Reception
EJ and Sami's relationship has been recognized as a top couple to view by Sympatico/MSN/TV Guide The pairing won Best Couple in Soap Opera Digest's Hot Off The Net poll, published the week of September 17, 2007, and their portrayers won the Best Actor and Best Actress honors in the same poll the week of September 10, 2007.
In a September 10, 2007 Soap Opera Weekly interview with Bryan Dattilo, portrayer of Days of our Lives' Lucas Roberts, the popularity and appeal of the EJ and Sami storyline was discussed. The interviewer stated that Soap Opera Weekly receives more fan mail from EJ and Sami fans than from Lucas and Sami fans. When asked if he would be okay if Sami and EJ became a supercouple, Dattilo responded, "Yeah. I think Sami and EJ have the ability to be a supercouple like Luke and Laura." EJ and Sami's popularity has proved formidable to rival couple Lucas and Sami.
There is debate among viewers over whether or not what EJ did to Sami in the December 29, 2006 episode (see above) could be considered rape. In a May 3, 2007 interview, actor James Scott, portrayer of EJ, was interviewed by Sympatico/MSN/TV Guide about the subject:
I don’t think they handled the rape very well, and I’ll tell you why. EJ raped Sami, and then afterwards, he’s hanging out in her house — alone with her. It’s irresponsible on so many levels. However, had it been handled well, I think it would have been an interesting story choice. Now the story focus has shifted to her pregnancy and the classic soap story of paternity. Having said that, I chose to believe that EJ is in love with Samantha — he just can’t communicate it.
In an article about the Santo DiMera/Colleen Brady storyline in the July 17, 2007 edition of Soap Opera Digest, Days of our Lives former Co-Executive Producer Stephen Wyman referred to the December 29, 2006 incident between EJ and Sami as rape. "Naturally, we don’t expect anyone to forget about the rape, nor do we expect anyone to take EJ’s rape of Sami lightly. However, we know life goes on. People can change," he said. "At some point, the issue of the rape is going to have to be dealt with in the fundamental way, but meanwhile, there is the audience that wants to see EJ and Sami together. they aren’t forgetting about the rape, either." The article is about the Santo/Colleen storyline, in which the actors, Alison Sweeney and James Scott, portray two characters from the past falling in love. Soap Opera Digest noted, "this story provides an opportunity for the actors to work together romantically in a less controversial tale."
In June 2007, Soap Opera Weekly printed an opinion column that addressed concerns that rape is being portrayed as romantic on soap operas. The author opined that soap operas such as General Hospital, Guiding Light and Days of our Lives (citing EJ and Sami) are portraying rape as romantic because these soap operas are seen to be pairing or considering to pair a female character with a character who raped her or with a character some viewers believe raped her. "Sorry folks. If daytime's most famous couple cannot escape the horror of the campus disco after 28 years, how could GL's and Days' non-couples hope to gloss over sexual assaults that aired just recently? Do the soaps think audiences can forgive and forget so quickly?" stated the author. She added that the "chemistry is a great thing," but that she did not believe it was enough to overcome the controversial scenes, even though a "unique formula" gave Luke and Laura a "free pass" to allow them to become one of the most popular supercouples on daytime television.
Read more about this topic: EJ Di Mera And Sami Brady
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)