TV Trope

The clip I’ve pulled comes from an 1980’s episode of The Young and the Restless. When examining the sequence it’s hard not to notice all the tropes of the TV serial that are in play here. First of all the amount of exposition in the scene is outstanding, with the characters of Katherine and Jill discussing their relationships with Phillip. Katherine discusses how Jill tore up their perfect marriage and Jill mentions that Phillip told her that their marriage was coming to an end anyway. If an audience member had missed the past couple of episodes this would have been a great use of exposition to catch the audience up on the current situation. The next trope at use is the motivations behind the actions. Katherine is pissed off that Jill stole her husband and plans on shooting her, since she obviously took what she wanted. Katherine’s desire to axe off

Katherine is much older than Jill , which brings up the conflict with Jill being married to Katherine’s ex-husband. Another great melodrama trope at play in this clip is the music that is constantly dramatizing the scene. I mean throughout the music is playing this eerie tune that is suppose to be suspenseful for the audience, making us realize that Jill is in serious trouble. The final melodrama trope at play here comes from the Freudian use of the “Return of the Repressed”. We see Katherine bring in a bottle of champagne that she herself has already started drinking, Jill herself asks if Katherine is drinking again meaning that an old habit has come back into Katherine’s life. Listening to the dialog we can interpret that Katherine has or had an alcohol problem and she has or is trying to fix it. Of course in melodrama the flaw of a character must reappear in one form or another, even if its as subtle as a freshly sharpened kitchen knife to straight to the