When I heard Anthony Geary had passed away, I was instantly transported to the late 70’s. I was in the third grade, a latch key child (left alone at home while my parents worked, but don’t worry, we also very little distractions to get us into trouble while home alone!), and our TV only had three channels (and NO remote! Imagine the horrors!). I hadn’t thought about General Hospital in years, but suddenly I was back in elementary school, home sick, curled under a quilt with ginger ale and crackers, watching beautiful adults on TV cry in perfect lighting.
Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) were the center of it all. America’s favorite love story. But beneath the soft focus and swelling music, something terrible had happened — something even my child’s mind could sense was wrong, though I didn’t yet know the word rape. On October 5, 1979, Luke assaulted Laura on the dance floor of a disco. Two years later, on November 17, 1981, they were married in an episode that drew 30 million viewers: the most watched soap opera moment in history.
Everyone celebrated, but what exactly were they celebrating?
Though I was young, I knew something was wrong. I had witnessed the violence against Laura and then, two years later a marriage? I just knew it wasn’t love. Years later, I understood the damage: society had turned a violent act into a wedding special. Television blurred crime and redemption into one continuous soundtrack, teaching an entire generation, especially girls, that love can fix what violence breaks.
And I, like so many others, learned the lesson a little too well.
I grew up dating men who treated me unkindly. Men who lied, manipulated, cheated, apologized, and then did it again. I believed, deep in my bones, that my love had healing powers. I thought if I just hung on, if I just understood them, maybe they’d transform like Luke did on TV. The idea wasn’t really mine. It was a cultural hand-me-down, broadcast through tubes and screens and songs.
Because in that era, the ideas were everywhere. “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) gave us Tony, a man forgiven despite sexual assault. “Urban Cowboy” (1980) romanticized Bud’s violence as youthful passion. “Grease” (1978) taught girls to change themselves to win love. And by 1981, America wasn’t just tolerating that narrative…we were dancing to it.
Pop culture was rewriting the oldest story there is: pain equals love. Reality check: pain doesn’t equal love. Love equals love.
What General Hospital did wasn’t just lazy storytelling; it was moral engineering. By marrying Luke and Laura, the writers taught millions of viewers that redemption could arrive without consequence; that apologies could stand in for justice. It was advertised as romance, but it was toxic influence. Not only that, the reframing and gaslighting of the rape simply opened the door for acceptance of men being “men”, women being “weak”, and love being a cure all.
I wish someone had told me back then that love is redemptive only if it’s paired with accountability and future, consistent, right action. Redemption cannot start until punishment happens. And there was no punishment of Luke – in fact, the opposite happened. Luke was somehow painted as a victim and Laura was left with self doubt; how did she cause herself to be violated (hint, she didn't)?
Anthony Geary was brilliant. He played Luke with a strange mix of darkness and depth. But his character became a mirror for how far we let charm excuse cruelty. His passing reminds me not only of the influence television had, but of the stories I allowed to frame my patience, my hope, my threshold.
What we consume becomes what we believe. And what we believe shapes the kind of people we love and the kind of pain we think we deserve.
Maybe that’s the truest lesson General Hospital ever taught me, though it never intended to.
I see now that General Hospital wasn’t just a soap opera; it was a classroom. The lesson came quietly, broadcast through the glow of the television and the hush of daytime living rooms across America. It taught millions of us not only what love looked like but what we were supposed to forgive.
Because that’s what culture does. Culture doesn’t live in museums or textbooks…it lives in our impulses. It’s the unspoken teacher, setting the temperature for how we think, how we react, how we excuse. Culture teaches people how to act when no one is watching. And whoever controls culture controls the message, which means they shape the conscience of an entire generation.
When culture becomes toxic, it doesn’t scream; it hums. It hides inside stories, songs, and commercials, telling us that devotion means endurance, that redemption comes without responsibility, that pain is the price of belonging. That’s not entertainment: that’s social engineering.
So when I think back to Luke and Laura now, it’s no longer with nostalgia. It’s with recognition. The culture I grew up in taught me to romanticize the unbearable…to believe love could fix what justice ignored. But culture can be rewritten, just like an old script.
And maybe that’s the real work of adulthood: to see the stories that raised us for what they were, to forgive ourselves for believing them, and then to write better ones.
