Researching Characters. Taken from forums.

I looked at an online forum discussing on a site called digitalspy.com . I had a look through some general discussions based on soaps then found one that was particularly interesting that gave me an insight into what audiences want. The discussions was about favourite or most memorable characters from soaps. The results were as followed;

Peggy Mitchell - Landlord of The Queen Vic, shows her businesses mind brain which is a rare thing in society today. Known to be 'feisty' and openly speaks her mind and come be aggressive at times. Holds the reputation of being a 'Mitchell'.

Chrissie Watts - Kills her husband showing shes in charge. She also buried him under the pub to show that she's strong and deranged.

Kat Slater - Is the popular independent women on the square. She appears very confident and seems to be the centre of things.

Pat Evans - domineering and known to be in fights.

I've chose these women at random as a case study. It's true that to make a successful soap a common convention is to show strong women, as the majority of viewers are middle aged women. Most of the female cast are not shown to be vulnerable, timid or insecure which is not a realistic representation as recent statistics show 1 in 6 women have been raped or 'taken advantage' of. So soaps house this element of realism but in the wrong context as, not every women clearly speaks her mind. It's a known social issue that communication is lacking in relationships (partners, families etc) so therefore all the confrontations that arise involving these women and other characters are false representations of realism.
'Little Mo' was one character that was shown to vulnerable and insecure and generally quite weak. She's stood out like a 'sore thumb' in comparisons to the other characters at the time. It just seems that now there's no real balanced representation. Stacey's Mum was another 'weak' female character and when she was first introduced (due to a big enigmatic build) she seemed in quite a sever statement yet her recovery procedure was not involved in a main storyline, possibly due to the taboo subject of mental health.


So we're following this trend as a female will be in control of the organisation and therefore being shown dominating and in power. We'll develop this idea and show her at a more vulnerable stage to have a fully established and realistic characterisation.