Shoe Meet Other Foot

[shipperx]

You know, every few months I admit to spending time on the Days of Our Lives board while confessing that I don't actually watch the show any more (I know that my continuing addiction in keeping up with the board makes this protest difficult to believe, but... believe it or not, this is the truth.  It's just that I did watch the show for close to twenty years and became board addict ages ago).   And, I should point out that the Days forum that I currently visit is on TWOP.  This is pertinent information for the buh-wha-huh?! role swapping that follows.

You see the Days forum on TWOP is consumed with EJami shippers (translates to EJ/Sami).  They loves them, they do.  Gobs and gobs. There are squees daily about EJ and Sami's interaction and how they are so perfect for one another.  And it really doesn't hurt that EJ is very, very handsome, looks fantastic without a shirt, and has a yummy English accent ( I freely admit all these things).  But I have issues with EJami.  Actually less with EJami the characters because, let's face it, the show is shit and always has been.  Plus, I really don't care.   Besides, if one looks to Days for logic, you're totally out of luck.    However, I do find myself reading EJami posts and suddenly empathizing with Spike haters (though I still say they're wrong and I could go into great detail as to why.)   You see, the thing about EJami is...

He raped her.  Not "almost" raped her, not "attempted" rape her. And that's splitting hairs, I know, but in EJ's case I'm talking about holding a gun to her head and saying (paraphrased) "have sex with me or your fiance dies and quite possibly you too" - rape.   Oh, and this was just minutes after he shot her stepfather (who raised her) in the head, leaving said stepfather braindead (for a time. He got better six months later.  ... It's Days, don't ask for this to make sense) meaning that EJ was on the run from the police for that crime when he stopped to rape Sami.  

Did I mention that he had kidnapped, brainwashed and tortured her uncle?  How about the fact that he murdered a cop? Beat his own henchman to within an inch of his life?  He also intended to kill two other people: also, relatives of hers.  He's fantasized about killing her husband so that he could claim her himself-- over the husband's dead body.  Literally.    Then he tried to kill her husband by freezing him to death.   He's blackmailed her.  He's coercing her to divorce the husband she loves and is pregnant by, and is currently trying to force her to marrying him instead.  Oh, and when she refuses next week, he'll threaten to kill her sister if she doesn't comply and he may very well murder her stepfather instead.

All of this has happened and is happening, and I get itchy feelings when I read on TWOP how "sanctimonious" Sami's family is because they keep insisting that EJ and his family are evil and that she shouldn't be forced to marry him.  What hypocrits!  How dare Bradys judge EJ and his family!   I actually found myself posting there the other day asking if I was the only one who remembered that EJ's family has been torturing Bradys for the last twenty -plus years?  When Sami was a kid, they kidnapped and inprisoned both her parents -- for years.  They kidnapped her uncle for 15 years.  They brainwashed her stepfather a number of times.  They kidnapped and brainwashed her aunt.  "Murdered" her father, her mother, and her grandmother -- TWICE!  --  In one YEAR!  (No death on Days ever "takes" and it makes three times in total they've "killed" her parents anyway.  Possibly four in her father's case.)  If Sami's family considered, even for a moment, that  EJ's family might not be evil,  they would have to be too stupid to live (Actually, they are.  But this goes back to Days being shit).  I'm afraid after DiMera's have kidnapped, killed, and brainwashed damn near every person in her family (hell, in the whole damn town) multiple times, I just don't see the hypocrisy in their saying to Sami that she should not be forced to marry him, even if every Brady isn't a plaster saint.

The EJamis swoon and root  for "DiMarriage."  They cackle with glee when EJ tells Sami's current husband that he'll raise the man's children in the DiMera way, meaning they'll hate their father's family too.  And he tries to pressure her into marrying him by threatening to murder her sister if she dares to say no.

I find myself with the urge to tell the EJami shippers that they only fanwank away EJ's (current and ongoing) crimes because of the ship they want, that they overlook a lot of things because the actor is handsome and more talented than most of the cast, and because they are newbies and fangirls, yo.  

You can see why this urge makes me distinctly uncomfortable.  And I've restrained myself thus far.  But... 

I remember the old BtVS flame wars (where I truly haven't changed my mind.  I can argue my side and don't consider myself to be hypocritical in this) and I get antsy.    I certainly haven't questioned anyone's real life morality over any of this crap (because, as I've said, Days truly is crap).  But I think I have a new and greater understanding of some of the dismay Spike haters may have felt (though, again, that does not mean that I agree.).  They (for their reasons, justified or not) felt the same way that I feel when I see people claim that EJ's murderous tendencies are perfectly understandable, that the Bradys are hypocrits, and that EJs obsession is starcrossed destined love.

I don't think it's the same thing as we're talking different genres.  The circumstances are entirely different.  Both EJ and Sami are human, not demon hybrids. Non-deaths and stupid plot stunts aside, Days isn't science fiction or a horror dramedy.  The relationships and storylines are different, told in a different format and the DiMera/Brady feud has been an ongoing storyline on the show for literally nearly thirty years.  But the whole TWOP thing makes it feel somewhat surreal to me.  1) Because it's like TWOP inverted. Wha-huh?  2)  Because it feels quite strange to me being on the other side of a black hat / white hat debate.    I'm usually on the ambiuous character's side.  I just don't see much room for ambiguity here.  Dude, he had a gun when he raped her.  He's threatening to murder her sister. Currently.  There's not a whole hell of a lot of wiggle room here.

