British soaps Essays

British soaps Essays British soaps Essay British soaps Essay Once again however, we must question these ideas of why a soap might be representative of real life. I mean is life really full of cliff-hangers? Is the domesticated life still merely focused on the female sex? As all these soaps appear to portray, are there so few ethnic minorities in every community? I would like to suggest that the answer to all of these questions is no and the reason for this is that soaps do not truly represent real life; I shall continue my evaluation. The ways in which soaps are fundamentally constructed hold great appeal for the viewer.If you might consider three of the most significant British soaps Coronation Street, EastEnders and Hollyoaks it is plain that the focus is placed upon the inter-relationship of a group of characters in a typically working-class setting. Indeed, soap opera story lines are based largely on the problems encountered within personal relations and family life; the content is essentially humanised. A mundane quality is evoked, as the lifestyles of the characters on screen are not so vastly different from our own.The claims that have been made by the producers of these soaps, in that they are ultimately designed to represent the realities of working class life and confront social problems appear to be not so far from the truth. Viewers do profess to gain pleasure from this social realism. Yet, at the same time, soaps do not claim to offer single solutions to the problems they portray, but explore all the relevant possibilities. There are no objective truths, no answers, no permanent securities, no uncompromised actions and no absolutes.In response to this idea, Livingstone states I would argue that these features only serve to further emphasise that this genre really is reflective of a real life that holds few certainties for anyone. This statement from Livingstone is suppositional. It depends on how you view life. For example, if you see life as holding no certainties or future certainties then you would agree with his statement. However, if you are more positive thinker and think life takes a particular form and a particular direction then you would be more inclined to disagree with it.I myself disagree with his statement as I believe that soaps simply are not truly representative of real life, certainly not my life, any of my friends or familys lives anyway. Soap operas contain a very large number of characters, and this in turn provides the audience with diverse points of view with which to identify. Furthermore, it is impossible to identify one single hero or heroine within the bounds of a particular soap, so the viewer feels rather more a part of the actual community than an observer who is being lectured to on social, moral and personal issues.Interest is distributed throughout an entire community of characters, and this actually serves to make any character dispensable. It is more than possible for characters known to viewers for many years to disappear off the screen, and this has often caused uproar amongst dedicated followers. For example: The strange demise of Dirty Den caused uproar amongst the audience while his even stranger recent return has been a popular addition to the cast. What we must ask ourselves here is, how many people return from the dead in real life?Certainly, Den was supposed to have not died, well, that was the script writers explanation, but millions of Great Britain saw his disappearance and although the actual death was not seen due to its potential vulgarity not being allowed to be shown at the time, it was certainly represented to the audience as if that was the end of Dirty Den. Stereotypes certainly exist throughout life and they often lie beneath the surface of given characters, and viewers often find this satisfying in that they have something to identify with.Often, it is possible to argue, these characters are mere token gestures that the soap must include, so as to present a seemingly accurate picture of diverse, contemporary society. For example: The ? are the token minority, Asian family in EastEnders ; Mark Fowler is the token HIV victim while Pauline Fowler is the token family pillar, Phil Mitchell is the token animal, while; Zoe and Kelly are the token young tarty temptresses, while Kat is the token slag (well, certainly was before her marriage), but who knows how the Kat and Alfie story will progress?Coronation Street follows a similar character stock: Vera Duckworth as the gossip; The Websters as the token young family in financial difficulty; Tracey Barlowe as the token bitch, Ken Barlowe as the token pillar of the community, and so on. These stereotypes become real people to the average viewer; an extension of their personal and social networks, and aspects of their daily lives; these are people with whom we are supposedly already well-acquainted. Of course as a viewer I recognise these stereotypes and can relate to them in some way or another.However, I can quite honestly say that I do not know as many people as this that have as many problems as these soap stars do, and get through as many problems as they do, the list goes on. In my mind, soaps are not representative of real life. I would argue that those that are attracted to soaps are attracted to them because soaps tease them with an exaggerated version of their desire for a constant flow of contact and excitement increasingly absent in reality.In comparison to soaps, our everyday lives are uninteresting. The less people work and live in the same locality, let alone live and work with their neighbours, the more this fantasy ideal is portrayed in the representations of community. The more anonymous and superficial our contact with our neighbours is, the less information we have to gossip about them, the more one knows, and can gossip, about the fictional characters in Eastenders, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks or whatever.The less our interest in guessing the development of our friends lives, the greater our attraction to the abstract game of predicting whats going to happen to that character that millions of other spectators are trying to guess about. The more threatening and discomforting the streets become, the more consoling it is to consume fictional conflicts in the safety and comfort of our misappropriately-named living rooms.The more slow-plodding our real lives are, the more fast-paced the unfolding of the plot lines in soaps become: things that would normally take a year to develop in real life, take a week or less in the soaps. For example pregnancies seem to only take three or four months as opposed to the standard nine (the Tracey Barlowe plot line in Coronation Street being a current example). Effectively the view of the audience is that Fiction is stranger than truth, and so very much more interesting.