Food for Thought: Where do the Female Characters Go?

[NuttyAboutSoaps]

Many times, we wind up in arguments about why Hope and Steffy have gotten most of the airtime in the past ten years. And that got me thinking about the other female characters who have been on the show since I started watching in 2011. I quickly realized something startling: Hope and Steffy get their airtime because the show has slowly and systematically written off every other female character who is under 40.

Here's a quick list of who has left since I've been watching (and I'm sure I am missing a few):

Dayzee
Maya
Nicole
Sasha
Emma
Ally
Ivy
Caroline
Coco
and now.....Sally

Several of these characters were great and could easily have led storylines for years to come. I guess my question is this: why did the writers do this? Why didn't they write for these characters long-term? The potential was there, but it was just squandered.

[PaulaLi]

Wow, that´s an impressive list and a very intersting thought.
I am currently rewatching older episodes and there are a couple of younger female characters present and I feel the show is so much more enjoyable, versatile and balanced.

I actually haven´t a clue why so many female characters have been written off. I will forever mourn the loss of Caroline. I so miss her romance with Ridge and hate how the character was first turned psycho and then simply killed. Or Ivy, I liked Ivy. And Ally-crazy but interesting.

Anyway, that´s not your question. I think the -probably- most obvious answer is, because their contract was ending and the writers or Bell decided to bring in new blood to tell new stories and mix everything up again. Maybe a money-aspect plays into this with the actors getting more money when they stay on longer? This is entirely speculation on my part, because I have zero info on payment rules on tv shows.

I entirely agree that there was quite a lot of potential for some characters. Not all of them though, but keeping Allly -as Thornes only kid- would have been great.

ETA: I am wondering is it the same with the male actors? I can´t remember a lot of them Oliver, Marcus... (I don´t count Zende and Carter because, you know...)

[kahinamah]

I loved Allie, Caroline, Amber, Marcus, Phoebe, Ivy.

I have always found Nicole very boring.
But it's a shame that characters with such potential have been written off.

[Teaday13]

remember when Nicole first came in she was energetic and devious, then she turned boring is right

[kahinamah]

They should have kept her that way, instead of turning her into such a boring person.

[Sharkswin]

What bother me the most was after Steffy came back in 2015 (we've already lost Hope), and between 2015-2017 Bell actually got rid of SIX of these young females one by one..Aly, Sasha, Nicole, Caroline, Ivy, and Maya. That was an absolute disgrace IMO. I sincerely hope Bell never ever make that kind of mistakes again.

Not a Sally fan, but I wished Sally stayed and Flo or Zoe are the ones gone, but I guess we don't always get what we want.

[viennagirl]

I can ignore the rewrite for "good but boring Ivy" and how they suddenly pushed her under the bus as a prop for Leffy:
(the green card marriage, Ivy using a video of her best friends death to blackmail instead of going to the police, Ivy cheating with Thomas, Ivy running to Liam after Wyatt's proposal)
"Good" Ivy didn't really have any SL and they would have written her out in the end since she isn't a child/ grandchild of any main character on screen (have written out her half-sister Jessica) - but so they really destroyed Ivy as a love interest for any one (Liam, Thomas, Wyatt).

______

But the way they wrote out Aly for the short Aly-Steffy drama and then to start the Steffy-Ivy war, had been a disservice to the child of a legacy character - "Thorne".
They should have at least done it to give Thorne a major SL (drinking, a break-down, Thorne becoming hostile and/ or depressive), when they had killed off his only child, after they had had killed off already his only serious love interests Macy and Darla.

Aly's love interest Oliver got some minutes at her memorial to grieve - then he was gone - Thorne got 3 more episodes than Oliver, then he was gone too.

At the same time we had Leffy reuniting and having sex after the memorial, Maya and Rick soon later getting married.

Aly forgotten except for the video of her death.

And it kinda shocks me to realize that it is already 5 years since her actress had been let go/ Aly had been killed off. Time moves fast!

[viennagirl]

Probably because it is just a 19 minutes show and they only hire new characters when someone else has been let go (costs).

_________

If you have watched from the start, many females have left, have been written out.



From the main families:
The first Kristen and Felicia have disappeared one day - and then be recasted and only turn up occasionally.

Donna and Katie have disappeared for years, only had guest visits for weddings, then got recast after having been offscreen for years.

