewed by American housewives and highlighted the differences between men’s and women’s lives that could push some to envision cultural changes. This book tells the history of soap operas and more specifically the shifts in culture and identities. Levine lays out this history, from the 1940s to 2010s, to support her claim that soap operas have shaped US culture on gender and identities. 

Elana Levine is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she teaches Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies. Not only was she an avid soap opera watcher but it was her main focus in graduate school. She dedicated many of her papers and academic research to soap operas. This book was written over a span of twelve years, focusing on how the past, present, and future have been shaped by soaps. Levine got her undergraduate degree in English and Telecommunications from Indiana University and graduate degrees in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she currently teaches. Just from her degrees, it is obvious that soap operas and television’s effects on culture are the main focus of her studies. This topic could be researched for years, each generation tends to be impacted slightly differently. It could also go into depth on how this has affected teens mentally as they figure out who they are and how they fit into society. 

Levine’s research is mainly from archives, she combines her own personal experiences and research analysis with books, manuscripts from soap creators/networks, episodes, blogs, and websites. She is able to take into consideration the facts and opinions of that current time period and connect it to what occurs in the soap opera. She watches the soap opera shows or reads the scripts and she then analyzes them and makes connections on how they differ depending on the era.  

As stated above Levine goes through the history of soap operas and the cultural impacts they had on each decade. Focusing on two main changes, the first being “Change in US broadcast network television as an economic and social institution” (page 5). The second is “change in cultural and constructions of gender and intersecting aspects of social identity including race, class, and sexuality”(page 5). The first change is more on how TV changes and gets influenced/ influences society, whereas the second is how these changes affect cultural ideas and beliefs on intersectionality. These changes are constantly occurring in society but TV and soap operas specifically had and have a major impact on culture. 

This book is split into three parts each focusing on a different time period. “Part 1: The New TV Soap” is from the late 1940s to early 1960s focusing on the transition from radios to television and post-war soap operas. “Part 2: The Classic Network Era” is from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s and discusses the evolution of television businesses and content. “Part 3: A Post Network Age” from the late 1980s to 2010s is on issues of the post-network era.

The first chapter is called “Serials in Transition (From Radio to Television)”, as the name implies this chapter is describing the transition from radio to TV. Early television was trying to find ways to get people to watch more television, by appealing to current social expectations they can convince viewers to watch more television. Chapter Two: “Daytime Therapy (Help and Healing in the Postwar Soap)” discusses the postwar mentality on gender identities and family roles. Dissecting the soap opera, As the World Turns, helps show how this “eras investment in emotional realism” created characters that questioned traditional roles. This was the first era in television where characters started questioning and expressing current traditions and identities. 

In part two, Chapter three: “Building Network Power (The Broadcasting Business and the Craft of Soap Opera),” Levine examines the economic growth and development of television-influenced soaps. These “developments in the ownership and control of soaps were crucial shifts in the business, enabling network dominance”(83). Soaps were one of the most profitable forms of entertainment so they became very popular on many networks. At this time soap operas were still created with young housewives as the main audience. Chapter four: “Turning to Relevance (Social Issue Storytelling)” explains the new social issues emerging in soap operas in the 60s. General Hospital, a popular soap opera, was created in the early 19060s during a transitional period for soaps. The social issues being questioned changed, this show particularly “combined a focus on gender-specific ‘disorders’ of the psyche with a sense that gendered roles and the problems associated with them were changing, no longer confined to the sphere of home and family” (107). This chapter focuses on normalizing and expressing family and marital issues. This leads into Chapter five: “Love in the Afternoon (The Fracturing Fantasies of the Soap Boom)” introduces the soap romances that grew in popularity throughout the 1980s.  These fantasies often lacked an “explicit connection to the issues of the day” (154), which created a reprieve from societal issues. Though 1980s soaps were popular they were short-lived. 

The last section focuses on the late 1980s to 2010s starting with Chapter six: “Struggles for Survival (Stagnation and Innovation)”. This section focuses on the convergence era when networks began struggling to make a profit. The decline was due to many reasons but mainly structural instabilities in the dramas and the network, although despite many challenges the companies adapted to current audiences and technologies. Chapter seven: “Reckoning with the Past (Reimagining Characters and Stories)” focuses on the “Stories and Characters of the soaps”(12) across this same period of time. Many shows brought back soaps challenging family and couple dynamics but in this new era they then had to decide on how to incorporate race, sexuality and gender. Chapter eight: “Can Her Stories Go On? (Soap Opera in Digital Age)” discusses this era from the 2000s to 2010s. This chapter “details the major business, production, and storytelling changes that the soaps have experienced in the 2010s” (281), these changes ultimately led to a decline of daytime soap operas. Although it has declined, soap operas are still a major and important part of American media culture and influence current social standards and traditions. 

In Her Stories, Levine does a great job of connecting the economic/technological side of broadcasting with the decade and current social standards. This is clear in part three, Chapter six analyzes the economic decline of daytime soap operas and the reasons behind that decline. Chapter seven explains how the industry tried to save these shows by bringing back and incorporating social issues, thus adapting to the current societal wants and needs. And finally, chapter eight how despite these changes current modernizations in technology have hindered and continued the decline in soap operas. These three chapters, in the same time period, help to build on each other while giving different perspectives for the current state of the broadcasting networks. Levine’s main strength in her work is her organization, her entire book is structured to give the reader the best possible understanding of the history of daytime soap operas. She is able to take a complicated history and describe all the different factors that affected and determined the current shows being broadcast. 

Although her organization is strong her topic is so broad and her summary is misleading, in the introduction she summarizes each chapter and at the beginning of each chapter, she summarizes what is about to be said. This can be helpful so the reader can follow along easier, but it also makes it difficult to connect back to the main focus in her work. The author’s introduction gave the impression that most of this monograph would explain how soap operas have impacted social and cultural standards but a lot of the book seemed to be focused on the economic growth of broadcasting networks. Yes, the author still analyzed how many of the show’s characters and plots were based on social norms in that time period, but the overall book was the entire history of Broadcasting. 

Overall I enjoyed this book, the topic and history were interesting. It makes you consider how not only are we impacted by social constructs that we watch but what and how soaps create is also dependent on how we respond and what we enjoy in that time period. Although there was less focus on social and cultural impact than I was expecting I would still recommend reading this book especially if you enjoy the economic and historical perspectives of broadcasting. 

Levine, Elana. Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History. Duke University Press Books, (2020). Print.