SEX, LIES AND SOAPS
PROGRAMME 2: BAD BEHAVIOUR
OVERVIEW
Soap opera as a genre has always suffered from attacks on its representations of gender and cultural stereotypes, and from accusations of dumbing down, but of all the criticisms levelled at popular media, the most contentious are the debates about the influence and effects of representations of anti-social behaviour, in particular, substance abuse and violence.
In a context of intense competition from multi-channel broadcasters, falling ratings and declining viewing figures amongst the 16-24 age group, soaps have increasingly combined a conventional focus on the minutiae of domestic life with more dramatic and heightened storylines appealing to younger viewers familiar with the pace and narratives of action movies and video games. Indeed, the clips featured in this programme share elements of dramatic genres not normally associated with Walford or Wetherfield – psychological horror, the gangster genre, and the Hollywood melodrama.
This programme starts from the premise that 'bad behaviour' – here defined as drink, drugs, and violence, with their inevitable consequences – is institutionally essential to soap narratives. Teams of writers are employed to ensure bigger, and more marketable, storylines, as we see in a snippet from a Hollyoaks script meeting.
In the past, soaps have often linked bad-behaviour-based storylines with support systems to tackle perceived social concerns. For example, in the late '90s, the now-defunct soap Brookside ran a storyline on a character who could not read, and also sponsored a series of adult literacy centres all over the country, to support a Government drive to raise literacy levels. Such interventions are now less common, although soaps clearly plug into the zeitgeist by exploiting particular newsworthy concerns.
In this programme we see two examples of the increasing use of date-rape drugs, and also the rising incidence of binge drinking in younger teenage girls. However, the treatment of these issues varies from the relatively realistic to the wildly overblown, with gun violence now a regular feature of all soaps, from the otherwise aspirational and charmed OC to the badlands of Albert Square.
The programme attempts to unpick what might be the effects on young people of watching images of excessive drinking, violent films, videos and TV programmes. Soap producers argue here that their programmes are relatively insignificant in influencing young people. They are, however, wary of showing smoking or recreational drug use because they don't wish to be seen to be endorsing damaging behaviour.
The producers' criteria for bad-behaviour plot development seem to relate to stories that can realistically be seen to have punitive consequences. They take very seriously the pleasures for audiences of retribution and narrative closure – bringing the storyline to a just and satisfying conclusion – and argue that moral lessons can be learned from heightened realism.
However, as elsewhere in this series, the teenagers interviewed are highly sceptical. They argue cogently that life doesn't offer neat resolutions, that baddies don't always get their just deserts, however much soap producers feel the need to provide them. Teenagers don't need coded moral messages to understand what is acceptable behaviour. They present a strong argument against Aric Sigman's reductive claims that they will inevitably be influenced by – and by implication, inspired to imitate – what they see onscreen.
