Comparison between contrasting soaps.

Nicola Pannell ESSAY English Mr Laycock

Comparison between contrasting soaps

There are several Genres within soaps these include comedy, horror mainly reality and many more. Some scenes in Eastenders and Emmerdale are funny and cheer you up and you can look back on them and still chuckle but, then again some of the scenes and story lines thought up are horrific and disgusting and you feel you don’t want to watch any more but you’re dying to find out what happens! There are themes within Soaps, these are the story lines within Genres! Themes are used to support views.

The style in Eastenders of story lines is to take a story line and over dramatises it x10. Where as in Emmerdale the story lines are less dramatised and more realistic but this isn’t what people want to see they want to see big problems and arguments. This is what makes Eastenders more popular soap of the two. The scene setting sets a basis of the soap i.e.: in Eastenders the common accents and in Emmerdale the farms etc! The presentational device is much better conveyed in Eastenders. The cast size in both soaps is roughly the same and there are about 15 “main characters” in each! These play the superior roles and the others play large roles but are labelled “extras”. In both soaps there are swine’s and people that are just gits and there’s also the sort of people who are lovely and friendly to everyone weather they like them or not! Not everyone has someone to fall back on in soaps and this is realistic and usually leads to them doing something stupid or bizarre.

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Eastenders and Emmerdale are two very different, popular and competitive soaps! They both have a good narrative structure and convey stories and problems brilliantly. But that’s what most of the story lines are “stories” and not facts or real life situations. The denotation(what is seen) is always done to a high standard in Eastenders and a good quality in Emmerdale and usually gives a clear connotation (what the denotation means!) They have a variety of Genres, which define the conventions of each story line. This forms on going story lines which isn’t always a good thing because sometimes they drag ...

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The general over exaggeration, dramatisation, tone and imagery form the presentational device within soaps. This is deep in both soaps. This causes the effect of addiction. You watch one episode and find yourself asking questions like what happened between so and so and is she always that bitchy etc then you find you can’t wait until the next episode!

We get so caught up in the lives of the characters their lives take priority over ours and we make time to see what is happening. The characters in both soaps use different facial expressions and tones of voice to form the structural device. This is built in to convey a point this is regularly used in both Emmerdale and Eastenders!

The audience identification(what makes the audience like the soap) is the characters, you become loving or hatred towards them with characters like Little Mo(EASTENDERS) and Kathy(EMMERDALE) you want to give them a hug and some friendly advice but with characters like Trevor(EASTENDERS) and Kaine(EMMERDALE) you want them to be locked up and the key thrown away. The content of the soaps on a basis of realism is surprisingly very low because the realism of story lines is probably 90% but the way they’re conveyed takes them down to about 40% this isn’t a bad thing as the audiences do love it!

To round up my essay I’d say Eastenders isn’t realistic, it is addictive, the actors and actresses are brilliant, it has the most dramatic story lines, its camera work is more effective and it’s the most popular soap at the moment. To round up Emmerdale I’d say it’s a nice location, the actors and actresses are good and very realistic, the camera work could be improved by an extra camera and the story lines could be dramatised a little more this would make the soap a lot more popular!