What do housewives, amnesia, abduction of children, soap and opera have in common? For the contemporary public all these words are associated with television serials or soap operas. Let’s be honest: soaps are watched not only by people who have a lot of time to kill including students, teenagers, working men and women as well as the much maligned stay-at-home wife and mother (though, in reality, she probably has less free time than any of the above mentioned).
There was a time when local channels were famous for their thematic plays — 13 episodes built around a central story that had a proper beginning, middle and end and was characterised by crisp writing, superb direction and brilliant acting. But as the calibre of our own product went down, our screens were flooded with tragedies of bahus from foreign channels. If imported fare wasn’t bad enough, our local producers immediately jumped on the bandwagon and began producing their own soaps, as a result our small screens are now happily occupied with the second generation of bahus; both the local and imported variety.
One should admit — the quality of plays improved marginally, the dialogues became livelier and scenes came closer to reality. But by and large, the format is still unchanged. The story can continue for years, episode after episode. Heroes get married, divorced, get old, their children grow up, etc., giving us a sense of involvement, as if we are watching the lives of our good friends. At the same time, their lives do not interfere with our own: screen friends neither request us to lend money, nor disturb us at inconvenient times with complaints nor ask us to pick their child from school or run errands — their friendship comes with no emotional baggage and freedom from liability.
There is another reason why a busy man of today is so hooked on soaps: time in serials flows slower than in real life. Key points of the previous episode are repeated at the beginning of the next, the dialogues are stretched, and past events are presented in the form of flashbacks. Even if you miss a few episodes, the pace of action is such that the story will have barely moved forward in the meantime. This delivers a sense of stability in the otherwise frantic pace of real life.
The plot of any soap opera contains conflicts, intrigues, sudden exciting discoveries and what not; as such they provide an escape from our humdrum lives. Young moms, students with tight schedules, workaholics — all of them, following the vicissitudes of the characters on the screen, get a vicarious thrill by sharing their hero/heroine’s escapades. At the same time these adventures are firmly rooted within the context of a real world and ‘real’ family, making them easier to relate.
By the way, have you ever wondered why the majority of soap heroes and heroines are characterised by tremendously slow wits, unable to solve elementary puzzles or notice obvious signs (lying, betrayal, hidden dangers, etc.)? This is also a director’s trick to keep the viewer’s attention. We are so busy trying to warn the characters about the dangers they face — “Why don’t you understand, he has deceived you!”, “Be careful!”, “Do not go there!”, that for a short time, we forget our own troubles.During the course of the story, we have already guessed that something important would happen (wedding, reunion, exposure of villain), but the makers of the play deliberately delay the moment, keeping us hooked, day after day.
In addition to the “bungler-heroes”, who remain unaware of what’s going on around them until the last moment, there are also super smart, super vigilant and super prudent characters in soap operas. Watching these people makes us feel assured and believe that there are people who can resolve everything. How often we miss this feeling in our real life!
And of course, do not forget the beauty and glamour we are presented with. The screen heroines are slim, their clothes are gorgeous; the heroes’ all have high powered jobs; their cars are big and their houses bigger than any of their audience can afford in real life. This is the stuff that allows us to slip away from reality and live in a dream for half an hour or so.
Yes, soaps are not a work of art, but they are a little oasis of leisure that provides some mental relief to the exhausted and overburdened man and woman. But, as with any other drug, their ‘administration’ should comply with the dosage; otherwise relaxation can turn into apathy, desire to forget problems can transform into escapism from reality, and an addiction to a fantasy life can turn into indifference to our own.