Soap Operas

Soap Operas

Soap opera can be defined by looking at the two words separately: The

word soap originated from soap powders because the women used to stay

at home looking after the house and children and would watch T.V while

doing the ironing and it would show soap powder adverts between

programmes. The word opera means emphasis on emotion. Soap operas were

first heard on the radio during the war because they didn’t have much

money and it was not safe to go out.

There are many formal features in soaps and they are time, settings,

narrative and characters.

All soaps last half an hour each episode and they all show ‘real time’

focusing on real events like those experienced by the audience that

day (e.g. Going to work or having a family feud) although some

episodes are quite exaggerated compared to audiences real life. There

are ways that soaps show ‘real time’: they have the same days (e.g. In

Tuesday’s episode of Eastenders you may hear Alfie talking about what

he is going to do in the pub Wednesday) having special events at the

same time (e.g. Bank holiday, New Year, Christmas etc) also the

episodes take place in continuous real time – life goes on a daily

basis between episodes also known as ‘unrecorded existence’.

The use of setting in soaps is normally limited and usually shows the

same areas as the audience are familiar with this and it also creates

more realism in the soap. The usual settings in soaps are houses,

shops, cafes, laundrettes and many more. In Eastenders and Coronation

Street they both have pubs, which are used as the main focus setting

where you see all the characters together expanding possible

narrative. In all soaps the settings are very out in the open where

everybody knows everybody and one person’s business is everyone else’s

it is very public, soaps use many community settings. Although some of

the settings are quite private where discussions are in people’s

houses hidden from all the other people in the community.