Why is it called a soap opera when nobody sings?

Answer 1

The soap part is because the sponsors were cleaning product manufacturers, like Proctor & Gable. The opera part the same as why old Western films (Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, etc) were often called 'Cow Operas". Because, like in Grand Opera, the plots are very melodramatic and far-fetched; no coincidence is to far-fetched; the ending is often silly; it is often more a vehicle to display the players than to advance a meaningful story.

Answer 2

The word opera refers to a drama, while the word soap refers to the early days of daytime dramas when Proctor and Gamble or Johnson and Johnson used the shows to sell products like soap.

Answer 3

Soap: Because the advertisments that they used to run were aimed at housewives. As such they were seen as a vehicle for selling soap and other goods a housewife would need or want.

Opera: They tell a story, like an opera.

Answer 4

Because when television first came out, most of the daytime programming was sponsored by soap companies, to get housewives to buy their stuff as they were the ones at home and also doing the shopping in the 1950s.

Answer 5

Soap opera.

Soap = Hard to keep a grasp on unless you've been at is for awhile.

Opera = Pure drama. Stupid drama, but still drama. DRAMATIC.

Answer 6

Because they use to sell soap on them, a long time ago.