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?

You didn't dee - sorry. Plenty of others have. This thread is very tame in comparison to the others, where anyone who dares to express an opinion other than "this is appalling and everyone involved should be sacked" is told to fuck off.

You said, and I agree with you, that this shouldn't be an "us and them" issue, but frozenfestiveflo, whose post is directly above mine, has put it right back there. That's what I meant.

yanbu

I don't watch, used to a very long time ago - EE and all the soaps dramatise and over play all situations

The problem with this one is, this is a site for parents, we have a large number of parents that have come to this site to find others in their painful situation. We also see groups of parents with disabled children, trying to conceive, single parents etc It's unusual to have groups of people in one place in real life

This has touched a nerve, people are thinking soap watchers will perceive them in a different way now

I'm not a bereaved parent but I am a parent to a disabled child and one with learning difficulties. In the beginning, I saw slights everywhere - people were staring, judging, discussing - they (in the most part) weren't doing these things, I was paranoid about being different to the norm

I have seen many soaps broach disability and you know what? The mess it up most of the time - I notice cos it's close to home. Haven't seen any outrage where disability is concerned though

This is the same sort of thing and now we have people jumping on the outraged bandwagon.

frozenfestival you have lost someone, you don't need to put others at ease in your presence, and actually I do find it a lot easier when I ask someone if they have lost someone if they are ok, if they are honest and say no, life is shit, I miss them everyday, my heart aches every moment my eyes are open and it is the first thing I think of when I wake up and go to bed sobbing (soeone did say this to me), she then said was easier than just keep pretending she wasn't dying inside.

You make people awkward by smiling and saying things which are obviously not true, just be honest, you may find people are actually less uncomfortable.

But I do stick by what I said, it is perfectly plausible what she is doing and going through on EE, Kat and Alfie are being portrayed wonderfully, it is just a TV programme which you are not forced to watch and most people have been touched by tradgedy in thier lives, some of us more than others and TV programmes shouldn't have to not include things in their story lines in case it upsets/offends someone or we would only be watching very bland, sterile TV.

Now I want to watch East Enders. I know one woman and a few people whose Dad's won't miss it!
I watch a soap called the Young & The Restless, it has every crime and illness you can imagine as a storyline at one time or another. Right now a psychotic kidnapper/murder who was in custody, was allowed to go to the home of the father of her unborn baby. She drugged and raped him 9 months ago, resulting in this pregnancy, he despises her and it is ridiculous that she was staying there with one of those ankle monitors on. Anyways she knocked him out and left him for dead right after he delivered her baby in a car. (she has escaped and he caught up with her in full labour). She left the baby in a nativity scene in the manger, and a man found her. (baby). Now she is about to be adopted by another couple on the show....well, the husband is trying to adopt a baby right away as his wife is heartbroken that she is unable to have any more children.
They have had several baby switching and stealing. Also DNA results changed, frozen sperm stolen and used to impregnate persons, fake pregnancy with stolen babies...Not to mention several murders having plastic surgery to look exactly like other persons. A bunch of nonsense, but I love it.

mistletoe I don't know how good or bad the portrayal of Kat and alfie has been , once the baby swap nonsense happened I stopped watching . But another one of my gripes is that in a few weeks they will have their baby back so once again we will see a few weeks of weeping and wailing and then all will be well for them .

The effects of losing a child obviously are very long term and far reaching and of course this is never going to be shown as it will all be resolved . Bit of a cop out all round really .

Also to whoever said nobody is allowed to discuss this without being told to Fuck off , I bet there are more times we have been told
Get a grip
Stop watching
It's not real
Turn the tv off

I for one haven't said only bereaved mums can discuss this , if people want to actually discuss it that is fine but to just keep saying the same 4 lines and going no further with it , it is bound to get a bit wearing after a while and either ignored or met with annoyance .

"once the baby swap nonsense happened I stopped watching"

SO actually, wilbury, you have no idea how Eastenders is actually dealing with the "real" (in the eyes of the characters) cot death, yet are continuing to go on about how dreadful the BBC are being.

*My second after reading this thread and considering I type up mental health papers most week days I have to say that I could see someone who has been through what Ronnie has been through doing somehting like this. Really this is not all that far fetched - if you knew what went on in some mental health services you would be more than stunned.

