Lies and soap…?
Published 1 year, 7 months ago in My life.
Having just watched Home and Away I can’t feel sympathy for any of the characters, they all deserve whatever fate befalls them.
Then I started to think of soaps in general and what a poor moral picture they paint. I’m no saint but these programmes are watched by young and old alike and the underlying message seems to be; if you’re in trouble - try to lie your way out of it, if you’re caught in a lie - cover it with another, and so on. OK, after weeks and weeks the offending liar may get caught, suffer retribution or whatever but by then the message has got through - lying is OK. Especially if the younger viewer misses the particular episode where the liar is caught out.
I’m not a prude and I don’t endorse censorship but surely the writers of this trivia should be asked to examine their values. The Waltons was too sugary sweet but a few examples of rewarding the right thing and punishing the wrong seems long overdue in the current crop of soaps.
Of course the writers and directors will say we need ‘baddies’ in order to create conflict in the storylines. I don’t have a problem with that at all. Its the curious, almost endemic desire that all characters should lie in order to achieve their ends that I find crass, boring, uninspired and not a true reflection of life in the real world.
14 Responses to “Lies and soap...?”
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It is for much the same reasons as you’ve listed that I will miss “The West Wing” when it winds up next week.
Now that is a soap with true depth!
If you haven’t been watching it, then do yourself a favour and hire season 1 and 2 on DVD.
At least the “baddies” and their behaviour made sense when viewed in the context of a political backdrop.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WATCHING THAT TRIPE! Dude, you have got to get a hold of yourself and watch Band of Brothers or something… Neighbours sheesh!
Let me get this straight: you think Home and Away is a reality tv show providing a keyhole glimpse into the real world of your average beachside community and because it’s real we need to start taking the behaviour of its inhabitants seriously?
Get a grip! It’s just low-brow (and I mean low-brow) escapism and isn’t presented as anything more. And if you still get confused or scared while you watch, just remember this — there’s men behind the cameras!
Next you’ll be telling us they should ban a certain car commercial showing a toddler driving a car because real-life toddlers might start taking off in their parents’ cars all over the place.
Phht! There goes my street cred (what litttle there was). Is it too late to say I looked in on half an episode and just wanted to make an observation ?
West Wing great, lying, conniving, cheatin’ - thats politics. But when every man and his dog in one street has a guilty secret it gets a bit repetitive. And when the kids get plonked in front of the haunted fish tank, while mum has her first (?) martini of the day, they soak up this garbage like it was real.
And isn’t escapism meant to transport you away from the hum-drum, not drag you down to even lower depths ?
It’s all too much. Waiter ! Another bottle please.
Hey don’t worry too much about it hannahsgranpa. I have one friend who swears by Ramsay St.
It was her way of holding on to something “Aussie” while working in the U.K. for several years. The Brits were playing it several seasons behind the Australian screening.
(Love her as much as I did, I just couldn’t muster the stomach to watch the Australian run and give her weekly updates ahead of the U.K. run).
Yes, these shows are terrible and in no way reflect “real life”. They have questionable ethics and moral values and for the most part, they have appalling subliminal messaging. They are shot on a very tight budget which means that the production values are shoddy and rehearsal time virtually non-existent. The major emphasis in the writing is not quality but quantity and getting it finished before the next ep needs to be shot. BUT and this is a huge but - Australian soaps are some of the ONLY consistent hirers of Australian actors, writers and technicians, and as such, are the only places in which valuable film and television experience can be obtained.
Whatever you may think of them as performers, people like Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce, Kylie and Dannii, Jason Donavan, Lisa McCune, Craig MacLoughlan, Natalie Imbruglia ( I apologise for incorrect name spellings ) and a host of others would never have got the experience or exposure necessary to launch their highly successful international careers if it wasn’t for Australian soaps. This is apart from the myriad of production people (directors, writers, camera people, costumers, lighting technicians, etc) who have passed through the ranks of Neighbours, Home and Away and the like, gaining valuable experience that makes Australian film technicians the most sought after and highly regarded in the world.
When working on one of these shows you must learn to make decisions quickly, and innovatively, work to a budget and come up with the goods again and again instantaneously.
The sort of skills that used to be obtained from working in Rep years ago and which is sadly no longer available.
No one, including those working on them, would for a moment suggest that these soaps are anything other than what they are; lightweight, sugary, unfulfilling, junk. But for what they are able to give to the industry, they are extremely valuable and should not be swapped for another half hour of “The Simpsons” or another re-run of “Everybody loves Raymond” for the world.
I agree with what you say g1 and have no objection to young aussie actors cutting their teeth on soaps. But why are the storylines so appallingly bad ? Its great when they tackle meaty issues such as lesbianism or alcoholism but all too often these are just ‘too hard’ and they fall back on the same old stories of deceit, adultery and the local tavern/hotel/restaurant burning down. No imagination.
Completely true, and I have to say that it isn’t only the Aussie soaps that are badly written. I think the story-lines are so bad because the budget is tight and the turnaround is so fast. There isn’t the time or the money available to develop characters and plots or do major rewrites.
In Neighbours, which has been going for 20 years, it must be quite difficult to keep fresh ideas and plots going and little wonder they often scrape the bottom of the barrel.
The writers must also bow to the producers and the sponsors - for instance if a particular actor is rating highly or the producers want to profile an actor and groom them for UK audiences the writers must script accordingly. Delta Goodram was a classic example of this.
Personally I think Australian television is, with very few exceptions, badly written. It is very sad, because the writing is the foundation of a show. A bad script is like building a house on a swamp; you can use the finest materials, employ the best builders and fill it with the most expensive and beautiful furnishings, but at the end of the day, it’s still going to sink.
“Try to lie your way out of it'’ sounds like a script for modern-day Australian politics as much as modern-day Australian soaps and “news and current affairs'’ programs are even more guilty than Home and Away of recycling the same old stories. Or at least I assume they are. I don’t watch either - (backing out of the room hoping no damage has been done to his street cred).
Hey Solomon,
Did you hear about that toddler that did drive his mum’s car a few weeks back?
He turned on the ignition, let off the handbrake and pinned his mum against the garage door, almost killing her.
Hmmm, very similar to that car insurance ad….
As for the soaps, there wouldn’t be a storyline if people told the truth straight away…..
Yes cordelhull I saw that story. So do you think the kid was motivated by
a/ some car ad that he would have no interest in and may or may not have seen once or twice before it was pulled?
or
b/ his Mum and Dad who he had seen start the car and put in gear hundreds of times - the same Mum and Dad who he thinks are pretty cool and who he wants to emulate in every act because if they do it it must be worth doing and because he downright idolise them?
We live in one of the greatest Nanny states of all time.
Sol, What about the video clip on Rage that had a 10 year old driving all over the Yank freeways while someone was singing, and he couldn’t even see over the steering wheel! That was aimed at teenagers and younger!
As far as I’m concerned apart from occasionaly 7 and 2 news and Timeteam on Tuesdays the TV in my house is OFF between 6pm and 7:30 most weekdays!
my wife had watched home and away since it started, she stopped watching it about 6 months ago as it’s filth was inappropriate for “family” viewing.as for me I never liked it or any of that type of rubbish………give me a good doco anyday
Computer Generated Graphics are great, you can fake anything.