To not quite understand the fuss over Eastenders

[MistletoeMush]

This may have already been done, but I just don't understand all the fuss. Its a story, the people involved are not real. Surely one of the purposes of drama is to explore situations, dilemas, emotions etc which it would not be possible to explore in real life. Also are soaps not famous for tackiling difficult issues, murder, teen pregnancy, rape, kidnap, violence, disasters, adultary, death by various means. Why is this storyline so much worse?

I don't really get it either, don't watch these things any more and only know about the 'controversy' from reading on here.

IMO 'soaps' are ridiculous pantomime-like things that bear no relation to anything that happens in real life (and aren't supposed to), and tend to get stuck in a cycle of needing increasingly outrageous and sensationalistic storylines to pull in viewers. I agree this storyline sounds awful and stupid, but it's supposed to be cheap tacky brainless entertainment, nothing more. When I was a student I used to watch the American soaps like Days of Our Lives and Sunset Beach, you would not believe some of the preposterous plotlines they came up with, it was just ridiculous. But that was kind of the point of them. If you don't like it just turn it off.

Personally now I'd rather read a book (or waste hours on MN :))

I actually agree with Rockbird. That's exactly what the BBC does with Eastenders. Makes a huge fuss about how well they research topics, puts up the helplines at the end of a show....I think they even said they had consulted FSIDs on the storyline and now FSID have issued a statement saying they weren't.

No-one is saying Eastenders is real but it is watched by millions of people and it prides itself AND puts out media saying it portrays real issues well and they just haven't done a good job this time.

Coupled with the fact that they showed this sort of storyline over Christmas, a time when it's hard for any family of a bereaved person has made a lot of people think that they have just taken this storyline one step too far this time.

I'm actually pleased that, as a society, we can say when we find things distasteful and that it gets press!

I don't get the furor either - people do occasionally steal babies, it's pretty obvious they're not implying that all bereaved mothers do, they're showing that this already slightly unhinged character did

someone's swapped ben mitchell for the second time and no-one's noticed, but that seems to be ok

The story of Ali and Sues baby was a long time ago and from what I remember they did a good job , so why do they get to do a shite job this time ?

They like to get the praise when they get a story line right and they have the actors on their safe little day time sofas looking all smug with themselves so with that must come a backlash when they get it so spectacularly wrong .

I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this but I am surprised at how many people seem to want me to change my mind about it .
Why does it matter to you all that a lot of us are offended by this ?

pmsl @ ben mitchell swap.

Ben Mitchell is not only a new actor they completely changed his character same with Lauren! what is happening with EE

I don't think anyone is trying to get you to change your mind TravellingWilbury. You are entitled to your opinions as are those who think it is a rediculous programme and feel anyone who actually believes it is real must be barmy.

I agree with Ephiny.

Soaps are just a load of rubbish, one sensationalist story line following another. I don't think they were always this bad, but now they seem to be competing with each other all the time for publicity and magazine space, hence the increasingly ridiculous and over dramatised storylines. I don't watch them anymore, because I think they're ridiculous, and people who understandably find the current storyline distasteful should just switch off. Creating a furore over it is just increasing the publicity EE are getting.

YANBU. I was going to post a similar thread.

Yes, its upsetting but SID is. I think the acting has been great, looking at the 'madness' of grief and the effects on the community/friends of a babys death.

The swap storyline is portraying in soap style how grief can make people do extreme things.

I don't think it set out to portray her as a 'mad woman' just to show that grief is all consuming, can make us act irrationally and is gut wrenchingly awful.

I think the difference between EE and other soaps, like Corrie and Emmerdale, is that EE has always set itself up as an issues based programme. They get praised for dealing with issues, eg Whitney and the child abuse, Peggy's breast cancer, AIDs the downs syndrome baby etc. Not saying other soaps don't have storylines about those things at all, but they don't do it as much and don't have the same kind of history about it. EE has in a way earned itsrlf a reputation for striving to do these things properly. It's making a big deal of working with FSids on this.

