The way soap opera are constructed in reality
The soap opera’s that I have been currently studying are Hollyoaks and Eastenders, which are well known soaps. I am going to be analysing the themes, technical codes, theories of realism and the characters. The most common themes in soap operas are:
Pregnancy/teenage pregnancy, relationships, cancer, murder, comedy, love triangles, affairs, death and cliff hangers. These things generally seem to come up in soap operas.
Themes
The reason why themes are used in soap operas or the media is to target people with real life issues. Majority of the themes above happen in everyday life and this is why they are so popular and get used over and over again, they undertake real life issues for those who are under going such problems. These theme do only help those who are going through these current problems but also it help everyone in the world understand what others are going through and may help for example stop teenage pregnancy. However it has it’s down side and this is because sometimes theses issue can be sensitive topic for many people and soap operas may make the situation worst or exaggerate a little bit. Sometimes the audience tends to forget that soap operas are not real and take it so seriously and example was the big story line of ‘who killed Archie Mitchell’ even though this wasn’t real plenty of people make this topic the centre of there conversations. The media realises that some of there themes are a bit thin-skinned so this is why they put a help line at the end. This help line tells us that all the issues I soap operas are real and happening today so people can put a stop to it.
Characters/mise on scene
The characters in soap operas are the one who make it more of a reality. This is because In order for them to act the part of for example someone who takes drugs, they must look and act the part which takes us to mise on scene. The characters hair and make-up is what give them the look of who they are acting, it wouldn’t make any sense to get someone who is dirt-free and clean to play the part of someone taking drugs because it would not be believable to the viewers. Also the characters costume give a reality effect because in society we judge people o how they look and this allows us to judge their personality’s. for example if someone walks out pregnant we immediately know they are pregnant ad this happens in real life so the audience would believe it. Also in soap operas there are always iconic things such as in eastenders there is the queen vic and Albert square this is where majority of the scene take place however this isn’t very realistic because in everyday life different things occur in different places. Another thing that gives a very realistic effect is props, if there was no such thing as props in soap operas then it would not be realistic at all because every where we go in society there is thing such as phones, I pods, bags, sunglasses, purses and so on. Soap operas are not really as bright as films. The colours are washed away and this is to give it a realistic effect.
