Social Realism

Social Realism is the Realistic Depiction in Art of Contemporary Life, as a Means of Social or Political Comment.

To give the soap opera a social realism feel there is minimal editing to give the sense of verisimilitude and allows the audience to feel as if they are there in the soap. Soap operas tend to have characters that are working class/ordinary everyday people allowing the audience to relate to the characters. This is one of the reasons why soap operas have such a wide appeal to people of all ages and also because they contain characters of all ages and backgrounds.

Soap Opera storylines-

Tragedy	The Woolpack Flood and Siege (Emmerdale)	Enjoy the Ride (Hollyoaks)	Kirsty’s Abuse of Tyrone (Coronation Street)	The Brannings deal with Tanya’s cancer diagnosis (Eastenders)	Lauren's struggle with alcohol (Eastenders)
Death	Sam's assisted suicide (Doctors)	Sienna plots to steal Nancy's life (Hollyoaks)	Lauren's murder (Doctors)	Hayley’s Cancer (Coronation Street)	Lucy’s death (Eastenders)
Danger	Jackson's choice (Emmerdale)	Carla's rape ordeal (Coronation Street)	Jas Stalking (Doctors)	Dr Browning's vengeance (Hollyoaks)	Cameron turns killer (Emmerdale)

Storylines in depth-

The Woolpack Flood and Siege (Emmerdale)-  This storyline included Debbie Dingle, Chas Dingle, Zak Dingle, Diane Sugden, Bernice Blackstock, Nicola King, Marlon Dingle, Priya Sharma, David Metcalfe, Alicia Gallagher, Ruby Haswell, Dan Spencer and Jack Sugden Jr.

The three-time killer was electrocuted in the flooded cellar of the Woolpack after being outmanoeuvred by the combined forces of Chas , Debbie and Marlon Dingle. At the start of this evening’s episodes, it looked like the writing was on the wall for Chas and Debbie as an increasingly deranged Cameron began to lose control. But pub chef Marlon – who had been knocked out earlier in the week – came to their rescue after regaining consciousness.

After smashing Cameron over the head with a bottle, Marlon turned the tables on the murderous hostage-taker. But it took a final battle in the Woolpack cellar before Cameron was overpowered. For a brief moment, it looked as though Debbie was going to die alongside her ex-lover after the pair of them slipped beneath the depths. But Debbie’s last-ditch effort to save her own life saw Cameron lose his as he reached out for a light fitting that had come into contact with the rising flood water. As Debbie fled the scene, Dingle patriarch Zak (Steve Halliwell) reassured his granddaughter with the words: “You’re safe. He’s where he belongs. In hell.”

Enjoy the Ride (Hollyoaks)- The storyline focuses on the double wedding of Tony Hutchinson and Cindy Cunningham alongside Ste Hay and Doug Carter. Jono and Ruby Button plan to elope to Gretna Green so Maddie Morrison steals a minibus. Bart McQueen and Esther Bloom plan to stop the wedding. They momentarily distract Maddie, causing her to swerve off the road. Maddie is unable to stop due to the minibus' faulty brakes and crashes into the venue of the double wedding, endangering the wedding party and the occupants of the minibus. The minibus later explodes, causing further danger for the characters. 

The first episode aired on E4's first look service and achieved the best Friday first-look ratings for Hollyoaks in over two months with 0.554 million viewers. When the episode aired on Channel 4 it was watched by 1.03 million viewers. E4's first look of the second episode achieved ratings of 0.567 million while it was watched by 1.06 million during the Channel 4 broadcast. The third episode of the week's E4 broadcast was watched by 0.684 million viewers while the Channel 4 broadcast was viewed by 1.05 million. The fourth episode's E4 broadcast which featured the deaths of three characters was viewed by 0.970 million. This was the highest E4 rating for Hollyoaks of 2012 and the most-watched multichannel programme of the day. When the fourth episode aired on Channel 4 it brought 1.04 million viewers. The final episode of the week was watched by 0.780 million viewers on E4. When the episode aired on Channel 4 it achieved 1.19 million viewers, which were the highest ratings for of the Enjoy the Ride storyline for Channel 4. As a result of the storyline, the E4 broadcast of the aftermath of the storyline continued to achieve high ratings for the serial

Hayley’s Cancer (Coronation Street)- In her final week alive, Tyrone takes Hayley to the salon for a makeover although Roy had told her to stay at home and rest. She then realises she wants to die soon and tells Roy. On 20 January 2014, she tells Roy she wants to die that day, leaving Roy distraught. Whilst Roy is in The Kabin, Hayley irons his best shirt for her funeral. Norris Cole  notices that Roy is even more unhappy than usual, and asks if he is alright, but he claims to be fine. Roy arrives back at the café and is confronted by Gloria Price with "customer feedback". Hayley begins to write out letters for Tyrone and Fiz's children, but stops as she realises that they will be worthless, because Hope and Ruby will not remember her anyway, as they are too young. Roy tries one final time to stop Hayley from going through with her plan, but Hayley is adamant. Roy makes sure that she is comfortable and selects a piece of music that they both like. Hayley tells Roy that whatever happens, he must not touch the glass containing the lethal cocktail. Prepared to drink the cocktail, Hayley is interrupted by Tyrone, who knocks on the door to ask Roy if he dropped Ruby's toy in their flat. Roy plays "The Lark Ascending" by Vaughan Williams, which is a mutual favourite of theirs, and then sits on the bed with Hayley. She drinks the cocktail quickly, killing her. Unaware that this has happened, Anna is sitting downstairs alone in the cafe after deciding to close early. Carla knocks on the door, demanding to see Hayley. Anna lets her in with a worried look on her face. Carla admits she has had a bad feeling about it over the past few days. Anna attempts to stop Carla from knocking on the flat door, but she does so anyway. There is no answer, so Anna eventually gives Carla the spare key and they both enter the flat together. To their shock, they find a deceased Hayley on the bed, with Roy's arm around her. Hayley is later cremated following a humanist funeral. A peak audience of 10.2 million people tuned in to watch her final moments.

The two-part story had an average audience of 9.6 million for the first episode at 19:30 GMT and 9.4 million at 20:30 GMT. The storyline created a wide range of opinions, many felt that the issue was handled in a sensitive way and dealt with correctly however others felt that the story was glamorised by being shown on TV and made light of assisted suicide.

Lauren's struggle with alcohol (Eastenders) – This storyline included Lauren, Tanya, Joey, Max Branning and Jake Stone.  Walford wild child Lauren Branning’s battle with the bottle has been one of the most harrowing soap storylines of 2013, as the feisty EastEnders party girl’s love of the booze escalated from binge drinking to full-blown alcoholism. Tortured teen Lauren started binge drinking while her mum Tanya was suffering from cancer, then continued to try to drink her worries away during a torrid fling with her own cousin, Joey.
However, as Lauren’s addiction spiralled out of control, parents Max (Jake Wood) and Tanya (Jo Joyner) resorted to locking her up in the house during a ‘cold turkey’ cure attempt. When that failed, Tanya finally forced Lauren to go to a rehab clinic. Although at times hard to watch, Lauren’s descent into addiction has been widely praised by viewers, critics and even charities who work with real-life alcoholics. 6.36m (34.3%) watched at 7.30pm on BBC One as Lauren arrived back on Albert Square, while BBC Three's repeat screening secured 346k (2.3%) at 10.30pm. The soap was also praised by the British Liver Trust for its portrayal of Lauren Branning's alcoholism.

[Alice]