And they've got it horribly wrong. they need to change it. That's all.

Also, most storylines that deal with something like this are over and done with very quickly. That Corrie baby kidnap one is a good example, all done and dusted and resolved satisfactorily in two episodes or something. Same with the tram crash, a week of it and then we knew it would be over. The EE baby swap story is being set up as something that will run and run and run. And not get resolved possibly for months or years. Makes people twitchy, that. Needs changing.

"The story of Ali and Sues baby was a long time ago and from what I remember they did a good job , so why do they get to do a shite job this time ?"

What was the outcome? I thought that they split up & she had a breakdown?

And given the charachters other experinces, it would be likely that she may react somewhat more extreme than others.

I still want to find the street in this country where everyone has breakfast in the cafe, everyday.

And I want to find a man with at least 3 successful businesses who does not own a washing machine.

Anyone??

I would also like to find a street where everyone works within twenty yards of their front door step and marries someone who lives no more than six doors down.

me too massive knob i laugh everytime i see him,he went away as a nerdy boy and returned a fully grown man with a scowl.
I think people should turn off as its giving the soap publicity.
The soaps cover lots of tragic scenarios which will strike a cord,i find it hard when they cover breast cancer and domestic violence as i have been personally affected however id go thru both those again rather than loose a baby so who am i to say?

I think it funny no one has a washing machine, and then they spend every moment in the pub or cafe! i wish i had the money to do that

yes and nobody has a washing machine or invites anyone but neighbours to wedddings or funerals.

And the only people at their hens nights are elderly neighbours!!

And the street where when someone moves out, the whole of the neighbourhood comes out to stare as the cab makes its way slowly past everyone with said person in back staring out the back window at them. hilarious!

And when someone dies their mother, who has just moved to Blackpool, doesn't bother to come back for the funeral.

I'd like to find a street where no one has a bitch of a commute into work everyday.

Maybe they should make a new soap to reflect modern life. The main characters share a carriage on the 06:10 into the city centre every morning. Intrigue, passion, hidden lusts. All human life is there.

It may not be normal for a rape victim to smash their assailant's skull in, but it's not abnormal for them to want to.

It isn't the issue of SIDS being addressed that's offensive; it's the way they wrote a bereaved mother as regarding babies as interchangeable. If your child dies you desperately miss that individual child, you child - how crass and ridiculous to write a storyline where the mother takes another.

If DS died I honestly don't know how I would carry on. The fact so many women do is testament to them. To miss the point of their loss so hugely that they write a storyline where a mother would swap one baby for another isn't just insensitive, it's bloody stupid, too.

Finally I think the while idea comes from the old chestnut they trotted out when newborns were abducted - that maybe the woman responsible had lost her own baby to miscarriage or SIDS, and craved another. Yet invariably when the women were caught, they'd faked a pregnancy to hang on to a partner, and needed to produce a baby when the "due date" neared.

It's lazy television. They'd never dare run a storyline on domestic violence, rape or suicide without talking to appropriate agencies - look at their pride in getting input from mental health charities for the bi-polar storylines. Yet seemingly bereaved mothers don't deserve that courtesy.

I've not lost a child, thank God, but like most parents the idea is completely terrifying. And the problem with where they've taken this this story is apparent to me. I haven't stopped watching Eastenders from moral outrage, but I have stopped because this storyline turns my stomach and upsets me in its absolute, horrible misunderstanding of parental love. I've no idea whether whoever came up with this one has kids, but if that's their view on the bond, I sincerely hope the answer is no.

Just remember everyone "It's what mum would have wanted"

Brookside started off a bit like that, but then everyone gave up their jobs that they had to commute to and got work in the local shops and petrol station. And everyone divorced their partners and married their next door neighbours.

Actually I had no idea that EE or other soaps were promoting themselves as educational or attempting to raise awarenesss of 'real issues', I thought it was just supposed to be rather crass and low-brow entertainment. I am a bit at the thought that anyone watches this stuff for insightful social commentary or a sensitive, intelligent exploration of human psychology.