Bridget only appears for guest visits

Caroline I. and Caroline II have died

Karen Spencer (and her partner Danielle)

_____

Margo

Ivana Vanderveld(got killed)

Maggie Forrester and her daughter

Michael Lai (a woman despite the name Michael)

Jasmine Malone

Lauren

Sheila Carter

Morgan

Macy (died)

Darla

Megan

Amber Moore

April Knight (Amber's twin sister)

Amber's mother Tawny

Carmen Arena (Deacon's girlfriend) (died)

Kimberly Fairchild

Caitlin Ramirez

Samantha (Caitlin's mother)

the therapist that appeared after Taylor's death and had a short fling with Thorne

Jackie Marone

.......

[uknowmynameisdm]

I think it has to do with the fact that there somewhat an inability for these writers to write multiple female driving storylines at once (I don't understand-every other soap opera does it wonderfully -- and it was done in the olden days). Just because it just a 19 minutes show -- it does not mean that there cannot be an A, B, or C, story. You have to give your viewers options, or else, if you only give them an A story-- and no other options-- then viewers will tune out.

Hence, we got a full year of Hope focus story with the baby switch or even the year of the love triangle between Liam/Hope/Wyatt. I don't really count the years where Steffy was "centric"just because it was mostly a Liam and Steffy story, it was for the both of them. When the Hope character gets a story, I am sorry, but she is the only character that gets POV. Even in a interview, Scott said he didn't submit himself for Emmy consideration, because it was Annika's and Hope's story, but he submitted himself the year Jacqui won her Emmy--- because it was both their story.

But I agree, Brad needs to have multiple stories coming up, with a lot of the female characters driving the story-bring back Maya, Aly, Bridget, Pheobe, and Sally ---who are all complex characters that deserved to lead a story, without as well removing Steffy and Hope, who are both fan favourites.

[PeaceOut]

Dayzee - was a very mature woman for her age, and not a troublemaker. married to Marcus now, great send off.
Maya - never cared much for her
Nicole - i honestly don;t remember was her purpose was other than Julius propping her like a nut
Sasha - troublemaker, and never liked her
Emma - just a expendable Hope prop, and dead now
Ally - crazy and now dead
Ivy - another unstable one and still dreaming of Liam in Australia
Caroline - Written as a mess very often. Did not care for her and Ridge either
Coco - She had potential compared to Sally and was serious about it. Grandma and Sally tried hard to ruin that. Good news is she got away. Not sure if she is still with RJ
and now.....Sally - Just a loser in my eyes, and glad she is gone.

Most of them sucked to me, but i only really liked Dayzee and Coco out of this list.

Hope and Steffy are getting airtime the most because they are legacy offspring, but they really aren't more interesting compared to the send offs
Same will happen to Beth and Kelly, if the show still exists by then

I actually miss Owen/Jackie, Kristen/Tony - but these pairings were basically too perfect to keep them around the crazy. So in a sense i'm glad they are gone.

[canuhearmenow]

Many times, we wind up in arguments about why Hope and Steffy have gotten most of the airtime in the past ten years. And that got me thinking about the other female characters who have been on the show since I started watching in 2011. I quickly realized something startling: Hope and Steffy get their airtime because the show has slowly and systematically written off every other female character who is under 40.

Here's a quick list of who has left since I've been watching (and I'm sure I am missing a few):

Dayzee
Maya
Nicole
Sasha
Emma
Ally
Ivy
Caroline
Coco
and now.....Sally

Several of these characters were great and could easily have led storylines for years to come. I guess my question is this: why did the writers do this? Why didn't they write for these characters long-term? The potential was there, but it was just squandered.

Venus? A lot of them go to Paris or some of the other places they have.

[AnnMagda]

My main problem with some of the characters who are let go is that they are written out in spite of OBVIOUS long-term storyline potential.

Aly is the best example. A legacy character, born on screen, Thorne's only child, with a very complex personality that pretty much guaranteed any storyline with her in it would have been explosive (on the one hand, naive, vulnerable and idealistic, on the other hand, deeply scarred, troubled and suffering from mental illness). I found her the most intriguing young character the show has had in a VERY long time. With Aly, it wasn't all about pairing her up with some guy and having her be a part of some silly triangle. She could carry a storyline all on her own, without necessarily needing a love interest to do it. That made her romance with Oliver so much sweeter, because its main focus wasn't "girl meets guy" but Aly as a person and how she was transformed by the experience. Not to mention she was portrayed by a phenomenal young actress who had only just started to show her full range when Aly was killed off. (Yes, I'm STILL upset about this!)

