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Listening to the Voices of Today

A series of presentations, Lent 2006

An Addiction to Soaps - Joan Rowe

Return to Lent talks index page.

The Revd Joan Rowe emphasised the importance that TV soaps have in the lives of many people. Even Junior school children claim to watch Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Neighbours and Home and Away. The average Briton spends 25 hours a week watching television.

Why do people watch soaps?
  • They are a regular part of domestic routine, a reward for work done.
  • They are a lauch-pad for social and personal interaction. One can strike up a conversation with a total stranger about last night's episode.
  • They help people endure, or even enjoy, loneliness.
  • People identify with one or more characters.
  • Soaps are escapist fantasy.
  • They provide a forum for debating contemporary issues.
  • They are a kind of critical game
We cannot avoid soaps. Magazines write about them. Watchers may be mainly working class women.

A vicar who had been abroad found that she needed to watch Eastenders if she was to be able to relate to her people.

Characteristics of soaps:
  • a wide range of characters to identify with;
  • no single hero;
  • no privileged moral perspective;
  • no start or end;
  • no single narrative line;
  • several stories woven together;
  • a sense of involvement on the part of viewers.
Joan played a short extract from a recent 'Archers' episode, in which the characters discussed problems of ivy growing on the church tower, as an example of a soap which portrays the Church realistically.

TV soaps, on the other hand, all had their token 'Christian', who was normally a gross caricature. Clergy in soaps were bound to engage in immoral activity (the naughty vicar beloved of News of the Screws).

Do the soaps represent real people and real life? They present many stereotypes:
  • gossips
  • matriarchs
  • macho men
  • nasties.
Are story lines true to life? Sick people are diagnosed and treated very quickly.

Do the producers of soaps behave responsibly? They deal with big questions: AIDS, death, forgiveness, sexual ethics including the age people should engage in sexual activity, violence.

Clips were played showing strange views of family life, for instance. Unreal as these are, they help to shape the thinking of the majority of our community. Marriages never last. Coronation Street showed a couple who got married for a bet. In Eastenders lesbian relationships are taken as read.




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