Comments

[darynthe.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with you here. I have never watched this series, all I know is what you write here but sounds like shipping Hannibal/Sterling sort of deal. That guy seems to need a couple of consecutive life sentences to get by. Where is the appeal if this man is unrepentant? There is no moral complexity here.

Totally different from Spike's story indeed. To start with,he lives in an universe with a different set of metaphysical rules, such as soul compass and free will.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Everyone admits that part of it is that he's handsome (more so than the guy who plays Sami's husband). By Days terms, he's a pretty good actor, and the character can be snarky and funny.

More than that, Sami herself has been a villainess/anti-heroine since about the time she turned 15 and caught her mother having an affair behind her father's back. She's not a glitter princess of moral rectitude but, traditionally, more than a bit of a hellion. Though, to be fair to Sami, she never killed anyone (though she was once framed and convicted of a murder she didn't commit). Her villainy usually had to do with her stealing her older sister's boyfriend (okay, repeatedly. The guy was dumb as an ox) or telling outrageous lies in order to keep people from figuring out when she had screwed up really badly (she's always been a needy character, probably because af DiMeras repeatedly kidnapping her parents during her entire childhood).

Basically, Sami's villainy never caused permanent damage, and usually resulted in her harming herself more than anyone else. She's a legacy character, born on the show in the early 80s, and has been played by the same actress since she was 14 or so (she's close to 30 now), so the audience watched her go from a good little girl to a hellishly screwed up teenager\young adult,and only in the last year or two into a late 20s redeemed adult and pregnant newlywed. Traditionally she's been the "bad girl" (think in terms of a non-murderous Faith) who finally grew up and married her childhood sweetheart when she redeemed herself. Because she's several steps removed from a goody-two-shoes w/ a problematic past, EJamis consider the two of them to be two of a kind. Still, it's her EJ has tortured. And, in spite of bad things Sami has done she never cold-bloodedly murdered anyone. Also she actually had to earn redemption. No one ever passed a wand over her and said she was suddenly good. It took years.

I guess EJamis think he can have her since she's 'tainted' enough, and because her "true love"/hubby/father of her kids is a bit of a blow hard hypocrit who tends to assume the worst about her more often than not.

[darynthe.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. This seems very complex story. But you know, what I can't believe is that a soap can go for 30 years. It is totally sickly. I would tell people to move on!!! It is scary on an entirely new level. A la Truman Show!

Anyway, even if she was a criminal it doesn't mean someone should rape her and kill her family in order to let him rape her some more! Weird of people to ship this, or they do to admit to it! O_o

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, the "DiMeras" having it in for the "Bradys" for 30 years.
The show (and the "Hortons") has been around over 40. (Though Days isn't the longest running soap. That's Guiding Light, which actually predates television and is over 60 years old). Though soaps are a dying genre. Days will almost certainly be cancelled next year, and the only remaining original cast member is Frances Reid... who (I'm not kidding) is close to turning 100 years old.)

Although, heh! I just remembered someone that posted a YouTube montage last year so I searched for the link. Here are 5 generations of Hortons, Bradys, Roberts, and DiMeras over 40 years of storyline -- a montage of cheap, cheesy sets, bad hairstyles, people who grow up, get married, have the next generation of characters, get old, and occasionally die in a decidedly strange fictional universe where starcrossed "true love" never dies (because if it does, they'll just resurrect it.) Hee!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t5m54STN5o

[darynthe.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I will definitely check after work. I just want to say that now I regret complaining for the lenght of the latin soup operas. They usually last 120-150 eps. Whatever was I thinking?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

or they do to admit to it! O_o

Oh. Openly.

Soap fandoms are generally far less cantankerous than fandoms such as BtVS. Everyone realizes the storylines are ridiculous to an extreme degree so there's a lot of mocking of the storylines (which is why they have so many active online forums)

The thing that soaps seem most akin to are comics.

[rahirah]

Brain hurts now.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee!

How do you think I feel with memories of most of this stuff dating from around 1983-2005 (give or take a couple of years.) This stuff makes no sense, and I know it anyway!

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Aha! I think I know what the problem is... according to David Fury's theory, the real trouble is that EJ isn't in prison! If he was in prison, you'd love him! ;-)

There really are a bunch of differences... a large part being that the audience has been *shown* this guy doing much worse stuff than we were ever shown an evil, soulless vampire doing. The other difference is that the evil, soulless vampire was actually *shown* doing redemptive things (sure, those actions often had selfish reasons, but he was at least doing good).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do truly see a great many differences between the circumstances. However it still reads me out reading the posts. :)

[nmissi.livejournal.com]

I've long since gone back to watching my canuckdays-approved clips, and I only lurk at TWOP. Because RAPE-mi doesn't do anything for me. It offends on a deep and powerful level. And it's NOT just that he raped her- it's that, because if him and his family, we're subjected to literally MONTHS of watching a hugely pregnant woman in mortal peril. That is NOT entertaining.

Days is done for. I can't wait til it goes off the air. This is one soap I am not going to mourn for a moment.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you. I'm actually rooting for the cancellation as in, if its cancelled it cannot become any worse (which, you would think it's impossible to be worse. But to quotes AtS's Gunn... there's always more down.)

Just put this travesty to it's deserved death, already.