h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, any fictional human story type serialisations.
I can understand fact based stories cos they tell you about someone who actually existed. Sometimes a 'someone' sometimes a 'no one' and everyones life stories are different and interesting in often unexpected ways. But they all happened. Someone actually did that, said that, *lived* that.

But why this fascination with making it up? Making up a whole load of characters and then getting them to interact and making that bit up too. All completely engineered and fake.

Why? There's 6.5 billion people in the world. Surely that's enough human stories for anyone? I just need to go round my friends, down the pub, into town, to work, on holiday and all around me are hundreds of people going about they daily lives and interacting, having bad days, good days etc etc.

And the great thing is they are all real. It all matters, to someone. It affects things and it can be used to learn about society and people.

So why the fascination of some people with a fictionalised version?

I'm not saying it is wrong or less worthy than so mething or owt like that. Just that I don't understand it!

From my veiw point I believe people just enjoy watching people going through calamatous (is that a word???) times on tv without anyone really being harmed which is why more bad things happen to a soap charactor or a particular street than can ever happen in real life, which says something for the human race enjoyin gmisery inflicted on others

Hmm, on that basis there should not be any novels or works of fiction of any kind? Where do you draw the line?

Soaps are meant to be entertainment and by using fictional characters they are not open to being sued for defamation, libel etc etc. Your experience of what happened - say - last Saturday night could be very different from the experience of those who were with you...so which version do you broadcast?

"Hmm, on that basis there should not be any novels or works of fiction of any kind? Where do you draw the line?"

Well, I drew the line at this point:
"Well, any fictional human story type serialisations."

And you'll find that is a very large body of fiction which does not rely on character interactions.

I think you'll find there's a much larger body of fiction that does. Almost all fiction in fact. Without human interaction there's not much left to write about. Even Orwell's 1984 has a love interest.

Soaps, however, take it too far - they're almost all about confrontation. I don't like the message that sends to people who are easily influenced.

BH, "Almost all fiction in fact" Exactly. Almost. And then there is plenty that does have it, but only as secondary or tertiary level interest.
But that isn;t my point which is why I started all this talking about serialisations.

There does seem to be a lot confrontation and bad stuff happening to people in soaps. Yet there's even more and even worse happening to real people all round the world all the time.

Surely there's enough bad stuff going on without having to make up more? Or is it that it is 'safe' bad stuff so our voyeuiristic tendancies, the car crash mentality, can be indulged without guilt cos no one is really being hurt?

What do you mean by serialisations? The are plenty of trilogies (some in five parts) that rub along with the same characters interacting (sometimes on the wings of planes!) with each other and confronting new situations. Should these be frowned upon too?

Yeah, the rolling story type thing with particular aim in mind.

Like hhgttg?

I'm equally perplexed kelli. And I think Ictoan needs to define 'human interaction'. There are very few pieces of fiction which have absolutely no human interaction - ie, no humans in the story. Kids' stories involving animals (even Winnie the Pooh has Christopher Robin) and sci-fi stories involving only aliens, for instance.

As a matter of fact I've been reading less fiction and more biographies lately, so I guess I'm going with the 'there are plenty of real-life stories so why make up any more?' argument.

So, if we just told real people's stories, there'd be no Lord of the Rings, no Animal Farm, no The Man Who Would be King, no Clochemerle, no Stranger in a Strange Land, no Grapes of Wrath, no Neuromancer, no 1066 and All That, no To Kill a Mockingbird.

But we would still have On the Road I guess.

I don't think it's the fact of being fictional which appeals to people, but you don't have the same kind of access to real people's lives as you do with characters on a soap. If you had the lives of thirty real people on hidden cameras, and could see them in their own kitchens in the middle of their own crises, I've no doubt it would top the ratings.

The same things are happening to people all around us, as you say Ictoan, but the level of disclosure isn't the same.

Incidentally, I do think people *are* just as interested in the lives of those around them - that's one of the reasons gossiping is such a popular pastime!

Oooh, naughty kelli!

"Should these be frowned upon too?"

No one, as far as I am aware, is frowning on anything! Specially not me. I just don't understand the issue

I think it is the appeal of specifically television programs of an endless nature like the television soap you are attempting to explore here Icky?

Does your fiction/non-fiction divide mean you approve of Big Brother

Ah, I can you've explained a little more while I've been composing that last post.

Let me draw a comparison. I read both 'William' and 'Jennings' books when I was a kid and those were both 'rolling stories' with no particular aim or end in mind - their authors simply kept writing them as and when inspiration came to them.

JK Rowling has said, however, that she always intended to write only seven Harry Potter Books and kill off certain characters at the end.

So, does Harry Potter fall into line with your definition by not being a 'rolling, unending story'?

Well star trek was not much more than Bonnanza set in space but many people regard it as a classic. Why when in essence it was only the costumes, sets and the props that changed?

I hate the contrived way soaps have a turnover of young good lucking neices and nephews shamelessly brought in to up the eye candy stakes in the same way that long lost brothers and sisters with a dark secrets have a habit of turning up to stir things up when the plot is getting a bit dull. As for whose the father of the baby, will Sheila come out of her coma and identify Gregg as the driver or the perrenial can they raise enough cash to save the business plotlines you'd think people would get bored seeing the same plots regurgitated.

YOU or I might think that but it is just as likely, no its evident, that others dont mind a bit of easy to digest TV with anything difficult or challenging left for late night drama and avantgarde film and theatre.

OK, although not a soap addict, I have watched Eastenders from when it started many years ago.
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I think people watch soaps as the can identify with their favourite characters, hate their favourite baddy and maybe even learn something sometimes. I quite enjoy when Eastenders has street parties, etc, as it is something most people are involved with in real life. I think part of the attraction is the consistancy of knowing that it will continue in a familar vein when real life is somewhat unpredictable.
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Eastenders is not afraid to cover issues that are not talked about sometimes, like Mark having AIDS when it was little talked about. Recently they showed a fairly long story of someones disabled husband dieing. At the moment the mother of one young actress is suffering from severe mental health problems. What is good is that they have a help line after such programmes for those who suffer such problems in real life.
One long tradition is that Eastenders always has, in the cafe, posters from real life campains on wall, like mental health week, etc.