Vulnerable women on screen and at home

This study investigates the influence of textual images of vulnerable women characters in televised soap operas on women consumers, who are considered vulnerable to the negative images of women that soaps project. The study begins by presenting an analysis of the soap genre in terms of print and radio antecedents to examine the specific attributes that make it a repository of damaged women who, nonetheless, have appealed to women audiences for half a century. A cross-sectional study of long-time viewers of four soap operas was designed to test the proposition that long exposure to negative role models is detrimental to viewers’ personal life satisfaction, realistic assessment of what the world is like, and achievement of reasonable goals. Viewers’ responses reveal five themes associated with vulnerability, defined as an inner need for emotional satisfaction satisfied by parasocial attachments to the characters and the possibility of being emotionally harmed by viewing images of subordinate women characters. Three of the themes relate to the characters' lifestyles: attention to details, acceptance as the norm, and aspiration; and two relate to viewer evaluations of their own lives in comparison: disappointment, and substitution of soap-watching for real relationships.