I’ve tried as I might to grasp this new paradigm of Tamara being back on GENERAL HOSPITAL as Kim Nero while someone else plays the part of Carly Corinthos. I’ve tried. Tried to understand the reasoning for bringing Tamara back to play another character when she was so beloved as Carly. Hearing her today say that name to another person who clearly represents everything Tamara strove for four years and eleven months to evolve to another level just boggles my mind. When I see Laura Wright in thirteen years strip all that growth and dignity back to what I’m going to start calling Proto-Carly, I’m just stymied. There are people who actually like this! There are people who love that she’s reduced Carly back to a caricature in a sort of Darwinian nightmare of base level impulses just makes me shake my head in disgust. And I’m not going to hide it anymore. Tell me again when Tamara’s/Kim story is supposed to take off? Tell me again that Tamara is going to drive her own stories as “Kim Nero” much in the same way she drove Club 101, The Panic Room, the aftermath of being shot in the head, Alternate Universe with Alcazar (Ted King), Michael’s Death. Please tell me she’s not going to continue to be a fourth wheel in someone else’s storyline like Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn) and Julian (William DeVry), or Drew (Billy Miller) and Sam (Kelly Monaco). Please tell me again why Frank Valentini wanted her back? I’m going to say one negative thing to Tamara in hopes she understands it in the spirit in which I hope it comes off.
In a recent interview when asked what made her decide to come back to GENERAL HOSPITAL she said, “I got to play Carly for four years and loved her with all my heart, so I asked my friend who loves soaps for her thoughts on actors returning as different characters,” Braun shares. “She said, ‘If they’ve become a character I love,then I just want to see them — regardless of who they play. You fall in love with the actor.’ And I’ve been getting [on-line] comments from fans saying, ‘Come back as anything!’ So I thought, ‘What the heck? Let’s see how this goes!’” To that I say to Tamara, NO. This isn’t about someone coming back to play someone else after playing a bit part. This is about someone who changed a character so drastically in terms of growth, humanity, humility, vulnerability, and all those qualities you hope a character who has been in a long running drama does. Grow! Tamara changed Carly for all the right reasons. For all the reasons we need to see her remain on the canvas and keep learning those lessons we all learn. As Carly grew under Tamara’s able care, we grew. We loved Carly, we loved her journey… A journey that was cut short when she announced — for good reason — her decision to leave the role in 2005.
I know the deal in soap operas with recasts. Face it Jennifer Bransford was given a shit deal. She was only a placeholder until the Powers That Be were able to bring Wright in after her contract expired from Guiding Light. Jennifer was just a warm body. They just didn’t want to allow Tamara to play out Michael’s (Dylan Cash) homecoming. That was clear. They made sure Jennifer was reviled as Carly so that when Wright assumed the role, the fans would be relieved Carly had been “salvaged” from the Bransford’s “failings”. The ones who failed though was not Jennifer Bransford, it was the powers that be at GENERAL HOSPITAL who thought they could do this in front of our eyes and we’d take whatever shit they threw at us and we’d be grateful Carly was in “able” hands. Today showed they were wrong. So wrong. So like what Robert Guza Jr., Charles Pratt Jr., Jill Farren Phelps, and most of all Brian Frons did in 2005 with their Carly Shell Game, Frank Valentini believes we’ll take lying down because we should be “grateful” he was the one who brought Tamara Braun back home to GENERAL HOSPITAL. I’m calling big time bullshit on that. We saw Bobbie (Jacklyn Zeman) today. She was talking to this Proto-Carly or Snarlybeast as she’s known on many soap boards, and we saw Tamara in the background. We see what you’re doing and to a lot of us who despise what Frons, Phelps, Guza, Pratt, and Wright have done with the character of Carly Corinthos, we are not amused. We are not entertained. I know for me, once Tamara is done I’m done. GENERAL HOSPITAL has shown me my viewership is not appreciated. And I’m not going to take the whole, “Well Tamara chose to leave so Laura Wright took over and has been playing the part for thirteen years…..” hyperbole. It doesn’t mean squat on this show who has done the ole switcheroo so many times (**cough**Prospect Park**cough**) and the ONE LIFE TO LIVE Three. It can be done again if the will is there. I say it’s time. Let Tamara resume a character she said she, “Loved with her whole heart”. And it showed. It showed in what she brought every single day for four years and eleven months. When Wright said, “I’m going to be playing my Carly closer to the original….” What she meant to say is that she’s going to strip away every single nuance Tamara infused the character with, and reduce her back to the shrieking guttersnipe Carly was as that teenager who came to town way back in 1996. Yeah….that’s acting alright. But then what can one expect from someone who never trained to be an actress and who instead took the easy way in. And I don’t care I said that. Any Laura Wright fans who come here thinking I’m going to be gracious. Think again. I don’t have to be gracious when Wright spoke so negatively about Tamara and Jennifer. And I know some of my visitors will say to me, “So you’re going to take statements Laura Wright said thirteen years ago and use them against her now?” As with the current political climate, people have to be responsible for the words they say. Enough with the snowflakery.
