SEX, LIES AND SOAPS
PROGRAMME 2: BAD BEHAVIOUR
PROGRAMME AIMS
- To explore why soaps are so reliant on storylines featuring bad behaviour
- To examine the ways soaps handle bad behaviour, such as alcohol abuse and violence; and the behaviour it chooses not to show on screen
- To think about whether bad behaviour on screen reflects or actually generates bad behaviour in real life
- To consider why, how, and to what effect, soaps represent the consequences of bad behaviour.
THE CHARACTERS
- Anthony – 20-year-old EastEnders fanatic from Somerset, with a sceptical view of the moral messages of soap producers
- Polly and Monica – 16-year-old Londoners who are passionate about The OC
- Ellie and Siobhan – aged 21, these Brighton students enjoy the heightened drama of Hollyoaks, but believe its narrative resolutions are often misleadingly neat and moralistic
- Ashley and Laurence – 12- and 14-year-old brothers who enjoy the violent aspects of EastEnders, model themselves on Grant and Phil Mitchell, and believe that soap violence encourages real violence
- Grace Dent – Guardian soap critic. She does not believe that soaps encourage teenagers to drink or fight, but thinks that their absence of images of recreational drug use is irresponsible
- Aric Sigman – anti-TV psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled
- Tony Jordan – writer and series consultant for EastEnders. He rejects as myth the idea of soaps' influence ('it's only telly!'), but believes soaps can provide young people with valuable life-skills and guidance on how not to behave
- Daran Little – former writer for Coronation Street, who is not happy with soaps' refusal to engage with recreational drug use
- Kathleen Beadles – executive producer for Emmerdale. He believes soaps must show the consequences of irresponsible behaviour
- Cassie Powney – plays Hollyoaks' alcoholic Melanie Burton. She sees her storyline as offering an effective warning that there are consequences to everything, binge drinking included
- Warren Brown – plays psychotic date rapist Andy Holt in Hollyoaks, and describes the way his irredeemable character gets his gruesome come-uppance.
