The soap opera is classed
as a woman’s genre in which a fictional discourse of current affairs is discussed
as speculated gossip. Charlotte Brunsdon (1995, 1997) has stated that the
British soap opera has specific conventions, which make it a soap opera.
Realism in a soap opera reflects the issues that are evident in society today
and recognised by a female audience, allowing the viewer to connect with
specific plots and characters. Brunsdon had become interested in the sudden
intriguing criticisms of the feminist critics who argued about how the
representations of the personal home life became an intriguing object of study.
Brunsdon was interested in feminist ambivalence and was intrigued to find out
why viewers lied about their viewing pleasure. Since EastEnders and Hollyoaks introduced
the soap opera to a younger audience, the profile of the soap had improved with
younger viewers and even men watching too.
Also looked at in this study are the
views of Tania Modleski (2003) who argued that the soap opera is important to
the female viewer as it never ends, just as the continuous trial and
tribulations in real life. She also explained that due to the soap leaving cliff
hangers at the end of every episode the female viewer is encouraged to continue
watching throughout the week to find out what happens next in the dramatic life
of the soap opera.
Annette Kuhn (1997) has continued that problems with
gendered spectatorship make it difficult to determine the ‘female’ or
‘feminine’ spectator and that the feminine subject content of the soap opera
transcended the patriarchal modes of subjectivity. Kuhn continued in explaining
Brunsdon’s and Modleski’s views on how the ideological and moral framework of a
woman’s home life can be constructed at an extra-textual level, which addresses
both the female and feminine audience, showing how these constructs are central
to the woman’s view and connections with the real world. Geraghty (1991)
explained how the realism evident in the soap opera portrayed a credible dramatization
of real events. Using Brunsdon’s study of realism and feminist ambivalence and
Modleski’s proposal that the ‘feminine’ in soap should be investigated more
thoroughly in terms of a female audience, Kuhn had suggested that soap opera
made the female viewer feel like an ‘ideal mother’. This shows that a woman is
benevolent to the issues raised in her own family due to the terrible
situations outside the home in the community.
(Brunsdon, 1997, page 25)
Brunsdon presented that even though
it seems unrealistic for all those problems to happen to the same people on the
same street or square, it does show realistic conventions that can be
recognised by members of the female audience. As in real life, soap characters
also have to accept the consequences of their actions and “it is usually only
when an actor or actress takes the option we haven’t got and leaves the programme
that there is any chance of a happy ending” (Brunsdon, 1997, page 25). Claire
Peacock from Coronation Street fled
to France with her children after a warrant for her arrest was issued following
her attack on Tracey Barlow. “Soap opera characters are doomed to live out the
truth of the old adage that ‘No news is good news’ – and no news is no soap”
(Brunsdon, 1997, page 25). Brunsdon contends that Coronation Street counterbalances its characters’ generic unhappiness
with elements of comedy; an example of this would be the relationship between
Steve and Lloyd or Graham’s well-loved character. She argued that soaps are
dismal and tragic but “they provide a site for viewers to become involved in
problems, issues and narratives that do touch our own lives” (Brunsdon, 1997,
page 25). The viewer will not get emotionally involved or like every character
but will be able to connect with some characters and plots.
Brunsdon has argued that
feminist critics have become increasingly interested in the soap opera. She
explains the theory ‘the personal is the political’ (Brunsdon, 1995, page 38)
and feminist critics argued about the significance of the home and personal
life.
If the personal is political, if it is in the home, in
relationships, in families, that women’s intimate oppression – or the
oppression of women as women – is most consensually secured, the media
construction and representation of personal life becomes fascinating and an
urgent object of study.
(Brunsdon, 1995, page 39)
Hollows has followed this and argued
that this gave the critics an “opportunity to analyse representations in which
the private sphere and personal relationships were central” (Hollows, 2000,
page 89). Brunsdon continued that soaps allowed the critics and feminists to
challenge the aesthetic hierarchy in which the devaluation of ‘the feminine’
and the soap opera were associated. Brunsdon’s theory of ‘feminist ambivalence’
explained how people are not open about watching soaps and often deny watching
them.
Liking soap opera has always been a risky business.
Wooed by the television companies with an endless stream of character - centred
publicity – for the soap watcher is that most desirable statistic, the fan is
frequently abused by both the quality and the popular press.
