Affairs, suicides - the weird world of soaps

[Guest]

I noticed headlines on my browser earlier. "Soaps in ratings war" "Grim storylines in Christmas soap battles". Apparently there are to be suicides and suchlike.

Now, I have no interest in soaps at all, but I was curious as to this. I've gathered over the years that the vatrious soaps have contrived ever more gruesome / appalling / violent / weird storylines in order to keep their watchers (I think the word should be "victims" myself) hooked on their diet of dysfunction, tragedy and "drama".

Occasionally I hear a fragment of the Archers on R4. I can't say whether on this programme as well there has to be some great drama every week or episode, but whether there is or not, I've always been interested in why people listen / watch these things.

I realise that for the lonely and the housebound, they may offer a window into another side of life, and a vicarious interest in the doings of others. In that way, I suppose they are beneficial. But to an outsider like me, the headlines that I see each week about the latest crime / scandal / big drama in one soap or another make me wonder what sort of a world is being portrayed. Certainly not one that I see regularly as I go about my life in the UK, though clearly when abroad one often sees another side of things.

Dysfunction happens, even in the peaceful shires. But it sure isn't the norm: the norm is for people to get on with their lives honestly, help one another and live peaceably with their families and neighbours.

It wouldn't make for ratings, of course - but I can't help wondering (not very seriously as it won't happen) whether if the soaps portrayed the decent things in society rather than the dysfunctions, evils and dramas, life might become more pleasant and peoples' expectations/examples of better behaviour might increase.

[Lateralthinking1]

I accept the point to some extent. Soaps have always exaggerated things with ratings in mind. Had they not done so, they would never have sold enough detergents. Mainly though I blame the advent of ITV which led to the demise of poor Grace. They are now almost always ridiculous although I can cope with The Archers. That was where I first learnt about setaside among many other things. Wrongly, I like to think I could have been a farmer. The worst of it is how all the celebs are now soaps, particularly Jordan, people on the Jeremy Kyle Show are now soaps, the news is now a soap, and there is no Morecambe and Wise on Christmas Day.

I am not quite sure when broadcasters stopped being able to provide the light and cheerful. It occurred roughly between the time song writing ceased to be a craft and that period when everything, other than the serious, was turned into a shopping channel. Actually, I do know. It coincided with the emergence of Generation Sour. I could never take to Eastenders as I knew enough of that world not to be able to take it seriously, singing round the old joanna notwithstanding. But a short period with Coronation Street in the late 1970s was probably influential in my choice of a northern university. I find it staggering when I think of it now.

[handsomefortune]

perhaps we should have our own christmas soap opera on the forum...perhaps a bit like flay's thread of tabloid esque opera plots, plus illustrations? (i think it was flay, but it might have been someone else, my apologies if so)?

suicides and suchlike.

ever more gruesome / appalling / violent / weird storylines

what sort of a world is being portrayed? rhetorical?

It wouldn't make for ratings, of course - but I can't help wondering (not very seriously as it won't happen) whether if the soaps portrayed the decent things in society rather than the dysfunctions, evils and dramas, life might become more pleasant and peoples' expectations/examples of better behaviour might increase.

yes, i can't help thinking that when a really greasy gas bubbles on domestic plasma screens up and down the country that perhaps there should be an alarm bell, a siren that blares out monotonously instead? ideally, people should notice themselves though!

incidentally, i'm not sure that 'suicide and suchlike' really adds anything tbh... as it left me wondering what 'such like' was actually like?

perhaps this is the wonderful world of older adults working in tv soaps aiming to 'appeal' to younger audiences, meanwhile depressing the fluff out of everyone else?! as touched on as part of 'the free thinking festival' speaker last night on r3, (if anyone heard it)? the speaker (imo) made some excellent points on this very topic, (as well as some really duff ones).

apparently, we're short of useful contemporary role models in the mainstream media (again). perhaps we should frack the ones we've got, and 'pension the soap companies off, as old ladys'? sections of the media have implied much the same about the beeb, and now the bank of england..... (and various other institutions), but toxic soap opera themes are to be indefinite, the 'gases' used can get as old, and rancid as they like

...rather like smoked and salted salami hung above a spanish bar...served up with a twist of up to the minute vinegar, to keep it all 'fresh' and totally topical.

