SEX, LIES AND SOAPS
PROGRAMME 4: APPEARANCE
OVERVIEW
To attract the all-important teenage audience, soap producers have increasingly relied on creating narratives around glamorous and aspirational characters, and have gradually transformed even the most conventionally gritty and unromanticised soaps. British and Australian producers admit that they cast primarily on the basis of looks. They construct characters they hope will become influential but accessible role models, who can be 'cloned' on the high street via teen magazines, which in turn hope to profit from the stars' iconic popularity.
How far do these highly idealised role models, such as Misha Barton of The OC and the blonde babes of Hollyoaks, influence both patterns of consumption and young people's attitudes to their bodies? One in five teenage girls has experienced an eating disorder, and an obsession with tanning and body image has led to the new disease of 'tanorexia'. Research studies show that boys are increasingly likely to experience similar problems.
Many psychologists (here represented by Aric Sigman) attribute these tendencies to the effects of television, arguing that when we see attractive people on TV, we feel less attractive. This is debated by the young people interviewed in the programme, who maintain they disagree. They say they are not so easily influenced, they choose knowingly to enjoy soap glamour as uplifting and escapist and they are more interested in narrative and identification than glamour and good looks. However, some agree that an unmediated diet of impossibly perfect and unrealistic characters creates some ambivalence.
Soap producers acknowledge that beauty and glamour increases teen audiences but argue that teen audiences are discerning and critical, and will ultimately be attracted by strong narrative, good writing, and empathetic situations. They argue that soap can play a positive role in changing expectations and challenging stereotypes. This is demonstrated through the Coronation Street storyline of Molly and Tyrone, two typically 'ordinary-looking ' young people who have low self-esteem and are inhibited about their appearance, but overcome their sexual anxieties through talk and trust. The young people in the programme relate to this situation.