(Brunsdon, 1997, page 26)
EastEnders has
been on UK television for 25 years and Coronation
Street 50 years, so why is this still such a taboo? Brunsdon explains how Lovell showed a mild
defence of the soap and it is this which takes her back to the “perceived
piquancy in the relationship between feminism and soap opera” (Brunsdon, 1995,
page 44). Lovell suggested that the soap opera was like opium to the viewer and
could also signify
The sign of the oppressed, yet a context in which
women can ambiguously express both good
humoured acceptance of their oppression and
recognition of that oppression, and some equally good humoured protest
against it
(Lovell, 1981, cited in Brunsdon, 1995, page 44)
The soap operas have
generic features that govern all soaps. For example, the characters in soaps
live as the viewer would day by day. So when the viewer watches EastEnders on a Monday, it will be
Monday and when the viewer watches at Christmas, it will be Christmas. Soaps
depend on current discourse including recent news and media stories about
society, politics, crime, racism, gender and sexuality issues and so on. This
represents the real world to the female spectator, providing representation
that contributes to the viewer’s understanding of the real-world. Brunsdon
concludes that the dominant discourse seems to devalue women and “repeatedly
insist[s] on the social power of sexual difference” (Brunsdon, 1997, page 28)
Brunsdon argued that these representations that portray the real-world are
powerful in helping the viewer construct a real-world and that by offering
alternative images, there will be no “struggle to define what is meant by ‘realistic’”
(Brunsdon, 1997, page 28). She also contends that when feminists argued for
images that are more realistic they argued for a representation of their own
reality. A soap opera is a visual collective of realities and
Is mainly pleasurable in its predictable,
conservative, repetitive elements, and its necessary generic commitment to
realism. It is extremely difficult to construct plausible, but challenging and
different, characters and situations.
(Brunsdon, 1997, page 28)
Modleski proposed that the ‘feminine’
in soap opera should not be ignored but focused on. Brown stated that they are
important to their female audience as they never end and their present context
and processes help “illustrate the hegemonic process working to incorporate
cultural constructions of women into the program itself and thereby construct
the genre as a feminine one” (Brown, 1994, page 49). Soap opera provides the
viewer with multiple characters and personalities to identify and connect with,
and “in soap operas, the enigmas proliferate […] Tune in tomorrow, not in order
to find out answers, but to see what further complications will defer the
resolutions and introduce new questions” (Modleski, 2003, page 294). Modleski
conveyed that this causes more obstacles to overcome to receive the desire of
knowing how it ends. She also stated how critics have considered endings to be
crucial to a narrative, but the soap opera gives hope to the “immortality and
external return” (Modleski, 2003, page 295) of the soap opera. Modleski
continued that for women in the twentieth-century losing their children to adulthood
is an ending that most mothers fear. She stated that this leaves the woman
isolated without purpose and the soaps offer “the assurance of immortality”
(Modleski, 2003, page 295), presenting the female viewer with a representation
of families breaking down and sticking together no matter what the situation.
Modleski stated that
The unhappiness generated by the family can only be
solved in the family. Misery becomes not, as in many nineteenth century women’s
novels, the consequence and sign of the family’s break-down, but the very means
of its functioning and perpetuation. As long as the children are unhappy, as
long as things don’t come to a satisfying
conclusion, the mother will be needed as confidante and advisor, and her
function will never end.
(Modleski, 2003, page 295)
The soap opera has an open-ended
narrative allowing for continuous parallel situations being played out in
real-time. Discourse among critics about why soap opera’s narrative form
appeals to the female audience has suggested that the open-ended narrative
reflects the “’proper’ psychological disposition of the woman in the home”
(Modleski, 2003, page, 297).
Freud had an interest in
the psychoanalysis of sexuality and gender when concerning the problems of
gendered spectatorship. Questions of representation and feminine subjectivity
are raised and allow “the spectator to be considered as a gendered subject position,
masculine or feminine: and theoretical work on soap opera and the women’s picture
may take this as a starting point for its enquiry into spectator – text
relations” (Kuhn, 1997, page 146). Kuhn questioned whether this constructs a
female or feminine spectator. She stated that views on gender and spectatorship
are viewed differently for critics of soap opera than it is viewed by film
critics. She stated that Modleski argued that their narrative style foregrounds
the “female skills in dealing with personal and domestic crises, and the
capacity of their programme formats and scheduling to key into the rhythms of
women’s work in the home, all address a female spectator” (Kuhn, 1997, page
147) and that the soap operas’ textual processes are similar to “Feminine”
texts that “speak to a decentred subject, so are ‘not altogether at odds with…
feminist aesthetics’” (Kuhn, 1997, page 147). Modleski argued that the way the
soaps address the female spectators helped the feminine subject content
transcends the patriarchal modes of subjectivity. There is a common interest in
the problem of gendered spectatorship and progressive potential of a soap
opera’s storyline, and the appeal for women. Kuhn argued that TV theory is
“marked by the dualism of universalism and specificity” (Kuhn, 1997, page 148).
In soap opera dualism of text and context unfolds differently from film theory,
as the theoretical work emphasises the contextual level, and may be innovated
as it deals with specific texts as well as contexts. Feminist critical work has
begun to look at “TV as text, though always with characteristic emphasis on the
issue of gendered spectatorship” (Kuhn, 1997, page 148). Kuhn stated that women
already have an existing ‘female-ness’ to their viewing habits. She continued
that soap operas are aimed at a social audience of women, but can also be seen
to address a female or feminine spectator. Kuhn argued that “if soaps and
melodramas inscribe femininity in their address, women – as well as being
already formed for such
representations – are in a sense also formed by them” (Kuhn, 1997, page 150). She pointed out that she did not
intend to reduce femaleness to femininity but she held the distinction that
femaleness was a social gender and femininity is a subject position. Kuhn
informed that Modleski suggested that characteristic narratives and textual
operations of the soap opera invite the viewer to feel like an ‘ideal mother’,
understanding and tolerant of vices. She stated that tolerance and passivity
are seen as feminine qualities in this culture and she discussed how Brunsdon
extended Modleski’s argument in saying that at an extra-textual level, it
constructs “the ideological and moral frameworks of marriage and family life,
soap opera, she implies, addresses both a feminine spectator and female
audience” (Kuhn, 1997, page 150f). This showed how central emotion is in a
woman’s point of view.
