Ameera

[Bonobochick]

Yes, a separate thread just to discuss her. As long as she's Noah's wife, she's [unfortunately] a part of their storyline.

[Bonobochick]

I hated the way she called herself Noah's wife. I know it's true but something about it seemed way too possessive. The only thing I hope is that if she continues down this road, it will make Luke's spine come back & lay a smackdown on her. It's one thing to be nice but Luke is totally letting folks trample over his feelings. She really needs to be checked that her marriage to Noah is in name only.

And if TPTB change that and Noah & Ameera have sex, I will stop watching the show immediately.

[amber80]

Oke, I just have to say it once again: I HATE Ameera! There's absolutely nothing I like about this character...

Today's preview for next week was the last straw: it's official now.

I. don't. like. Ameera.

[Bonobochick]

I see her and I can do is HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[amber80]

I even turn the sound off whenever she's on. I know: it's pathetic... *sigh*

[psionycx]

Does anyone else think that the characters on ATWT are written like they are extremely stupid? Or do the writers at P&G just assume that we, the audience is stupid.

Ameera is a great case-in-point. As we are fast approaching the point where's she's going to attempt to make her sham marriage to Noah into a real one, I find myself again wondering why nobody seems to question her appearance on the scene in the first place.

According to the story she has spun, she is the bastard child of a poor Iraqi woman who survived mostly on money sent to Iraq by Colonel Mayer because her mother's family scorned her. When the money stopped coming she made her way to America to seek out the the Colonel? Noah? Both?

Okay, right away the gaps in this nonsense are so friggin' vast that only idiots would buy into it.

For starters, both the reason for Colonel Mayer's altruism, as well as how he pulled it off, are both unexplained. We're talking about a man that chased off his wife (and later murdered her) for fear that she would "corrupt" their son. He raised Noah in a rigid environment devoid of affection. Obviously he's not sentimental, so why was he supposedly supporting them?

Furthermore, after the first Gulf War Iraq was under embargo, and financial transactions, as well as trade and mail service, into the country was heavily interdicted. How was he able to get money into Iraq, and more significantly ensure that it reached Ameera's mother?

Then we get to the question of Ameera. With the money no longer coming she somehow makes her way to America!?

Let's dissect this one. For starters, very few Iraqis have passports, especially single women. Saddam Hussein didn't exactly encourage world travel for his people and they were under interdict anyway. Yet Ameera must have had some documentation in order to apply for, and receive, a visa to enter the U.S. Entry into the U.S. from countries where we're fighting wars is very tightly controlled. It's not like getting a tourist visa to go on holiday.

Then there's the question of how she got her. Plane? Boat? If she and her mother were dirt poor and living off of what money the Colonel could send, how did she afford travel to get here? How did she feed and shelter herself while making her way to Oakdale?

There are groups that try to help refugees from war zones immigrate to the U.S., but they usually have some kind of resettlement plan when they get the people here. This is especially true under current tight restrictions out of Iraq due to obvious concerns about terrorists entering the U.S. That Ameera simply waltzed in was roaming about freely and unsupervised by any group seems rather incredible.

Also, if she were granted permission to come here as a refugee then generally there would have been some process being applied for her to remain here. So the whole notion of her having a visa and that visa just coming up for expiration without anyone to help her seems peculiar.

This is all highly implausible. At the very east detective lady should find it suspicious even if the gullible folks on Snyder Farm don't. If it were this easy for Iraqis to just come over to America we'd be up to our eyeballs in them right now! How did Ameera pull this off when tens of thousands of other Iraqis that would like to escape the war zone haven't been able to?

This is, perhaps, what makes this so offensive. Not just that she's coming between Luke and Noah, but that the whole storyline is so poorly written and no rationale is provided for why anybody believes her story, and thus why Luke allows this sham marriage to go on.

[Bonobochick]

Apr 12, 2008 18:15:46 GMT -5 psionycx said:

Does anyone else think that the characters on ATWT are written like they are extremely stupid? Or do the writers at P&G just assume that we, the audience is stupid.



This is, perhaps, what makes this so offensive. Not just that she's coming between Luke and Noah, but that the whole storyline is so poorly written and no rationale is provided for why anybody believes her story, and thus why Luke allows this sham marriage to go on.

"Painfully so" to your first question and "Definitely!" to your second question.

