#achademic

Wow what a year! Last year was amazing we saw people come and go and people like me stay! This year started possitivly 8 people showed up! Which isn’t much but for a gardening club it is! We got to see our progress from last year! It was amazing here is one of our many beds: We also got some juicy tamatos.  Tip: If you have green tomatos put them on your windowsill and they will go red perfect to…

I won scholar of the month for social studies!!!

Just to be clear this is an achademic essay so its based on research not opinion, if it WAS based on opinion it would be very different. 

I had to show that I had researched an area of soap that linked into the production I did for my A level (I did a soap, with a gay storyline). It was limited in the amount of words I could use (I went over by about 25% though lol) and I had already made it more difficult for myself by including such political matters therefore I was forced to limit myself to researching only 3 countries (I chose Holland and Germany in addition to my native Britain).

In addition I just want to thank everyone that helped me with my research by letting me bombard them with questions about Holland and GTST.

The Representation of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender characters in Soap Operas focusing on Germany, Britain and Holland. 

  As someone who has a number of close friends who are gay and bisexual the issues surrounding gay politics have always interested me. Particularly how the media portrays gay lifestyle and LGBT issues. I also have an interest in the politics and media in different countries and cultures as I watch a variety of foreign television shows and films in my spare time. Through this investigation I shall be combining these interests and my aim is to discover how the media in different countries respond to LGBT political matters. Including how soap operas, which intend to reflect society at the time portray LGBT characters and relationships and if this is an accurate representation. The countries I will be focusing on are Germany, Holland and Britain. 

  ‘Every minority group has had their day with the media, trying to fight for proper representation within film, television, advertising and print media’. (www.unc.edu/~jermaine) Issues in television often aim to portray and support minority cultures showing discrimination they receive as they do in real life whilst often trying to educate an audience about how this is an injustice, in simpler words they are trying to support the underdogs of the nations. Over the past twenty years television has strived to relieve the taboo subject of homosexuality and to show it how it is.

  Becker (2006) suggests that the increased exposure of homosexual themes in prime time television could be a result of a social and political movement to make mainstream society more comfortable with LGBT people and liberating their community by making it harder for conservative and bigoted people to ignore them. (www.socyberty.com/gay-lesbians/)

  Soap operas aim to show a version of reality and society at the time, therefore it’s normally deemed important to show contemporary issues to allow the audience to relate. The issues within soap operas are usually influenced by recent news stories from within that country. For example many soap operas reflected struggles the recession brought on recently. The popularity of soap operas differ greatly between different countries with Germany currently airing approximately seven different soap operas, Britain airing six (including the Welsh soap Pobl y Cwm) and the Netherlands currently just airing one soap. 

  As well as researching soap operas I did a lot of research into the politics of each country surrounding LBGT laws, as I wanted to see how accurate each soap was in portraying these laws. Holland, with the most liberal laws surrounding homosexual lifestyle having been the first country to legalise gay marriage in 2001 (www.ilga.org/) was in fact out of the countries I have researched the last to portray a proper homosexual relationship on-screen in their soap Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden, first airing in October 1990 (O’Donnell, Hugh 1999), waiting until 2011 (RTL Boulevard 22nd Feb 2011) They are also the country to portray their LGBT characters in the most stereotypical way. I analysed an episode of GTST that aired in 16/12/10 when the storyline was beginning and noticed that Lucas, the established gay character having arrived in 2009 was very clichéd in his mannerisms in the scenes which the camera plays up often using long close-ups of his overdramatic expressions, he is very flamboyant in the way he moves even throwing a tantrum after his ostentatious party (which various tracking shots, pans and zooms showed was dictated with pink furnishings and lighting and ABBA’s ‘dancing queen’ playing in the background) which the character described himself as a ‘gay party’ was ruined when he is called a ‘queer’. His clothing is also very stereotypical with him wearing bright, flashy clothing and slicked back hair. The other character in the storyline, Edwin, is not yet ‘out’ and dresses more boyishly challenging the stereotype slightly. The kiss that takes place when Edwin comes to see if Lucas is OK is very dramatised with non-diagetic music playing as the camera zooms into the kiss which becomes a still-image close-up of the boys interlocked emphasising the cliff-hanger at the end of the episode. 

