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GCSE: Soap OperaSoap Opera is one of the most dominant forms of drama on British television. The BBC's EastEnders tussles with ITV's Coronation Street for ratings supremacy, and ITV has other big guns in Emmerdale and The Bill. Imported soaps include Neighbours (BBC1) and Home and Away (Channel 5) and the form is so popular there are now annual British soap awards. Many Soap Operas purport to present a version of real life very close to one we might recognise. This kind of drama is frequently described as being 'more realistic' than crime and fantasy-based dramas, and for that reason they deserve careful study. Are Soaps really a dramatised version of real life?
Soap Operas were born, not on television, but on radio in the 1930s. They were serialised daytime dramas, and were sponsored by major detergent manufacturers. Since most men were at work when these were broadcast, the audience was mainly female. Most of the drama revolved around female characters too - often professional women, presenting lives that the listeners could only aspire to. The first British Soap was Mrs Dale's Diary, broadcast on the BBC Light programme (now Radio 2) in 1948. Mrs Dale was not an aspirational character: she was a middle-class doctor's wife living in the suburbs outside London with two grown-up children. The show lasted more than 20 years and came to an end in 1969, just as the feminist movement was taking root. The Archers was launched alongside Mrs Dale in 1950 and is still running on BBC Radio 4. From the start this was a modern soap opera, with a mix of familial, community and domestic settings, characters and storylines. The most long-lasting television soap is Coronation Street, made by ITV. It began in 1960 and focuses on day-to-day community and family life in the fictional Manchester suburb of Weatherfield. It was originally slated for just 12 episodes - it's now on its way to 5000!
There isn't a single, set formula for making a Soap Opera, but there are a number of criteria which are broadly recognisable in the genre. Localized settings with communal areas Stereotypical, stock characters Multiple, overlapping, ongoing storylines Cliffhanger endings Personal stories Issues-based stories Short and frequent Plot recaps Cheap television
Soap Operas are consistently the most watched form of television in Britain. For ITV, successful Soaps represent a guaranteed , risk-free audience. They can confidently charge advertisers a great deal of money for placing their adverts around these kinds of programmes. They are also a prime opportunity to 'latch on' to an audience, and keep them for the programmes that follow, ensuring yet more advertising revenue. This used to be a compelling argument for careful scheduling, although in today's multi-channel, multi-media households, this is becoming less convincing. The BBC has fewer Soaps, although their number has grown in recent years to include Casualty, Holby City and Doctors. Because the BBC is paid for by a licence fee - a kind of tax - it constantly has to balance the need to be different from other broadcasters (offering programmes the commercial sector won't) and be popular (because everyone has to pay towards the BBC's costs). EastEnders has also proved a useful money-maker for the BBC, which has sold the show to be broadcast overseas.
Social realism There is a longstanding tradition towards social realism in British Soap: that is, a 'warts and all' presentation of the world as people experience it, rather than an idealised version of reality. Soap operas like EastEnders and Coronation Street may reasonably be described as social realist serials: they explore lives and issues that seem broadly 'realistic', even if the idea that all these issues could arise in one small place is dramatic licence. Light entertainment Soaps The sunny, upbeat opening titles for Neighbours and Home and Away tell us that these are programmes designed to entertain their audiences without presenting too much of a challenge to their audience. The issues they deal with will be presented less confrontationally, and characters are frequently redeemed - they change their ways for the better. Glamourised Soaps American 'Soaps' like Dallas and Dynasty popularised this genre in the 1980s; today it is epitomised by Footballers Wives. Characters are always immaculately presented and beautiful, and the idea that there is anything realistic about their lives for all but the rarest of people is patently absurd. Technically most glamourised Soaps aren't soaps at all - in that they have seasonal, rather than on-going, runs. Hybrids Some Soaps use elements of more than one style. Hollyoaks, for example, sometimes appears to be social realist, but also borrows from the light entertainment trappings of Neighbours which its teenage audience finds more enjoyable.
We've already established that soap operas were originally developed with a female audience in mind - they were aimed at American housewives. But who watches soap operas today? We can guess who advertisers think are watching soap operas by thinking carefully about the commercials screened during soap ad breaks. Broadcasters schedule adverts with great care to maximise their target audiences - if the adverts appear to target mainly women, then women are the dominant audience still. But why are they? Here are a few thoughts - bear in mind that I will be making some crude generalisations in what follows. Women and soap Soap opera narratives are mostly built around domestic concerns. Many men find their attention divided between home and work; women tend to focus more of their attention on their home lives. With more invested in the domestic, they will be more naturally interested in home-based, relationship-based storylines. Soap operas frequently features strong female characters of all ages and appearances, including middle-aged and elderly. e.g. Dot Cotton The portrayal of sensitive men may also be appealing reassuring to some women, as will the 'realistic, warts-and-all' representation of many teenaers. Soap operas also form the starting point of many casual conversations - "did you see Corrie last night?" - and these are steretypically a female preserve. "Women like to gossip" it is said, and soap operas provide a host of characters to gossip about harmlessly, without fear of the subjects of the gossip biting back! They also present narrative enigmas: opportunities to guess what is going to happen next. Men are said to enjoy crime drama because they like to solve puzzles and mysteries. The more character-based enigmas typical of soaps may provide women with a similarly satisfying 'problem' to solve. Teenagers and soap While women still form the biggest audience for soap opera, it is also worth noting how many teenagers (of both genders, but especially girls) have become soap opera fans. Certain mainstream soaps (Neighbours, Hollyoaks) have been structured around a teen audience, with many settings (schools, cafés, bedrooms) familiar to that age-groups. Meanwhile, other series (Grange Hill, Byker Grove) seem to be leading audiences into a lifelong soap habit! |
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