The Soap Opera, a low form or cultural entertainment, can claim to be an extension of reality. Through it’s combination of a generally localised area, where repetitive lives and continuous stories emerge and disappear it takes it’s template from normal, and primarily working class life (i.e. Eastenders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street). Conventions reflect this through the use of locations, and issues which are dealt with, typically involving family conflicts. In this respect it can easily be seen why the term ‘imaginary community’ can be loosely attached to it. The imaginary community not only exists within the television but also outside of it, especially through conversation and tabloid / magazine space. The agendas of these conversations are devised initially by a proportion of the viewing audience who are no doubt avid and loyal fans, who either use the soap opera to escape the “despair by dwelling in other peoples problems” (Baym, 2000, p.41), or as a daily form of pleasure and entertainment. It is this quota of the audience who create the backbone idea of an imaginary community.
Neighbours is a successful soap opera in Britain even though it is produced in
Australia. The British audience undoubtedly connect to this text not so much through similarities in life style but more so through the characters and situations they are placed within as “‘soap fans’ principal enjoyment comes from experiencing the affect and emotion provoked by the storylines” (Ross and Nightingale, 2003, p.128). These communities evolve through understanding that “around the country (or even the globe when you consider the popularity of some
US and Australian soaps) millions of other people are deriving pleasure from the same texts” (Ross and Nightingale, 2003, p121). Using Neighbours as a primary text this essay will analyse the ideas of plot, genre conventions, soap as a predominantly female genre, scheduling and media space to discuss the concept of the soap opera as an imaginary community within the lives of its audience.
The soap opera genre comes with its own very strict framework which typifies a world revolved around female protagonists in the home environment, of whom are portrayed as powerful. Men are often seen as sensitive, while many storylines and characters are progressing at any given point in time. The women are involved in intimate conversations and creation of solutions to difficult problems, while the importances of relationships are always the focal point. The idea of actual time (i.e. it still exists even though we’re not watching it), lack of narrative closure and lack of cause and effect links between plotlines are also significant to the genres conventions (Brown, 1994, p48-49).
The iconography within this genre creates a distinct feeling of home, which the audience finds easy to relate to. A study by Abercrombie (1996, p.41-55) concluded that iconography is important in establishing the soap opera genre as they are predominantly about the relationships between characters and are therefore set in a domestic environment. It is credible to say therefore that the visual style is almost instantly recognisable. The audiences see this as extension of their own home and lives, and watch like they would watch their own neighbour or friend, anticipating what will happen next. They have the comfort however of having expectations set out by the genre conventions and can therefore predictably guess what is likely to occur to the characters, and then gain pleasure from watching this unfold. It is the sense of familiarity with the characters and spaces that firsts begins to embed a sense of another community with the audience. But most importantly, it is understood that the text is only a version of reality.
Neighbours is centred in a street with other locations including the coffee shop and local pub. These are places where relationships can begin, are forged, and then are built upon. Even if the audience do not have the local coffee shop to hand, they still have the living room of their home. As Geraghty (1995, p.71) points out; “Personal relationships are the backbone of soaps”, so soaps need the space where these relationships can grow, and conflicts can emerge. Hence in the small localised area of Erinsborough [in Neighbours] a community is born. The importance then of this community to be realistic and believable comes from a repetition of events, visits, and movements just like in real life. This is something the audience can appreciate.
Furthermore the starting credits show images of a BBQ and grass, in nice summary weather. Unlike other soaps such as Coronation Street which depict movement and life of main characters in central locations, Neighbours comes from a slightly different angle. Its cast appear smiling away as there picture on a plain background appears and disappears off the screen. The single image of sausages on a BBQ is the signifier of the coming together of family and friends. Immediately we get the feel of a place where, once again, relationships can flourish. This is a sense of community. The genre alone however cannot withhold the imaginary community together. The story and people within them are imperative.
Continuous plotlines help to reflect life as reality, and therefore its existence is reinforced through the history of both place and people, and also the construction of storylines. Soaps are probably the longest running television programs of all time, and their longevity is partly due to the characters within them. Characters, or families, are what instil a soap opera into people’s memories, and it is through these characters rather then plot where tension is created. It is the delivery of how the characters deal with the situations that give the audience pleasure. This loyal audience are built around the continual growth of these characters and families. At any one time several stories are occurring offering diversity. All this creates experience for each character which furthermore provides a social history for each one which both they and the audience are aware of and remember. Therefore soap time will forever run forward, but is well organised in such a way if reflects the reality of day to day life. (Abercrombie, 1996, p.41-55).