Coco too had a lot of potential, not just for herself but because of what she brought to Sally's character. I really believe the writers missed the opportunity to build on the sister relationship between Sally and Coco. That should have been Sally's main story - how she grew up always trying to protect her baby sister - not Sally getting rescued by one rich guy after another. It would have anchored Sally's character and given her a more solid foundation on the show. Since they wrote out Coco and the rest of Sally's gang, they obviously didn't know what to do with Sally. She was totally isolated. Besides, the writers tried to build up RJ/Coco (who had very sweet chemistry) as a Romeo/Juliet story and then just dropped that narrative after the first few months instead of putting these two kids through years of painful conflict that practically would have written itself. (After all, they managed to keep it up for 10 years with Thorne and Macy, but I guess the writers nowadays have shorter attention spans. Or they think we do.)

As for Sally, well, that's frustrating too. She has currently hit rock bottom. She is all alone and an outcast. So is Thomas, her first love on the show and the guy she was going to build a fashion empire with. I guess they are both persona non grata at FC these days. How can the writers FAIL to connect the dots here?

And so on.

[NuttyAboutSoaps]

I totally agree with you, which was why I started this thread. There was SO much potential with many of these characters that the writers squandered. Instead, they wrote them off in order to give us yet another version of Lope versus Steam, which most posters are sick of.

I don't understand how that benefits the long-term potential of the show. Ally, Caroline, Coco, and Maya had more to offer, but they never got a chance to show it.

[Belindaa]

Many times, we wind up in arguments about why Hope and Steffy have gotten most of the airtime in the past ten years. And that got me thinking about the other female characters who have been on the show since I started watching in 2011. I quickly realized something startling: Hope and Steffy get their airtime because the show has slowly and systematically written off every other female character who is under 40.

Here's a quick list of who has left since I've been watching (and I'm sure I am missing a few):

Dayzee
Maya
Nicole
Sasha
Emma
Ally
Ivy
Caroline
Coco
and now.....Sally

Several of these characters were great and could easily have led storylines for years to come. I guess my question is this: why did the writers do this? Why didn't they write for these characters long-term? The potential was there, but it was just squandered.

Steffy and Hope are both legacy characters and both have struck a chord with audiences. And don't forget that Sally, Flo and Zoe have been on the show in recent years, so it's not like there were only two under 30 female characters.

Maya was written out because Rick was written out.

Nicole went with Zende

Emma was a minor character to begin with.

Ally should have stayed. I think there was a lot of wasted potential there.

Ivy- she did everything on the show and was on a long time, but there was nowhere to take the character after she went through Liam and Wyatt. There has been a major lack in young male characters, so there was no one left to pair her with.

Caroline should have stayed, imo.

Coco went with RJ. There wasn't much for her to do once he left.

[PaulaLi]

My main problem with some of the characters who are let go is that they are written out in spite of OBVIOUS long-term storyline potential.

Aly is the best example. A legacy character, born on screen, Thorne's only child, with a very complex personality that pretty much guaranteed any storyline with her in it would have been explosive (on the one hand, naive, vulnerable and idealistic, on the other hand, deeply scarred, troubled and suffering from mental illness). I found her the most intriguing young character the show has had in a VERY long time. With Aly, it wasn't all about pairing her up with some guy and having her be a part of some silly triangle. She could carry a storyline all on her own, without necessarily needing a love interest to do it. That made her romance with Oliver so much sweeter, because its main focus wasn't "girl meets guy" but Aly as a person and how she was transformed by the experience. Not to mention she was portrayed by a phenomenal young actress who had only just started to show her full range when Aly was killed off. (Yes, I'm STILL upset about this!)

Me too! Ally was really interesting. She was sweet and a little bit of dork, but also talented and perceptive. One could see her strenghs, when she refused to back down about Wyatt and kept clinging to her own (a bit dated) ideals. The actress was phenomenal and it would not have been overly hard to have her come back from her psychosis (they did it with Quinn). It´s an absolut letdown that she was simply killed off.

[Emerald Greens]

Most of the mentioned ones could have gone on and had interesting sl’s and broadened the show making it more interesting to more viewers instead of feeling bored by the sl’s and a small circle of characters.
I don’t see any point to killing off Phoebe or Ally .

[lilyboom]

On this show, if you are not one of the revered Logans, you end up in soap opera purgatory.

[Dannicat]

I think you could almost say the same for male characters as well. As said before, this is not a one hour show and the cast is kept small on purpose. Male characters who have disappeared:

Rick
Thorn
Both characters with the Forrester name who were OG's on the show

Justin
Deacon
Marcus
Oliver
RJ

I think it's hard to write storylines that flow from day to day if you have to keep adding plots for other characters. The easy way to do it would be to focus more on the businesses like Spencer Publications and Forrester Creations because you could have the characters interacting at work everyday. This show focuses more on relationships, so they tend to have fewer characters in each scene everyday.

[Emerald Greens]

I would add the Forrester daughters Felicia and Kristen to the list they have never been prioritized for long. I find that baffling.