The popularity of soap operas, and what the critics say
From newborn babies, troublesome teenagers to grannies with dementia, all ages are presented in soaps. They often focus on whole families including the youngest to the oldest. For example baby Louise learning her first words, right up to Nana Moon, who is developing Alzheimer’s in Eastenders.
They represent real life, as the characters are shown going about their day-to-day activities: going to school, work, falling in love, and getting in and out of trouble. There’s the laundrette in Eastenders, and the factory in Coronation Street, where half the town seems to work. These are all normal settings people recognise and relate to.
Although the issues dealt with are realistic, tragedies and major life events happen in quick succession to the same poor characters; there is never a dull moment in soaps. There’s always a dramatic storyline going on, which stops it from getting boring, but that just isn’t how it happens in real life.
Soaps manage to reach a large section of society, bringing to light difficult issues such as AIDS, (Mark Fowler in Eastenders,) depression and self-harm in Hollyoaks, sex changes in Coronation Street and teenage pregnancies, which feature in most soaps. The storylines show characters coping and dealing with their problems, and you can gain quite a lot of knowledge about certain issues, just by following the simple storylines.
However soaps portray violence and adultery etc. often as a problem easily solved, where the people affected recover physically and emotionally from their traumas very quickly. Such as the domestic violence Little Mo in Eastenders endured for years from her abusive husband. She leaves him, and six months on she is living happily ever after with a new husband. That is not a very likely scenario. This sort of thing could have the effect of making people’s real life struggles seem insignificant, and make them feel they should just let their problems sort themselves out, actually having a negative effect on someone’s situation.
Cliffhangers are used at the end of each episode to create suspense before the next one, encouraging people to watch the next episode to find out what happens. A cliffhanger will also get people talking about the programme, speculating what the outcome might be. Often newspapers and magazines will write articles on major storylines, creating publicity and gaining a wider audience for the programme, attracting even more viewers. This happened with the return of ‘Dirty Den’ storyline recently in Eastenders, and as a result the programme achieved its highest viewing figures ever.
Soaps are shown regularly: usually a few times a week, so watching them becomes a part of people’s daily routine. You can watch them while you are eating dinner, or doing the ironing, etc. as they do not need your full concentration to follow and enjoy the simple storylines. They are suitable for the entire family to watch, as they are shown early in the evening, so do not contain much swearing, or graphic violence or sex. These things are just implied, so older viewers will understand, but younger ones will not be upset by it. Being only about half an hour long per episode means that people have time to watch the whole episode. Because of the regularity of episodes, the characters are shown doing normal boring things, like going to the pub, or the laundrette. Being able to identify and empathise with the characters is a major factor that makes soaps such a popular category of entertainment. People get emotionally involved with the characters…
However some people take it too far, and get obsessed with soaps. They stop being able to separate reality from fiction, and believe the characters and settings really exist. Actors get sent baby clothes and card when their character has a baby, or they get spat on in the streets for cheating on their ‘partner’ or ‘murdering their neighbour’. In extreme cases people might stalk and threaten soap actors, as they confuse them for the character they play, or the things the character’s done.
On the whole though, soaps are enjoyed by millions of people all over the world, and while there is still an audience for them, companies will carry on making them. They are a cheap-to-make, popular form of entertainment that will probably go on for a long time. I think they are a good escape for most people, and have a positive effect on most peoples’ lives. Getting them talking about difficult issues. Everyone knows something about the storylines, even if they don’t watch the soap, as soap operas are such a large part of modern culture. Small talk just as often features Eastenders as it does the weather.