I bolded your last part because so much WORD. More than anything I am pissed how badly this storyline has been written. It's completely illogical and even more poorly executed so all you're left feeling when it's on are irritated and insulted because TIIC keep stating that this bullshit is "good storytelling". I mean this girl no one knows with barely any type of proof she knows Noah's father is living at the farm within 2 days of being in town and married to Noah within 2 weeks? The hell? And we're supposed to find this intriguing? Please.

[psionycx]

It's a classic, but lame, soap opera plot device. The mystery woman that comes to town to make trouble for the loving couple.

The part I missed because I was on an anger rush writing this was the question of how she was not only able to know that Noah was in Oakdale, but as a (supposed) complete stranger to America she was able to find her way there on her own and, AND zero in on Noah like a GPS-guided missile. And of course she speaks perfect English with only a slight accent.

It just makes me screaming crazy that we're supposed to buy into this nonsense, or believe that the residents of Oakdale do. If they're all really that dumb then mandatory sterilization needs to be undertaken at once to eliminate this massive threat to the human gene pool.

Maybe the Feds can drop a dome over Oakdale like in the Simpson's Movie!

I know that soaps aren't supposed to be high-brow entertainment, but do they genuinely believe we're supposed to take this seriously? Teen shows have better writing than this!

[Bonobochick]

Apr 12, 2008 21:35:42 GMT -5 psionycx said:

It's a classic, but lame, soap opera plot device. The mystery woman that comes to town to make trouble for the loving couple.

The part I missed because I was on an anger rush writing this was the question of how she was not only able to know that Noah was in Oakdale, but as a (supposed) complete stranger to America she was able to find her way there on her own and, AND zero in on Noah like a GPS-guided missile. And of course she speaks perfect English with only a slight accent.

It just makes me screaming crazy that we're supposed to buy into this nonsense, or believe that the residents of Oakdale do. If they're all really that dumb then mandatory sterilization needs to be undertaken at once to eliminate this massive threat to the human gene pool.

Maybe the Feds can drop a dome over Oakdale like in the Simpson's Movie!

I know that soaps aren't supposed to be high-brow entertainment, but do they genuinely believe we're supposed to take this seriously? Teen shows have better writing than this!

I don't consider this entertainment. It's certainly not good and it's not "Showgirls" bad enough to enjoy. It's irritatingly, repulsively bad. Actually all the storylines on ATWT have kind of sucked the past couple of months but this is the only one that actually makes me curse out loud while watching it.

One of the reasons I boycotted the wedding was I could not watch everyone involved, especially Luke and his parents(!), stand around and watch Noah marry Ameera like it wasn't the most stupid thing ever.

TIIC never explained how she tracked Noah down but many have fanwanked that she is the one who stole the letter his dad sent him but how she knew who he was to stalk him to the coffee house that first day was never explained. Just one day she was there at Java staring at him acting all flustered.

And there are several worthy candidates in Oakdale for that sterilization program. As it is now most everyone who thought this green card marriage idea would be easy and go off without a hitch, not to mention sanctioned it without batting an eye, are pretty close to being in the TOO STUPID TOO LIVE category.

[psionycx]

For that matter finding her way to the Snyder farm (which presumably does not have road signs announcing where it is and who is currently in residence) to steal the letter is equally implausible. I believe that's where it was stolen, or at least where Noah noticed it missing. That would have required her to already know that Noah lived there. Just like she would have had to know what he looked like to stalk him to the coffee shop.

Now intelligent people, or else police detectives, should spot right away that this implies that Ameera was extensively briefed on the geography of Oakdale, Noah himself and his probable haunts. That or she is a psychic of unrivaled ability, in which case they really DO need to hand her over to the Feds so that she can be put to use hunting down Osama bin Ladin (and she comes complete with perfect Muslim girl disguise, plus has amazing skills and resourcefulness at getting around in foreign lands, I smell a series here...).

That these genetically deficient sub-humans lack the mental capacity to figure all of this out makes me wonder what the required SAT score is to get into Oakdale U. Maybe Vienna's health food contains some kind of neurotoxin that's slowly turning everyone's brains into mush?

[lolaruns]

Too bad that evilDaddy is dead. It would make so much more sense if he was organizing that whole thing from prison.

[amber80]

He's dead? Did I miss something...?

[lolaruns]

I thought he was. I'm not a regular ATWT watcher, but for some reason I thought he was?