Another convention of the soap is the cliff hanger and the lack of narrative closure. Neighbours shows a variety of characters of all ages (although it sticks to mainly one class and race) from Stingray to Sky, Harold Bishop to Susan Kennedy. Plot lines revolve around relationships, adultery, jealousy, and revenge (in the analysed text) and at the end of the show a cliff-hanger and a lack of narrative closure helps to ensure the audience returns to find out what’s in store next. This open-endedness helps create the real time of a real community that is paralleled to our own. Geraghty (1991, p.84) states that “the soap opera format denies a final ending and the community can never therefore be finally and securely established” which reinforces that closure can never occur, just as life is never ending. As well as the cast being of mixed age, the same applies to the audience; “the teenage girl watching
Dallas may enjoy different things from her mother” (Geraghty, 1995, p.70) which suggests that although they may watch it for different pleasures hey still receive similar satisfactions.
Long after the television is turned off the topic of the soap opera lives on. It is typically believed that women create this discourse. With stories lasting anything from ten seconds, to thirty years (look at
Coronation Street
for a good example) and it is reoccurring storylines that give these women plenty to talk about. It has been idealised that:
“the viewers render storylines and narratives meaningful by relating them to their own lives or the lives of people they know. And it is the retelling of episodes and the discussion of plotlines which give fans an additional pleasure” (Ross and Nightingale, 2003, p.130)
as these issues focus mainly within the home and on women’s issues it is easy to see why women enforce much of the conversations about it. The imaginary community is arguably held together by women, as the soap opera is said to be a female genre. The female genre stereotypically includes;
“romance fiction women’s and girls magazines, television soap opera, film melodrama, and ‘weepies’. A radical definition would also include fashion, make-up, knitting, dress making, and other aspects of traditional women’s and girls’ culture and media” (Brunsdon, 2000, p.19).
Initially it was thought that the soap opera had the lowest status within the television industry, and critics often argue that due to the standard construction of soaps (repetitive and mundane), it is uncreative. Australian soaps have even been depicted for their apparent poor acting. For this sense this lower form of television was acceptable for women, as it provided them something they didn’t have to give much thought to while getting on with their housework. However the world of the soap opera is very much a feminine one, focusing on the home, on emotional feelings, and on strong women who solve difficult problems. (Abercrombie, 1996, p.41-55).
In support of this argument Geraghty (1995, p.71) points out that “soaps are not merely seen as silly but positively irritating and unmanly”, hence why men avoid the subject. “It is the most powerful member within the household who defines the hierarchy of ‘serious’ and ‘silly’, ‘important’ and ‘trivial’. This leaves women and their pleasures in films downgraded” (‘Boxed in’, 1987, p.50). Men do have a role within the stereotyping of the housewife watching the soap opera, and also in degrading it, although now more then ever, an ever increasing percentage of the soap operas audience is male. Nonetheless “soaps not without reason, were seen as a privileged site for the reproduction of the housewife stereotype, and were particularly loathed for their perceived address and appeal to women viewers” (Brunsdon, 2000, p.52). In this respect the housewife had found her place within television and was staying for good. As the housewife plays such a big part in a community (combined with other housewife’s and the working men) it is essential to have this, to some extent, stereotype in place.
Women relate more to soaps then men;
”for it is still women who are deemed to carry the responsibility for emotional relationships in our society – who keep the home, look after the children, write the letters or make the phone calls to absent friends, seek advice on how to solve problem’s consult magazines on how to respond ‘better’ to the demands made upon them” (Geraghty, 1995, p.72).
This is partly the reason why women make up such a large proportion of the exterior community which keeps the imaginary community alive. It was Carol Lopates wrote the essay “Daytime television: You’ll never want to leave home” (1976) which speaks volumes alone, and is supported by studies by Brunsdon and Modleski which claims the;
“so called ‘female’ skills; their scheduling on television which fits into the rhythm of women’s work at home which can be seen as specifically addressing a social audience of women (Brunsdon, 1981; Modleski, 1982)” (‘Boxed in’, 1987, p45).
These where generally scheduled during the afternoon when men were at work to give the woman not only something to watch on their lunchtime break, but also some personal time to reflect upon their own worlds and through the imaginary communities, how to deal with problems.
However the discourses involved are very interesting and occur more so in women then men;
“These popular texts form an important part of their friendship and association in their everyday lives and gives focus on almost separate female culture which they can share together within the constraints of their positions as wives and mothers” (‘Boxed in’, 1987, p.49).
This suggests that it creates a social circle from which to work from, and be apart of, almost like a secret community outside of the imaginary one on the television. Here ideas are reviewed and argued, then put into practice or disregarded. Women’s, and typically housewife’s concerns are provided through;
“television soap operas which women enjoy watching alone deal with things of importance to them, highlighting so called ‘female’ concerns – care of children, concern for members of ones own family, consideration for one’s own sexual partner, selflessness in character” (‘Boxed in’, 1987, p.50)
These issues are used to form a very coherent community. However the community isn’t just a whisper between ears. Over the many years of soap operas development, the imaginary community has grown.
