The History and Conventions of Soap Opera
Created | Updated Aug 1, 2003
History
This entry will mainly focus on British soap operas, but the history, conventions and formats detailed below can also apply to other soaps all over the world.
‘Soap Opera’ is a phrase first coined in the 1930s in the USA. It was used to describe radio series which were sponsored by the manufacturers of soap powder – hence ‘soap’. The ‘opera’ came from the fact that they were about dilemmas and other dramatic or even melodramatic situations.
As their popularity grew, these serials became televised in the 1950s. They spread across the world and grew and grew.
Coronation Street is the longest running TV soap in the world, but it is predated by a radio soap, The Archers, a rural soap opera broadcast on BBC Radio 4. After the successes of Dallas (among others) in America, soap suddenly became more popular again in the ‘80s. This caused the inception of new British soaps such as Brookside and Eastenders. Also, the success of Australian soaps like Neighbours and Home and Away caused British soaps to reconsider their target audience and therefore, their characters. These Australian soaps tended to be aimed at teenage viewers with characters and plots suitable for that age. British producers decided to follow suit, for example, the British soap Hollyoaks is aimed primarily at young people. This change in the target audience proved to be a very shrewd move.
Consequently, soaps are now more popular than ever.
Conventions
A soap opera almost always has the following conventions:
It is a serialised drama that usually runs all year.
It features continuous storylines (or ‘narratives’) dealing with domestic themes and personal or family relationships.
It generally has a well-known theme tune and start sequence which change little over the years.
There is a limit to the number of characters, allowing the soap to focus on a smaller number, thus allowing more time to be spent on each so that the audience knows them better and the storylines can be more detailed.
The plots are open-ended and usually many storylines are featured or even interlinked in an episode. Often they follow the same issue, for example, two seperate characters dealing with the break-up of a relationship. The storylines in this case run parallel.
They are often set around a small central area such as a square (as in Eastenders) or a cul-de-sac (such as Brookside). If this is not the case, there is usually something else connecting the characters. For example, most of the characters in El Dorado were ex-pats.
Soaps often have special episodes for events in the real world such as Christmas or the millenium.
British soaps most often feature common, ordinary, working class characters, while American soaps often deal with richer characters, reflecting the preference of respective their target audiences.
Soaps are realistic, or, at least, aim for realism.
Soaps often begin with a ‘hook’ in which one or more of the narratives from a previous episode are continued. The episode will undoubtedly end with a ‘cliff-hanger’ (a tense and suspenseful, undeveloped piece of dialogue or action – for example, a character finding out that their fiancée has just died).
Three, four or even five storylines will be in progress during any one episode, with the action switching between them. As one narrative is resolved, another, completely different one, with other characters begins. The characters go from quiet, harmonic (but uninteresting) periods to chaotic, confusing (but interesting) dilemmas. The action simply concentrates solely on the latter.
Characters
There are certain types of characters that can be seen to be common among many soaps:
The Grandmother Figure – A wise old person, usually female. This character helps others with their problems with advice and support. He/She has lots of contact with many of the other characters.
The Strong Woman – An independent, powerful, aggressive woman. She can usually be found at the centre of conflicts.
Jack-The-Lad – A male character that manipulates others to his own ends. Often the stock ‘baddie’. This character may become softened over time, and this often leads to him becoming the comic relief of the soap.
Young Couple – A couple that bravely face the difficulties of life, through their own, serious relationship problems.
Troublesome Oldie – An older, grumpy, meddling, interfering character, always with his/her nose in everyone else’s business. For all his/her faults this character is still loved for his/her generally good intentions.
Feisty Young Female – A strong-willed problem, almost always young, who desires independence. She is usually argumentative and miserable.
The Boss Figure – Usually male, in a position of authority. He continues his natural authority and leadership into his personal life. He may also be combined with the Jack-the-lad character.
Music and Camerawork
Music is rarely used in soaps, excluding the theme tune and background music. Lighting varies from soap to soap and generally is pretty basic - special effects are not used. This helps to create realistic light levels and adds to realism. Camera work is basic – shots such as ‘point of view’ or ‘high angle’ are not used in soaps. The camera shows the action very much like a casual observer would see it if they were actually in the scene. Scenes are generally short, to avoid the audience becoming bored - two minutes or so is considered to be the maximum viewing time for one scene. Instead, a soap features many short scenes, switching between different narratives.
Settings and Storylines
British soaps have a strong regional identity – for example, Eastenders is set in the East End of London, while Manchester is the setting for Coronation Street. This is not just to attract viewers from that area, but also to make it more realistic. The area that the soap is set also has an effect on it’s plotlines and characters – soaps set in rural areas are usually more community based, with fewer characters, who treat each other better than in a larger, urban-set soap.
They are deeply community based and usually have a central meeting point (often a pub) where all the characters meet. To draw on the examples of the two most popular British soaps: The Queen Vic from Eastenders and The Rover’s Return pubs from Coronation Street. These meeting points are featured in every episode and are often the settings for major events in the history of the soap. Their important position in the soap makes them symbols of that soap, and fans visit from far and wide to view this meeting point in real life.
British soaps deal with ‘controversial’ issues such as homosexuality, drugs and underage pregnancies. These issues stir up public debate and media interest, pushing up ratings.
In recent years, producers and scriptwriters have begun to bring in characters with serious illnesses, such as cancer. This provides interesting storylines, with plenty of tension. It also gets an emotional response from viewers, along with high ratings. A birth, marriage and even a death have a way of injecting new interest into a soap. These characters have helped these illnesses to become better known and more ‘acceptable’. Interestingly, this has given rise to a phenomenon known as ‘telly-belly’. Soap producers are anxious to ensure that all medical details are correct when it comes to these illnesses and soap fans have realised that their own symptoms are similar to those of these characters. When they visited their doctors, they found that they too, had the illness - or more likely, just thought they did.
The Appeal of Soaps
Many people watch soaps because it pleases us to see and hear other people’s problems, because it distracts us from our own. However, a soap opera has no victims, as the characters, of course, are not real. We like to make guesses about their actions and reactions based on our knowledge of them. We like to see them develop as we get to know them, and we enjoy learning about the complex relationships between characters. We become semi-experts on our favourite soaps, and our encyclopaedic knowledge of them, fuelled by the above points, gives us great pleasure. In a voyeuristic manner, we like to watch other people’s lives, as, in the case of soap operas, they are just like ours, but more interesting.
From the point of view of broadcasters, soaps are good because they are very cheap to produce, yet have huge audiences, and therefore, huge revenues. They can often run for years without coming to an end - Coronation Street is more than 40 years old. Sets are used again and again, special costume is not required and little or no location filming is ever needed. They are also quick to produce with each minute of recording taking only one hour to film. This may sound like a lot, but other types of programmes take much longer. Not all soap operas are sucessful - there are some, such as El Dorado and the revival of Crossroads which do not catch the interest of the viewers and these usually end up being dropped after a few years (sometimes less).
Channels maintain an unspoken agreement that their soaps are not scheduled for the same time. This is because a planned ratings war would not help either broadcaster, as has been proven by past experience.
Advertising slots in soaps are expensive to purchase but guarantee large numbers of viewers seeing the advert. There are also numerous oppurtunities for the programme makers to sell themed items based on their soap, which have large markets of fans to be sold to.
