THE SOAP OPERA SNOB

W hen Joan Collins swept into that courtroom as an 11th hour witness to DYNASTY 's 1981 murder trial cliffhanger, she brought with her a whole new look for two problematic classics: the middle-aged woman and the villainess.  The solution was combining them both in a modern upgrade of an old trope and creating a new face for feminism: the matriarch sexualized, the femme fatale maternalized, pre-meditated woman politicized, all-in-one.  Women's roles on the domestic front were undergoing a change as well.  Washing windows became passé , for there were glass ceilings downtown to smash.  Ladies of the 80s were drinking martinis for power lunches instead of mixing them.  Soon, one fictional woman's dramatic use of a courtroom setting became the hope of a new reality for women in the workforce of America.  Henceforth, Alexis Carrington became the top model of a new kind of character, and every soap followed suit to offer up its own contestant in a drag race for ...