Welcome to the final submission in a series of 10 posts, written for a university assignment last year (I write this disclaimer in Nov 19), which required blogging about current issues in television. As a result, the material is rather dated/irrelevant now, and the tone a little more formal than I prefer, but I thought I'd publish it on here anyway as I put a lot of work into it. I hope you enjoy/find it insightful!...
09/03/19
Yesterday, ITV’s Emmerdale celebrated International Women’s Day by airing a landmark episode produced by an all-female crew and starring an all-female cast.
The female cast and crew of Emmerdale (ITV, 2019).
I first referred to this episode in my second post, ‘Soaps and Sexism’ back in December. However, now that it has finally aired, I thought that it would be interesting to analyse this episode and what it indicates about the soap opera genre in the current television sphere.
Firstly, I think it’s fair to say that the announcement of this episode stirred up quite the social media storm:
A series of tweets reacting to the news of Emmerdale's all-female episode (who's willing to bet most of them have never even watched an episode of the show in their life and just fancy a twitter rant?)
Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and they are at perfect liberty to share their thoughts on the matter. However, I’m going to express my opinion now, too, and just say that these comments pretty much sum up why Emmerdale’s choice to air this all-female episode is so important and necessary.
The fact that many of the tweets calling Emmerdale sexist are coming from women is disheartening to say the least. Although many have been left with a sour taste in their mouths, I do think it is good that ITV have been brave enough to air such a divisive episode and allow for the debate regarding gender equality in television to be furthered.
In addition, plenty of these critical tweets were published before the episode had even aired, and thus cannot be treated as fair evaluations of the episode.
However, although I disagree with the notion of Emmerdale’s all-female episode being sexist, this does not mean that I think the episode is beyond criticism. In my previous post regarding gender equality in soaps and the TV industry, I mentioned my concerns that the main motivation behind soap operas covering stories about female hardship and issues surrounding gender inequality, is possibly to portray ‘shock’ storylines for a quick ratings grab, and to try dispel their broadcasters’ guilt over previous inequalities and sexual wrongdoings behind-the-scenes at their individual corporations.
However, whilst these points still stand, I would have to say that my only qualm with Emmerdale’s all-female episode was its slightly patronising, but well-meaning, didacticism.
This is something that a lot of soap stories can fall victim to when they try to cover issue-based stories in an educational manner. In this particular episode of Emmerdale, one of the stories revolved around the young April Windsor worrying about her appearance after being teased for having a “funny face” at school. As she voiced her worries about her looks, several of the villagers reassured her of her beauty, and iterated that looks are not important anyway.
Although this was sweet, it wasn’t exactly ground-breaking material, and it screamed of a one-off, mini story-arc intended to impart an empowering, but altogether not too controversial, message on the Emmerdale audience.
However, apart from that small annoyance, I thought the episode was executed well and offered a lovely celebration of International Women’s Day for a genre which is so firmly rooted in entertaining women and portraying their lives more truthfully than any other fictional television genre. The other plots in the episode revolved around Chas discovering that she’s pregnant, Amy wanting to be a mother to Kyle again, Rhona worrying about her upcoming hysterectomy, and Charity supporting a dying Lisa. For the most part, the stories told in this episode could only be told by women, and represented the unique experiences that women go through in real life.
It was also pleasing to see that the majority of the episode revolved around women supporting each other, and helping each other through issues. Furthermore, the montages featured at the beginning and the end of the episode showed that ITV and Emmerdale had put a lot of thought and care into creating an important and well-made piece of television with high production values. This is only reinforced by executive producer Kate Brooks’ comments regarding the intention behind the episode, stating that it is 'not only a celebration of women but a showcase for female talent in the industry'.
The cast and crew of Emmerdale's all-female episode speak about what it means to them, and how ITV treats its female employees (ITV, 2019).
To reiterate a point I made in my second blog post, I do feel that the industry slowly is becoming a more welcoming and understanding environment for women to engage with and work within. Certainly, diversity is being encouraged more in the industry, especially in soap, as evidenced by Channel 4’s Hollyoaks airing a special ‘diversity’ episode last month.
Soaps truly are the trailblazers of the industry when it comes to breaking the mould and moving with the times, both on-screen and behind it. Even going back to ten years ago, the BBC aired an episode of EastEnders featuring only black cast members, where the characters reminisced about the Notting Hill race riots.
Emmerdale’s other executive producer, Jane Hudson, recently commented that she believes that 'soaps are leading the way with gender equality on set' and this summarises nicely the constant drive by the soaps to modernise the television industry, and the belief that soaps are the front-runners and example setters of this.
I truly believe, as I have stated in all my posts on this blog, that soaps both pave the way for the future of television production, and indicate what developments to look out for. They never shy away from confronting taboo topics and are constantly reinventing themselves so as to keep up with, and make the most of, changing technologies and new ways of consuming television. The fact that they are so often snubbed by television snobs is a real shame, as keeping an eye on what the soaps are up to is perhaps the easiest and most effective way of gauging how the entertainment industry can and will react to future developments.
-ASIS
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