So to conclude looking at
the investigations and suggestions of the feminist critics Brunsdon, Modleski
and Kuhn, one can see that in effect, the soap opera is classed as a women’s
genre. Brunsdon analysed the specific conventions of soap opera such as
realism’s reflection on current issues that concern the female audience and the
fictional discourse that is evident in women’s genres. She also considered feminist
ambivalence and the increased interest in the representations of the personal
home life, followed by the profile boosting and increasing popularity of the
new look soap. Brunsdon had argued that the fictional discourse of the soap was
discussed at school or work between friends and colleagues creating a way for
the woman to socialise with other women during work. Brown states that
Soap opera knowledge supports largely feminine
friendship and gossip networks by allowing for a system where those who have
such knowledge are supported and where such knowledge is legitimated.
(Brown, 2004, page 287)
An example of this relationship would
be the book club in EastEnders, a chance for women to gossip and get advice
from their friends about problems they are having. Brunsdon stated how the soap
opera becomes a site for the woman to become involved in the narratives that
the woman connects with. Brunsdon also showed how the ambivalence of soap opera
is still present but how there are some defences for soap opera concluding that
they show how the woman can overcome the patriarchal oppressions in a good
humoured way. Using internal and external realism the soap opera creates a
believable reconstruction of current events that affect women and their
families. When Brunsdon stated that Coronation
Street seemed more in tune with the internal realism it was 1997, now in
2011 one can say that Coronation Street
has become just as externally ‘real’ as EastEnders.
The characters are consistent and everybody knows someone like the
characters in Coronation Street. The
female characters are becoming increasingly independent and the men seem
downtrodden by the female characters, completely reversing the patriarchal
criticisms of the past. Modleski
analysed how the soap opera was important to the female audience and that the
reason for this was the continuing plot with storylines ending and being
introduced simultaneously showing how the woman’s life was, with new problems
and obstacles appearing in real-life, eagerly awaiting the end of the journey
to overcome each obstacle.
The feminine in soap opera provide the female audience
with many different female personalities to connect with and the open ended
narrative of the soap is important to the female audience as it shows the same
appearance of ‘problem after problem’ in a woman’s real-life, waiting for a
solution to overcome the continuous obstacles. It gives the woman, especially a
mother, the chance to always be needed, to always be able to overcome life’s
obstacles and still keep a family unit, making the woman feel like an ‘ideal
mother’, showing how emotion is central in a woman’s point of view. Kuhn was
concerned with the problems of gendered spectatorship and Brunsdon’s and
Modleski’s views of the ideological and moral framework of the home life in
extra-textually constructing a woman’s view of the real world. She stated that
the narrative style of the soap opera foregrounds the skills that a woman
possesses in dealing with these obstacles, therefore showing the woman’s
capacity in real-life family situations. The scheduling of the soap opera is
also tuned into the way a woman’s life plans out. For the working childless
woman the soaps are timed for the return from work, for the younger generation
they are scheduled for the return from school after their homework is done. For
the mother they are timed for the routine; after tea and putting the kids to
bed. These schedules fit in perfectly with a woman’s daily schedule, giving
them their ‘personal time’ to relax and watch their favourite soap whilst
simultaneously trying to predict the outcome of a storyline. The ideological and
moral framework of the soap operas’ content addresses both a feminine spectator
and also a female audience.
Bibliography
Brown, M. E., “Women and Soap
Opera: Resistive Readings” in Carter, C., and Steiner, L., (2004) Critical Readings: Media and Gender
(Ed). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Brown, M. E., (1994) Soap Opera and Women’s Talk. London:
Sage Publications.
Brunsdon, C., “Why and How Were
Feminist Interested in Soap Opera” in Allen, R. C, (1995) To be continued: soap operas around the world. Oxon: Routledge.
Brunsdon, C., (1997) Screen Tastes: Soap Opera to Satellite
Dishes. London: Routledge.
Geraghty, C., (1991) Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time
Soaps. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hollows, J., (2000) Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture.UK:
Manchester University Press.
Kuhn, A., “Women’s Genres” in
Brunsdon, C., D’Acci, J., and Spigel, L., (1997) Feminist Television Criticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Modleski, T.,
“The Search for Tomorrow in Todays Soap Operas” in Jones, A., (2003) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader
(Ed). London: Routledge.
Filmography
Coronation Street (1960 - present) Tony
Warren. UK: Granada Television Studios.
EastEnders (1985 - present) Dermot Boyd
et al. UK: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Hollyoaks (1995 - present) Phil Redmond.
UK: Mersey Television.
By Lea Weller BA
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