{"id":582,"date":"2011-04-15T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=582"},"modified":"2011-04-15T15:55:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T19:55:00","slug":"fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As another possible sign of the (<a href=\"http:\/\/religion.lohudblogs.com\/2011\/02\/09\/enjoy-the-next-3-months-judgment-day-may-be-coming\/\">May 21?) <\/a>apocalypse, we now have Soapocalypse: ABC has canceled longtime soap operas &#8220;All My Children&#8221; (home of Susan Lucci, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/moviestvmusic\/news\/kelly-ripa-all-my-children-cancellation-makes-me-sick-2011144\">notable alums including Kelly Ripa and Christian Slater<\/a>) and &#8220;One Life to Live.&#8221;\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t seen a faith-related story on this yet, but check out this Religion Dispatches essay from September, when &#8220;As the World Turns&#8221; stopped spinning over at CBS: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religiondispatches.org\/archive\/culture\/3314\/religion,_morality,_and_the_death_of_the_american_soap_opera__\">Religion, Morality, and the Death of the American Soap Opera<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With daytime dramas fading even faster than print media and religion reporting, I guess we won&#8217;t be <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Christians-Look-Daytime-Soap-Operas\/dp\/141166180X\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1302879532&amp;sr=1-1\">seeing any additional Christian examinations<\/a> of this genre.\u00a0 Too bad, because I&#8217;ve always thought that &#8220;Gospel According To&#8230;&#8221; series was ripe for\u00a0a focus on the\u00a0daytime soaps\u00a0&#8211;NBC&#8217;s\u00a0&#8220;Days of Our Lives&#8221; and the now-defunct &#8220;Passions,&#8221; with their\u00a0literally demonic villains, interfaith relationships\u00a0and convenient use of Catholic confessionals, could have had their own volume.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the end, perhaps the lesson here is that truth has become far stranger than fiction, with imaginary places like Pine Valley and Llanview overshadowed by craziness\u00a0of reality TV and 24-hour news channels?\u00a0 On that note, given the recent brouhaha over the new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/business\/ct-talk-pink-toenails-0414-20110413,0,4227519.story\">J. Crew ad featuring a little boy with pink nail polish <\/a>on his\u00a0toenails, check out this Episcopal Cafe blog post giving the melodrama some historical context: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/sexuality\/fdr_toddler_pictures_disturbin.html\">FDR toddler pictures disturbing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As another possible sign of the (May 21?) apocalypse, we now have Soapocalypse: ABC has canceled longtime soap operas &#8220;All My Children&#8221; (home of Susan Lucci, with notable alums including Kelly Ripa and Christian Slater) and &#8220;One Life to Live.&#8221;\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t seen a faith-related story on this yet, but check out this Religion Dispatches&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[70,14,76,75,74,71,77,73,69,72],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-news","tag-all-my-children","tag-christianity","tag-days-of-our-lives","tag-homophobia","tag-j-crew-ad","tag-one-life-to-live","tag-passions","tag-pink-nail-polish","tag-soap-operas","tag-susan-lucci"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As another possible sign of the (May 21?) apocalypse, we now have Soapocalypse: ABC has canceled longtime soap operas &#8220;All My Children&#8221; (home of Susan Lucci, with notable alums including Kelly Ripa and Christian Slater) and &#8220;One Life to Live.&#8221;\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t seen a faith-related story on this yet, but check out this Religion Dispatches&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-15T15:00:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-15T19:55:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama? - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama? - Belief Beat","og_description":"As another possible sign of the (May 21?) apocalypse, we now have Soapocalypse: ABC has canceled longtime soap operas &#8220;All My Children&#8221; (home of Susan Lucci, with notable alums including Kelly Ripa and Christian Slater) and &#8220;One Life to Live.&#8221;\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t seen a faith-related story on this yet, but check out this Religion Dispatches&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-04-15T15:00:11+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-04-15T19:55:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html","name":"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama? - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-04-15T15:00:11+00:00","dateModified":"2011-04-15T19:55:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/fun-friday-who-needs-soap-operas-when-we-have-pink-toenail-drama.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Who Needs Soap Operas When We Have Pink Toenail Drama?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}