Soap Operas

In soap operas there are always stereotypical aspects used, such as clothing, job roles and setting. An example of this is within almost every soap opera, there is the same sort of layout, such as they will always have a local watering hole, with will be the pub or a café. They will probably have takeaway shops and a local corner shops, this is always the same in such soap operas as Coronation Street and Eastenders. In these programs they all follow suit, with the shops and pubs, they’re just portrayed in different ways.

The storylines that the used, have a start middle and end, depending on the sort of plot point that is being used, if it is a storyline, they will usually plan out over a few months, maybe even up to a year. They don’t tend to resolve a big storyline in just one episode.

They also follow suit in with the same stereotypical conventional family and jobs. There will always be builders – who are usually big beefy, good looking men, business owners – who are stereotypically generally always women and a low skilled factory worker, with these factory workers they are usually women, for example in Coronation Street, in the knicker factory nearly all the women are workers while there only two men workers.

The same spectrum of characters are the same throughout all soap operas, there are the roles of the feminine male – which in Coronation Street is Shaun who works in the Rovers and also in the knicker factory, both of these occupations are very feminine jobs for a male to have. You also have the role of the vacant ditsy character, which in Coronation Street is Kirk, who also works in the knicker factory, packing boxers and doing deliveries. There is always a matriarch character, which is usually the mother hen of the street or a business. They are usually a highly respected character and a majority of the people on the street gets along with her, apart from one or two people, which are usually considered the bitch. The matriarch in Eastenders in Peggy, who is a mother hen to nearly all the people in the Square.

Then you get the conventional nuclear family with their own problems and sometimes with problems within their own family which then causes conflict and creates an on going storyline.

Next you get the family with and adopted child or a new mother/father trying to get along with their new stepchildren, within which the children don’t get along with her and blame them for their parents split.

There also tends to be a couple that are polar opposite to each other, and an example of this is Tim and Sally in Coronation Street. Sally is well educated, well spoken and has a decent job she’s also very nosey and wants to know everyone’s business, but is highly offended when people get involved in her business. Meanwhile Tim is poorly educated and more of a laidback character.

 In soap operas they usually tend to have one main storyline that can build up over multiple episodes throughout the year, and each episode a little bit more information is released to try and put all the clues together.

There is also smaller plot points in each episode too, so there is one more thing to focus on in the episodes and it doesn’t become boring to the viewers, as it cant always focus on the main plot.