[Simon]

Your posts get better and better Lat. I too remember a brief time of watching Coronation St. regularly, probably in the mid 80s or so. It wasn't unpleasant, as far as I recall, just mildly interesting. There was that wonderful landlady who reminded me of one I knew near home! And the old lady with the curlers or whatever...

But you are right of course - the money causes so much of the rot...

[Lateralthinking1]

Your posts get better and better Lat. I too remember a brief time of watching Coronation St. regularly, probably in the mid 80s or so. It wasn't unpleasant, as far as I recall, just mildly interesting. There was that wonderful landlady who reminded me of one I knew near home! And the old lady with the curlers or whatever...

But you are right of course - the money causes so much of the rot...

Thanks - much appreciated. They started on the base line and could therefore only travel in one direction. Annie Walker - I once stayed a night in a Macclesfield hotel that was full of them - and dear old Hilda Ogden* but who now owns the splendid murial? I enjoyed handsomefortune's post and am also wondering about suchlike. There are just too many possibilities for absolute clarity.

*But didn't they all have curlers?

[Simon]

incidentally, i'm not sure that 'suicide and suchlike' really adds anything tbh... as it left me wondering what 'such like' was actually like?

You're right, hf - I changed it a bit because I'd read around the subject and wondered if it would be better not to say too much in detail and spoil things for anybody who might watch regularly. So, "suchlike" might mean anything... you have to watch to find out

You see it's even dragged me in to all the hype...

:::::::::::::::::::

Some may find this a good thread to participate in, some may not. As an experiment, I wonder if I could ask people not to join in just to make comments against me? I'm not intending to be controversial, but am genuinely interested in how TV and soaps affect/reflect society.

[ahinton]

I'm not intending to be controversial, but am genuinely interested in how TV and soaps affect/reflect society.

You aren't being controversial and "soaps" affect and/or reflect society only to the extent and in the ways that those who watch them and listen to them might care to believe that they do - no more, no less.

Soaps are surely all about - or at least strongly dependent upon the promotion of - caricatures of characters that don't even exist in real life (even though those soaps would seek to persuade their consumers that they do, or at the very least did). Perhaps the most worrying of them all is The Archers not because it seeks to ply its trade on radio rather than on television but because it's been running on for so very long, having begun in an age before such ephemera were ever even labelled as "soaps" and, as such, it seems to be the worst of them all in maintaining this kind of caricature existence - and what nonsense it is, even to the extent of the manner in which it continues to be sold, i.e. as an "everyday story of country folk" when, in reality, it's broadcast on just six out of the seven days of the week (the on day of respite being Saturday when there's nothing on the telly worth watching, as the cliché has it) and it's a "story" (insofar as it's anything of the kind at all) of Brummie folk, as evidenced by the fact that sufficient of is "characters" speak in what might most appositely be dubbed BBC Brummerset.

I have thought that, in today's age of austerity, cutbacks and the like, it ought to be amalgamated with EastEnders as EastArchers, just to save some money, so that the depressive aspect of the latter could rub uncomfortable shoulders with the sheer antediluvian absurdity of the former to their mutual disadvantage sufficiently as to warrant the axing of the overstayed hybrid; if only that were to happen, at least the days of CoronEmmerdale Street would soon mercifully be numbered and the soap graveyard could finally be filled and then unceremoniously and unlamentedly closed forever.

Money for old rope for scriptwriters, the lot, although I'd not want to see them being put out of work.

The only curlers, incidentally, are in the scripts, but then the scriptwriters presumably do it all to order even if not quite by numbers...

[Resurrection Man]

Simon, I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding your comments on soaps. The odd times that I have involuntarily dipped in, it seems to me that the only method of communication between the characters is confrontational and shouting. If I could wave a magic wand then they would never darken our screens again.