On the flip side I think Kat and Alfie are dealing with it in a very dignified controlled manner and I really think that does balance things up.*

ditto madamec - this is what ive been saying -

the average person who loses a child (and as i said my heart goes out to you all, that must be awful beyond words)

but in eastenders ronnie isnt the average person as of everything that happened to her- i did a list a few posts ago

someone in her state of mind could easily tip over the edge and steal a baby .....

"but in eastenders ronnie isnt the average person"

No she isn´t.

And I don´t think that it is up to EE to give an accurate portrayal as it is a soap, not adocumentary.

I think the problem lies in that they are happy to take the plaudits for an accurate portrayal when it suits them, and then in this case say, well it´s a soap character & we are not portraying it as accurate.

Perhaps they could then make this clear.

Eviltwins I am not entirely sure about the need for the face .

I am explaining over and over again that my problem with this is the baby swap and as I said even if they do portray Kat and Alfie in the right way it is going to be very short lived if in a couple of weeks they have their baby back .

i guess then they will show the grieving of jack (and possibly ronnie in a mental hospital)

8blondes* I would love to proven wrong on this but if they do ongoing grief (and I mean months and yrs ahead) then I will be shocked . Now that would actually be groundbreaking .

obviously I meantblondes I presume their is not actually 8 of you there

not quite 8 of me lol - def 2 and losing via ww

true, whatever seems to happen in ee, they all get over it and carry on living their lives without a care in the world

carol has managed to recover form billys death and is happily shagging his best mate as if that would really happen

Please forgive me for raking up an old thread, I do have a reason for asking these questions and it is not to offend or upset.

But I just wanted to know how people, and more importantly parent- felt now about the baby swap storyline, now that we know it is being resolved? For me, as a viewer I am actually probably in the minority and I dont think the baby swap did anything different to previous storylines.

The way I see it is;

1. People complain that it shows a bereaved mother is going to do that and its an incorrect representation. "Because her baby died she will steal one". Okay, if thats the way were playing it, surely then "Mad May"'s storyline could say "anyone who cannot concieve their own child will steal one"

Also, at the end of the day, babies HAVE been snatched. Not common, thank god. But it does happen. Ronnies actions I believe where due to everything in her past and it was a moment of desperation, combined with nobody being there to support her.

1. My second point is, does anything think that had Danielles death not caused so many complaints, this story wouldnt have been so big? I.e people know that get 7000 complaints and there was nothing controversial there, so therefore this HAD to be bigger.

1. people who watched the episode because they watch EE, people who watched it because they knew what was coming despite not being a loyal watcher, and people who watch it BECAUSE of all the hype, after the original showing are all going to gain a different meaning from the episode.

I hope I havent raked up anything boring, or upsetting but its very interesting to me and I wanted to ask what you all thought now the hype has lessened.

Please post your opinions as honest as you wish, this is part of some research I am doing so I would like to speak to as many people as possible in order to create a realistic report of how this made people feel. please do not be offended by me.

I have not watched EE since this horrible, stupid storyline happened and now feel I don't want to go back to watching it even when it is resolved although I will probably watch the episode where it happens

It is actually better now I don't watch this programe and I can see how shit and miserable this programme now is!

I guess what I am getting at is, how do you feel this differs from storylines that feature rape, paedophilia, murder, all the things that had been covered before in Eastenders?

would you say that you, don't see how its on any sort of same level, or you see how it is perhaps on the same level but it just didnt appeal to you so therefore you decided to stop watching it?

The "Mumsnet vs EastEnders" saga is proof, if it were needed, of how sentimental, prickly and intolerant many people in the UK are nowadays.

Works of fiction (soap operas are fiction, btw) are designed to inter-weave 'gritty', 'real-life' drama with glamourous, adventurous, tragic and fantastic situations.

Soaps have touched on sexuality, homicide, loss of parents/siblings/children/friends etc, terrorism, blackmail, war, natural catastrophes etc etc etc.

Quite why a few tragic women online feel they can/should influence the scriptwriters of a prominent soap is beyond me.

If they were genuinely adversely affected, they would desist from watching.

There is plenty on tv that saddens/disgusts and yes, occasionally offends me - yet I can't comprehend the mentality of someone that seeks to deny others the right to watch what they wish, for their own selfish reasons.

My own opinion is that you see much worse in films, and yet nobody criticises it because it isnt realistic. Eastenders is not a documentary, it is not going to be factually accurate, Tanya buried Max and now they sit at the dinner table. Ronnie speaks to Janine who killed her daughter, it isnt real life and never claimed to be, thats why the word fiction exists.

