Chapter 4 Sexual Content in Soap Operas - Leicester Research ...

Sex and Sexuality: A Content Analysis of Soap Operas
shop, The Kabin. Coronation Street has always thrived on a wide range of strong
characters especially female characters who tend to be middle-aged, dominant and
more important and present than their male counterparts. Its storylines deal with
personal events rather than directly tackling social issues. Finding romance and love
is always a recurring theme. Daniel Chandler (1994) notes that Coronation Street:
‗[i]ncludes strong and positive middle-aged females who are the first to
spring to mind when viewers are asked to recall the characters. It deals with personal
events. Work away from the home is seldom shown. Political and social
explanations for events are largely supplanted by personal explanations based on the
innate psychological factors of individuals or (occasionally) on luck... People meet
in shops and the pub to comment on events. Life seems to revolve around finding a
partner. The introduction of outsiders to the community is usually presented as a
threat.‘ 9
In the past, Coronation Street was often criticised for not having major non-
white characters in its storylines to reflect the multicultural demography of the UK,
and not handling big social issues, such as unemployment, alcoholism, domestic
violence, homosexuality, teenage pregnancy and so forth (Goodwin & Whannel
1990: p. 124; McQueen, 1998) However, Hobson (2003) acknowledges the fact that
Coronation Street struggled to incorporate blacks and Asians into its storylines and
‗has never been obvious in its social stories‘ whilst maintaining that ‗in recent years
it has become one of the leading series for the inclusion of serious issues and is now
absolutely at the forefront of this aspect of the genre,‘ and it has recently tried
carefully to incorporate ethnic characters to give positive representations (pp.114-
126).
3.2.2.2 EastEnders
Produced by the BBC, EastEnders was first broadcast on 19 th February 1985 on
BBC1, and it has continued to be broadcast ever since. It originally started as two
9 In Chandler, D. (1994) The TV Soap Opera Genre and Its Viewers. Aberystwyth University
[Online], available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/soaps.html [Accessed
on 7, June, 2009]
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