  When the couple did eventually get together there was a lot of negative backlash particularly when a romantic scene between the two boys aired especially with the younger generation of social networking sites like twitter(www.coc.nl). The television company producing GTST stated, “There has never been a storyline of GTST that has caused so many reactions.” (Feb 26 2011, RTL Boulevard) When I asked people from the Netherlands about the media’s tolerance of the LGBT communities and the impact the Lucas and Edwin storyline had in Holland I was told “Most people who aren’t from the Netherlands think that it is a very accepting country (due to the laws) But if you read the papers and watch the news they relate homosexuality with mostly negative things. So it’s not really ‘accepted’.” (Social networking site: www.tumblr.com, 22nd October 2011)  ‘’I think the reason why this became such a big deal is because we always think of our country as very tolerant. This showed us that not everyone agrees with that’’ (Social networking site: www.youtube.com, 26th October 2011). 

  The layout of their soap opera is a lot more traditional compared with some other soaps I studied which suggests an older audience. However now that this couple exists the soap opera has gained a lot more young followers and has made an attempt at becoming more hip adding a nightclub to the general locations (set up by one of the homosexual characters) and introducing a number of younger cast members. From what I have been told the influence in finally portraying gay characters in this soap was not due to the laws surrounding the LGBT community but the events in the news that portrayed the community in a negative light, therefore the soap opera was effectively standing up against the media for the LGBT community and using the social medium of television to try and influence the public’s opinions on homosexuality. 

  Germany appears the opposite, as although their laws are the most restrictive out of the three countries they were much faster in reacting to law changes, with a gay couple in Verbotene Liebe already having a civil partnership in 2010 and then fostering a child. German soaps also tend to strongly challenge gay stereotypes, possibly to show realism and diversity or to allow a heterosexual audience to relate to them more easily. They have showed gay characters, Lenny and Carsten, in the armed forces in Gute Zieten Schlechte Zieten, who later became violent gang members, boxers and one a convicted criminal, One half of Verbotene Liebe’s married couple was also a professional boxer and ex-convict.

  The characters are a lot less stereotypical in other ways too when analysing an episode of Verbotene Liebe (26/03/10), airing at 6pm in Germany, the couple Christian and Oliver are wearing plain jeans and shirts and playing video games and participating in banter with a male-heterosexual friend, if you were watching this for the first time it wouldn’t be obvious that they were a couple until they go into the bedroom and discuss issues with their business. Their relationship does not become obvious by any stereotypically gay mannerisms but rather the softer tone in which they talk to each other and touch each other as any couple does to show affection. The lighting of the room becomes softer and the camera uses close-ups as they kiss and undress each other to show intimacy and parallel editing shows their two straight, male roommates making light-hearted comments about the couple ‘making-up’ as it cuts to the couple kissing in bed. The episode shows their room-mate’s acceptance and indifference of the two as a couple as one of their room-mates if comfortable walking around in just his underwear and neither seem to mind the two men hugging and kissing in front of them.  

The show ‘from the very first episodes had gay couples or gay characters’ (Jo & Thore interview Cologne Pride) since being aired in January 1995 (O’Donnell, Hugh 1999).This shows not just Germany’s tolerance of homosexuality but their openness to sexuality as a whole. When asked about if Verbotene Liebe’s reflection of Germany’s acceptance of gay people was accurate Thore Scholermann who plays Christian Mann replied, “It’s no problem in Germany.” And Jo Weil who plays Oliver Sabel added, “Germany is quite open-minded.”(www.afterelton.com) Unlike with the Dutch storyline, German storylines seem to get ‘nothing but positive feedback’ (Felix (Carsten)www.all-access-lounge.de), this is perhaps not only by their audience’s being used to seeing intimate scenes in soaps with both heterosexual and homosexual couples but by the way the love stories are portrayed. The sexuality in these soaps are a lot more fluid with the stories not being focused on someone discovering they are gay but rather discovering they are in love with another human being, as the character Oliver tells Christian ‘maybe you’ve simply fallen in love with another human being’, this happens numerous times in VL with other characters including Rebecca, Miriam, Charlie and Stella. The story-lines tend to be focused on love and a person coming to terms with their feelings rather than sexual orientation compared with GTST which deals with Edwin’s father dealing with his son’s sexuality. The sexuality of the characters in both VL and GZSZ rarely come up after their relationship has been established, and they act just like the heterosexual couples.  

