Soap Operas

Coronation Street is true to its nature, if its theme tune is anything to go by: It’s dry, dull, out of date, nothing of significance happens, and it offers no positive contribution to society at all.

The public* loves it. Yet it’s crap.

But why is this? Why should people be duped into wasting so much time watching something that won’t help them gain happiness or learn anything?

The main argument for soaps, of course, is simply that it’s entertainment. Why bother going to a concert? Why bother reading a novel? It’s the fact that something new and unexpected happens that captures our attention.

However, concerts and novels offer something that soaps arguably do not. They allow escapism. Escapism from the realness of society. Soaps are a contentious issue on this front. Sure, they’re exaggerations of real life, and in this way they’re not true representations of it – or so I hope. This is their escapist element. But to what extent? I would say that this only holds as far as the number of people who get injured, shouted at, stabbed and arrested goes.

But these things do actually happen in real life (albeit in fewer numbers). You see it in the news all the time. All soaps do is concentrate the negativity of society into centres (axes?) of evil. Soaps amplify all the bitterness and hatred that people can possibly harbour. This is bound only to have a negative impact on peoples’ psyches and personalities, and to aid those who by their nature have diseased psyches and personalities.

Soaps are considered to be entertainment – I’ve already fathomed that. The shows are predominantly negative – that’s pretty obvious, too. So what this actually confirms is that:

• People who watch soaps find it entertaining to watch others suffer.

• People get hooked on soaps because they feel better about themselves by watching others being put down and placed in compromising situations.

What other reasons can there be? Why are soaps allowed to proliferate? And, most importantly, who are the people who watch them, and why aren’t they locked up in an asylum?

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Update: I had the misfortune to come across the following comment to the BBC News online article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6222393.stm:

We went to buy a sofa from DFS because we liked the adverts with "the nice one from East Enders who used to be in that band". The 50% of advertising that didn't work in his case was the 50% that tells you he's advertising SFS not DFS.

- John Gray, Glasgow

I have to say, he deserves everything he got. Asylum's too good for him.

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Update 2 (21.05.07): I notice that the BBC has dropped Neighbours. Perhaps, for once, the institution is standing by its commitment to provide quality entertainment and educational programmes that commercial channels do not?

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Update 3 (15.01.08): Quote of the day:

"When you look at the Globes or the Emmys, there are never any bad categories with soaps and reality shows getting their chance."

- Ricky Gervais

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Update 4 (07.06.10): Yesterday, EastEnders won a Bafta for "best continuing drama". Then again, Ant and Dec won an award, as did Simon Cowell for the programme "Britain's Got Confused Between the words Popularity and Talent". Ant's comment says it all:

"You feed a couple of kangaroo testicles to a glamour model and you get a Bafta."

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* This is a subject for tomorrow's blog.