Gossiping plays a big part in the watching of soaps as;
“gossip thus plays an important role and functions as another bridge between the audience and the soap opera, since the audience will also be commentating on the characters” (Abercrombie, 1996, p.53).
Then as mentioned previously, gossip will continue between programs “the way in which soaps partly have their existence in day-to-day conversations away from the television set” (Brunsdon, 2000, p.31). This creates a relationship with the imaginary community, and then relationships within their own lives.
The imaginary community doesn’t just stop at gossiping in the street to ones neighbour, or on the telephone to a relative. It plays a huge part in not only the media but also through the Internet. “The press, for instance, especially the tabloid press gives television soap operas a great deal of space” (Abercrombie, 1996, p.46). This allows for further discussion to take place within the extended imaginary community which I have now expanded to include the fictitious talk carried out after the television is turned off. Such magazines as Soap Opera Digest, Soap Opera Weekly and Ok magazine create another platform. The Internet is also host to web chats and forums where people can converse on a much wider scale, across the world;
“The more time I spent reading and posting to r.a.t.s1 , the less the collection of written messages seemed like lines of glowing green text. I saw in them instead a dynamic community of people with unique voices, distinctive traditions and enjoyable relationships” (Baym, 2000, p.1)
This helped create even further support for an ever growing and now real community. However it was questionable what makes a community after all within web forums the people never actually meet or give away details, participants may come and go very rapidly, not staying as part of the group for long, the medium of which they converse is a very basic and limited one. Nonetheless further gratification through talking with others is still achieved such as Bayms (2000, p.2) experience; “when I began to think of r.a.t.s as a ‘community’, I gravitated toward a term primarily for its arm, emotional resonance”. One of the main reasons for her belief in this community was the “wealth of information, the diversity of perspectives, and the refreshing sophistication of the soap opera discussion” (Baym, 2000, p.119).
There’s no doubt why soaps have become so hugely popular especially within the realms of the female audience and “it will not surprise anyone familiar with research on soap audiences that soap viewers are eager to talk about the shows” (Baym, 2000, p.14). Soap operas are a basic template of how life should be lived morally, and sensibly. With many hours a week dedicated to serials, magazines specifically designed for them, and online communities, the imaginary community created by the soap opera has relevance and importance in the lives of its audience. With it’s familiarity to life and home, and the relationship it has with mothers, housewife’s and the problems they tend to face, the imaginary community develops through not only talkback while watching the television but also through conversation after. Whether right or wrong give an impression of how to live your life. Another stage is that “soap opera’s offer people the chance to create relationships in which they can explore emotional reality together” (Baym, 2000, p.67) thereby through watching a soap you immediately become not only part of the imaginary community within the television but also of the bigger one outside of it. Satisfaction of watching others is essential; seeing how they deal with things as this helps to release the burdens of ones own life, almost through sharing troubles.
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Footnotes
1 rec.art.tv.soap a web forum where discussions on soap operas take place. This is said to be the odest forum of its kind.
Bibliography
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Nightinggale, V. and Ross, K. (Eds.). (2003). Media and Audiences.
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Further reading
Allen, R. C. (1985). Speaking of soap operas.
Chapel Hill.
University of
North Carolina Press. Allen, R. (Ed.). (1995). To be continued: Soap operas around the world.
London. Routledge.
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.
London. Verso.
Arnheim, R. (1944). The world of the daytime serial. In P. F. Lazarsfeld & F. N. Stanton (Eds.), Radio research (pp. 34-85).
New York: Duel, Sloan and Pearce.
Baehr, H. (1980). Women and media.
Oxford. Pergamon.
Baym, N. K. (1996). Interpreting soap operas and creating community: Inside a computer-mediated fan culture. Journal of Folklore research, 30(2/3), p.143-176.Brown, M. E. (1986). The politics of soaps: Pleasure and feminine empowerment. The Australian journal of cultural studies, 4, 1-25.
Brown, M. (Ed.). (1990). Television and women’s culture.
London. Sage Publications. Cantor, G. (1983). The Soap Opera.
London. Sage Publications.
Delaney, S. (1998). Soap Operas.
London. BFI National Library. Hobson, D. (2002). Soap Opera.
Oxford. Polity Press. Mumford, L. (1995). Love and ideology in the afternoon: Soap opera, women and television genre.
Bloomington.
Indiana
University Press.
Other resources
www.findarticles.com
Radio Timeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/