[Ferretfancy]

This is all getting a bit solemn isn't it ? Years ago I had a few months secondment to Manchester, and we kindly offered to dub some programmes for Granada because they had some technical problems. This meant that I got to mix a few sequences from Corrie when most of the regular characters went off to play Bingo. I'm proud of that !

I've watched the soap quite often, although not lately. The trick is to stay with it for a while and then take a break. The Coronation Street plot thread which involved a tram falling off a bridge was a hoot, especially since it managed to involve most of the regulars, including one villain who killed his girlfriend and hid her corpse in the flaming ruins!

Now, if Puccini wrote the music, we'd be praising it a Covent Garden ( or ENO at a pinch! )

[amateur51]

What po-faced people don't appreciate is that soaps develop some wonderful characters over the years, as did the instalment-based novels of Dickens and latterly Armistead Maupin in his wonderful Tales of the City series.

Some of us enjoy eaves-dropping on these characters' lives. The OP seems to suggest that we are saddos for so doing. The OP needs to be a tad less censorious

[MrGongGong]

I don't really watch TV very much
and prefer music to drama
but there seems to be a growing inability for folks to perceive the "fourth wall"

if you want a "diet of dysfunction, tragedy and drama" that bloke from Stratford is yer man

[Mandryka]

I think they're all rubbish; they always have been, probably always will be.

When I was a child, I can remember being aghast that anyone would actually want to watch a programme as dreary as Coronation Street: that theme tune - so expressive of outside lavatories and rainy nights in Eccles - sums it all up.

They do feature some good actors (and, possibly , some good writers) but both are being wasted in this medium.

It is indeed depressing that so many people seem to live their lives by them - and, yes, the plots are horribly contrived and manipulative.

I've often wondered: if an authoriarian government with a philosophy of 'high culture' came to power and unilaterally decided to scrap all soaps and pop music programmes on tv and radio, replacing them with classical/modern drama and concerts/opera, what would the effect be? Would people just switch off and turn to crime/vandalism? Or, lacking an alternative, would they just watch what was on on....and maybe end up enjoying their new 'diet'?

[mangerton]

I've often wondered: if an authoriarian government with a philosophy of 'high culture' came to power and unilaterally decided to scrap all soaps and pop music programmes on tv and radio, replacing them with classical/modern drama and concerts/opera, what would the effect be? Would people just switch off and turn to crime/vandalism? Or, lacking an alternative, would they just watch what was on on....and maybe end up enjoying their new 'diet'?

There is little chance of that happening. Governments of all hues now take good care to feed us a diet of panis et circenses. This year we've had the Jubilee and Olympic Games. In 2014, there'll be the Commonwealth Games. For next year, right on cue, Kate has done her duty, and will produce an heir. All these are the equivalent of Aldous Huxley's soma.

Anything to get our minds off the appalling state of the country, and their total inability to sort it out.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've often wondered: if an authoriarian government with a philosophy of 'high culture' came to power and unilaterally decided to scrap all soaps and pop music programmes on tv and radio, replacing them with classical/modern drama and concerts/opera, what would the effect be? Would people just switch off and turn to crime/vandalism? Or, lacking an alternative, would they just watch what was on on....and maybe end up enjoying their new 'diet'?

The effect on me would probably be to make me die in disbelief! Most authoritarian regime broadcasters put out continuous censored reportage of military parades and The Beloved Leader's latest homily to The People.

[vinteuil]

There is a reason the jokes in Christmas crackers are so bad. It is deliberate. If they were "witty", there is a probability that someone in the family circle (dotty auntie Jane or whoever) wouldn't "get" the joke. And would therefore feel excluded. And sad. By having such bad jokes - which everyone "gets" - and which everyone recognises are awful - and which everyone can groan at - the function is served - of bonding everyone into a happy inclusive unit.

Similarly - telly soaps make a point of having miserabilist situations over Christmas - so that the viewers - who may be having miserable Christmasses of their own - can say "well, at least we haven't had a murder / rape / dead cat / incinerated turkey like wot they had on Emmerdale / Corrie / Eastenders... "

And will be - relatively - cheered as a result.

These things are deliberate, y'know!