I guess, part of my thoughts is that, if someone found one issue so offensive to them it shouldnt be done on television, maybe they shouldnt watch television at all, because surely its extremely hypocritical to say "eastenders is bad because this is too much" but "ill watch it when its about rape or padedophiles or car crashes or burying someone alive" because surely those issues would offend...someone, somewhere?

Yuor comments MajordanJarvis are very helpful thank you

for me it was always a case of EE going a step too far. women are frequently shown as psychotic baby-stealing harpies if they are infertile, or lose a child. this has been a bug bear of mine for years and the EE story bought it to a head. I was pissed off about "mad" may. about diane from hollyoaks. about lexi in emmerdale. about karen in corrie. and so many others. add to that the fact that people believe soaps (look at the harrassment sam womack got in the street) and that somewhere down the line this story would turn into a urban myth, a sort of "it could hapen, i read this thing once where a woman had several mc's, lost her daughter, then her son died of SIDS and she stole a neighbours... greif does funny things to you" without realising that it was a soap. memory changes.

yes, i could (and have) turned it off. but why should i? ive always liked the soap. i pay my license fee, and sometimes you have to make your voice heard and say "this is not acceptable" so I complained. loudly. because i believe they were wrong to air this storyline and i felt that they should know why.

It's like saying a baby is replaceable.Someone that's lost a baby doesnt want someones elses baby because that baby isnt the one they have sadly lost.I do think its a sick storyline

As someone who watches EE I can see why some are upset at this storyline. But tbh the actions of Ronnie do make sense in the context of the storyline.

I wouldn't expect EE to show ongoing grief over months and years. Characters in EE suffer terrible trauma and bereavements all the time and it is very rare for this to be even mentioned after several months.

I actually think there are far more unrealistic storylines in EE - e.g. Tania burying Max alive.

I think people who watch EE would have to be pretty thick to think EE shows realistically how someone will react in any given situation.

LissieLou - that is a very interesting point, that it was the final straw as opposed to all the others being okay. I know the bi polar charity were not happy Stacey was Archies killer for the same reason, oh lets make someone who is bi polar be the murderer.

DaisyDaresYOU - But is it saying that? If you look at the wider scheme of things, surely every piece of fiction could say something that we do not like? Baby snatching has happened, while it is rare. and given Ronnies previous history it is applicable that she could do that. The storyline would not have worked for Kat for example.

Lesley33- I have to say I do agree with you, I do see why it upset some people and I can apriciate it, what I guess I feel is that, we dont go to Tesco pick up a book and then complain to the author it upset us, or go to the cinema and see some gory film and say its not an accurate representation.

Tanya burying Max alive was ridiculous i agree, and now they are fine together. But eastenders isnt real.

I view it as, it copies a little bit of real life, and then add 99% of drama, to make it a story. So...just like any other piece of fiction.

I am genuinely interested in this so thank for you your responses, i was a bit worried I was walking into the lions den!! x

I think people who watch EE would have to be pretty thick to think EE shows realistically how someone will react in any given situation.

but people do think that. we are always hearing about some soap star being abused in the street because of their storyline. people believe that the storylines have to be based in reality. and people treat grieving mothers and infertile women as if its somehow "catching". people are nervous around you anyway, because they dont understand it. and they dont want to. noone wants to consider losing a child. noone wants to consider being infertile. so its taboo. and what EE have done by sensationalising the SIDS story is taken a potentially great and moving story arc and twisted it. there has never been a case of a bereaved mother stealing another child hours after hers died and passing it off as her own. but people still think it could happen. in the same breath as saying "its only a soap"

and we dont go to Tesco pick up a book and then complain to the author it upset us, or go to the cinema and see some gory film and say its not an accurate representation.

maybe not, but I would complain if a magazine I regularly bought and had the type of circulation that EE has published this story as representation of life with the volume turned up. which is what soaps are.

I remember mil talking about this story she'd in the news about a woman who was a DV victim, she escaped him and after a huge showdown he was run over by a tram. karma. except she was talking about rita from corrie and was convinced that she'd read it in the mail rather than the tv times.

And there was that case of people phoning up to see if the trams were running after Corrie the other month!

I guess i have a different opinion because I am studying the media so therefore my opinion is different to that of say a parent who watches, and i am not that ignorant to be like "oh its fine because im okay with it" dont worry, I feel interested to know about this because I think if you isolate so many viewers you must be doing something wrong.

this is all very helpful, thank you