  In the past although not wanting to appear homophobic British soap operas would generally get around this by creating a homosexual or bisexual character that appeared asexual or only had opposite sex relations, only showing their supposed sexuality through implications or opposite-sex mannerisms (Thornham, Sue 2005) such as Coronation Street’s Sean Tully. However as the laws and tolerance have progressed so have the characters and many have developed onscreen relationships. 

Not unlike the German soaps, Britain has been trying to challenge stereotypes, examples being; violent gangster Brendan Brady and criminal Ste Hays in Hollyoaks, builder Jackson Walsh and mechanic Aaron Livesy in Emmerdale. Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Eastenders share more similarities with Dutch soaps than German due to their age and more traditional layout. Much like GTST, Eastenders’s issues with gay characters and couples focus on other people’s reactions to them for instance the Masood’s intolerance to their son falling for and wanting to marry a man against their Islamic beliefs and Ben Mitchell’s father struggling to accept Ben’s sexuality. The focus is not on the gay characters themselves but their family’s actions towards the news. 

 Resembling Verbotene Liebe, Hollyoaks is more fluid around sexuality showing more bodily-exposure than other British soap operas and being more open about sexual issues. The soap is much less traditional as using more cinematography such as flash-backs and dream sequences to express character’s thoughts and emotions. The story-lines are of a similar nature to that of VL with focus on self-acceptance, and love triumphing sexuality as shown with heterosexual Craig Dean’s romance with homosexual best-friend John-Paul McQueen in 2007 (Gay times, issue 400, December 2011) much like the Christian and Oliver relationship. They are more controversial being the first British soap to plan a civil partnership, including issues such as priest Kieron Hobbs leaving the church for a man, gay domestic violence with couple Brendan Brady and Ste Hay, male rape (Gay Times, issue 396, August 2011) and introducing teenage, transgender character Jasmine ‘Jason’ Costello, rather than just having the characters sexualities being the issue. Being privately funded by channel 4 as opposed to the BBC which is funded by the public or due to Hollyoaks being aimed at a younger audience may contribute to this, which is perhaps shows that the younger generation is more accepting of LGBT people and relationships as the soap helps to reach out to youngsters to teach them about these different lifestyles often giving out help-lines for people affected by the issues in the episode. Bath University lecturer Eric Anderson said the media has normalised gay culture and ‘Young people have disassociated themselves from homophobia the way they once did from racism’ (www.pinknews.co.uk) The organisation GLAAD also stated, ‘We know that what people watch on TV or read in their newspaper shapes how they view and treat the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people around them’ (www.glaad.org/about/) showing the important role television has in education.

  Reactions to homosexual content in British soap operas are not always positive even in today’s society. In an interview with actor Danny Miller who plays Emmerdale’s Aaron Livesy he admitted that ‘you have the unfortunate homophobic comments’ among the positive feedback (Gay Times, Issue 382, July 2010). British Prime Minister David Cameron even backed a proposed a ban on same-sex kissing pre-watershed (www.pinknews.co.uk) showing that perhaps Britain’s governmental leadership does not share the same opinion as the majority of it’s public. 

  This research will aid my soap opera, particularly in influencing a gay storyline as I can take aspects of each of the soaps I have studied that gained positive reactions for my intended target audience, which has also helped to be decided by my research. For example I believe the soap will be better targeted at a youthful audience and the storyline to focus on an internal struggle of sexuality rather than a social conflict.

  In researching each country’s political laws on homosexuality and the public’s reaction to the soap operas it seems that the culture in the countries does not reflect the laws at the time. The soaps seem very apolitical containing mainly personal issues which allow the audience to relate rather than pushing political arguments onto them. This shows the majority of soaps are targeted at people who are not overly interested in politics and just want to be entertained and shows that soap operas in all these countries represent LGBT characters and relationship in a manner that is true to their country and reflecting true version of reality and is likely to continue this way in the future.

  Word count: 2,342

  Academic essay- 1

Video- 5

Magazine- 4

Web articles- 8

Primary- 2