[amber80]

As far as I know he's still alive and in prison. But I must confess I've turned off the sound a couple of times since Ameera showed up ;D, so it's always possible I missed someting. But I probably would have read something about it on the VH.net forum if he died, so I believe he's still alive.

[lolaruns]

No, no it's totally plausible. So, what did Ameera think of that when they told her? Shouldn't she have gone to see him or something? Why doesn't anybody suspect him to have something to do with her showing up? I mean, if I were an evil homophobe soap villain that's what I would do, hire some girl to "turn" my son.

[psionycx]

They did go try to see him. They had car trouble, followed by an encounter with gay and Muslim bashing straight boys. Since then they seem to have completely forgotten any notion of visiting Colonel Psycho again.

Given the astounding ease with which Ameera located Noah, he excellent English skills and dubious backstory, any sane person would have questioned if this whole thing were a setup. Especially since Col Psycho probably knew all kinds of people in Homeland Security that could aid in reinforcing Ameera's image as a soon-to-be-deported "tourist" visa holder.

Given that immigration sham marriages are illegal you would think that the Snyders would have insisted on a little more investigation of Ameera's story before being so supportive of this whole farce. After all, it does implicate them all in a federal crime.

But even setting that aside, how stupid can they possibly be?! We're supposed to believe that she just somehow made her way from Iraq and found her way to Noah in the months since Col Psycho was thrown in prison?!

It's hard to sympathize with characters that are written as being so amazingly stupid. It's like trying to feel sorry for a person who gets hit by a truck while playing chicken on a freeway.

[Bonobochick]

Apr 13, 2008 11:11:31 GMT -5 psionycx said:

They did go try to see him. They had car trouble, followed by an encounter with gay and Muslim bashing straight boys. Since then they seem to have completely forgotten any notion of visiting Colonel Psycho again.

It's hard to sympathize with characters that are written as being so amazingly stupid. It's like trying to feel sorry for a person who gets hit by a truck while playing chicken on a freeway.

And remember that right before Ameera showed up the Col was desperately trying to get in contact with Noah because he had "something important" to tell him?

And yes, everyone has been written so stupidly since Ameera showed up that it's amazing they know how to tie their own shoes (when the shoes aren't making out, of course).

[psionycx]

Yes, but from the look of things Noah and Ameera will be shortly.

[lolaruns]

Part of me thinks that it could be a good thing that Ameera is making her move because that way she will have to be exposed soon (yes, I still think Col Daddy hired her) and be done away with. Particularly since the various statements from the actors seem to imply that not too much can happen.

But let's say Ameera is exposed as being employed by evil!Daddy, then what with Nuke? They'll reunite and keep holding hands? I would feel really much better if we had an idea what their storyline post Ameera might be once they have finally done away with her. (though I do think that pretty much anything has to be better than her)

[Bonobochick]

Apr 14, 2008 1:33:33 GMT -5 lolaruns said:

Part of me thinks that it could be a good thing that Ameera is making her move because that way she will have to be exposed soon (yes, I still think Col Daddy hired her) and be done away with. Particularly since the various statements from the actors seem to imply that not too much can happen.

But let's say Ameera is exposed as being employed by evil!Daddy, then what with Nuke? They'll reunite and keep holding hands? I would feel really much better if we had an idea what their storyline post Ameera might be once they have finally done away with her. (though I do think that pretty much anything has to be better than her)

and the sad thing is I might have been able to stomach this story, or rather the fake marriage thing, if it had been built up better but it was so rushed that it ended up making no sense and also made everyone involved come off like a complete moron, especially Noah, Luke, Lily and Holden. I mean WTF? I think if it had been written in a manner that Ameera came to town and somewhat more slowly was integrated then ended up marrying Noah in order to stay, it would seem a lot more plausible than how things have been written. Psionycx had some good points on how there are so many problems with how she arrived in Oakdale and the like. As much as this storyline irritates people, and rightly so, I think the execution has inflamed more people because it has been so shitty than if TIIC had taken a little time to write Ameera's sudden appearance & marriage to Noah in a far less contrived & ludicrous way, people would be annoyed but a lot less pissed off.


the updated spoilers for 4/18 don't help.

[lolaruns]

It's really sad because having a Muslim character on a soap and see her trying to fit in could have been really interesting... if she hadn't been written like a moron and if it had been in any other storyline.