To think EE should not show violence against pregnant woman

[Guzy]

For those of you who watch Eastenders, the character Janine is pregnant she is quite mischievous and manipulative. However slapping, pulling hair and choking a pregnant woman just did not sit right with me. Bear in mind all characters involved knew she is pregnant.
Aibu to think EE should not air such disturbing scenes. As I feel it gives a very wrong message. No one deserves physical abuse especially those who are vulnerable. I feel they are normalising it somehow.

someone close to me threatened to kick me in my belly when I was heavily pregnant it just brought back some horrible memories.
FYI I know it’s not real but people are always influenced by what they watch on tv.

13/14 weeks at this point.

Thanks @XenoBitch

The last I remember of Janine she'd let Joey's sister take the blame, and be sent to prison, for killing or attacking someone (Joe from This Life). I am behind a bit . Before that she did something to Barry . A real pantomime villain.

I know it’s not real but people are always influenced by what they watch on tv.

You think people will watch that and then think it must be OK to beat up pregnant women?

It was deeply disturbing. There was more violence shown to and done to Janine than say, Gray, when he got caught after murdering several other characters. As I said earlier in the thread, EE has a long history of showing violence to pregnant women, not with a message that this is not ok, but flippantly. I remember the scene when Phil threw heavily pregnant Sharon to the ground, several other characters witnessed it but nobody intervened. What message does that send? As for last nights offering- Janine has done wrong (no disputing) so her baby is just collateral. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t like the character of Janine but I do feel some sympathy for her in general. Mick had a shed load of opportunities to walk away, he didn’t. He lied to her repeatedly and played with her emotions. And she knew, deep down, she was thinking about leaving several times and she didn’t want to go ahead with her pregnancy originally because she didn’t feel secure. He kept telling her otherwise. That was all for his benefit. What would we call this in real life??
Such a great guy. Loved Janine. Loved Whitney too as I recall. Until he didn’t. The car going off the cliff was Linda’s fault anyhow. Angry that Janine caused a car crash so she causes a car crash. Awesome.

I think she’s further on. Found out she was pregnant a full three months ago so at around 18 weeks.

I don't normally watch EE but I saw that episode as I was staying with family and it was being watched by others and leaving the sofa was too difficult.

my impression was that the violence against women wasn't confined to just that person, several of the characters were violently misogynistic in different ways, and large numbers of the characters are genuinely horrible people but depicting despicable behaviour isn't the same as condoning it, and this kind of behaviour is real and all too common in real life but mostly happens behind closed doors to people who are too terrified to ask for help. depicting it on screen allows for conversation to be started - during our boxing day countryside walk we talked about what the various characters should have done, and I was really glad for the opportunity to give my nieces a bit of feminist education about how to spot red flags in a relationship and running a mile/leaving the bastard asap at the first sign on these misogynistic attitudes.

Fortunately I don't think we have any cases like this in our immediate family but I can imagine that someone who sees the darkest times in their own life reflected on screen in EE could find thar opens a door for them to ask for help, and that seems a good thing to me.

Well I don't think Janine is even pregnant.......do de do de do de do

Linda and Shirley (especially Shirley) should be done for assault. Mick too had he not died/disappeared. Janine is very manipulative and twisted, but she never physically hurt anyone. @PutinSmellsPassItOn Her pregnancy was confirmed at the hospital.

#JusticeForBarry

No, because no-one ever copies what is on TV. TV isn't there to control, suggest or normalise. That's why there have never had any bans on what you can view.

There will always be someone triggered by something on the soaps, they wouldn't be able to show anything !

Out of interest was that recent episode broadcast after the ‘watershed’?

No, it was fairly early, 7.30 I think which makes it worse - family viewing time.

I think it shouldn't have been shown, you could argue all day about the character getting her comeuppance but there's no argument that the baby deserves to have it's 'life support' taken away surely?

I didn’t like the strangling, no. It was like Yvonne Atkins was back.

So people copy what they see on tv? How many times has this been proven?

And of all the things they have shown over the years this is the worse?

For those of us who haven't watched it for years...what did she do??

this is an interesting read www.apa.org/topics/video-games/violence-harmful-effects. Article

But this does not cover EE?
How many people who watch soaps act them out?

There’s a known link between TV and suicide. Lots of research. Hence the code of practice.

I don’t know about strangling, whether the research has been done yet.

Okey dokey I will get my team to carry out a study in this area 😏

Or watch it and think it's absolutely ok to behave as Janine has, that if you drive a car off the white cliffs of Dover you'll not only survive - but your baby will survive too and the person rescuing you will survive jumping off the cliffs into the sea.

I obviously do not agree with violence against woman.

But EE as a whole programme has extreme storylines and has always had mad violence.

Didn't she lose the baby and lie about it to keep Mick?

Regardless, Shirley thinks she's response

*responsible for murdering her son, then she stands there and says they need to support each other as it's what Mick would want, then blamed Linda for what had happened.

Id strangle her too.

#JusticeforBarry she deserved death a long time ago. It’s a testament to how good Charlie actually plays Janine as a character. Everyone really hates her guts. I also agree with a PP and don’t believe she’s pregnant either.

As an aside #JusticeforRicky too. The poor confused distraught head on him over all this was too much to watch!

Eastenders has often riffed off themes from Shakespeare and fairytales. Janine is being portrayed as a witch, I think.

Sometimes the writers manage themes well, and sometimes not so well and it descends into pantomime.