TELEVISION SOAPS AS A GENRE

“NEWS’ forms the serious part of Television, but a host of prorammes that fill TV time like serials, game shows, chat shows, and the recent entrant the ‘Reality Show’ have enough takers. Thus as a typical programme content serials have always attracted researchers to probe the implications of these ‘unending serials’.

What are the features of a Serial which is supposed to be the staple for the woman viewer segment?
i) Open-ended narrative forms: the format is one which has no ending ( a story that can be stretched to suit the ad revenue!). Not surprising therefore that one sees the same serial occupying the slot in a punishing schedule of “five-days-a-week-as-long-s-you-want” schedule.

ii) Core locations: The story unspools in a familiar locale. In the case of the Ekta Kapoor “Kyunki” variety it is a large joint family with a business presence. This combination usually provides umpteen crisis situations suited for melodrama! There is the constant vying for support of the matriarch by the ‘lesser women’- the daughters-in-law at the home front, while it is a similar tension between the men at the group’s business centre.

In the regional languages the family-based tensions take up more time, particularly in the Kerala serials, probably because few are able to conceive of ‘large business empires’ and how it affects filial ties.

iii) The tension between the accepted conventions of realism and melodrama: While the realism tends to be portrayed through characters who inhabit “recognizable spaces”and “believable situations”. Melodrama comes as a major ingredient through a increased sense of the ‘dramatic’ and with a focus on ‘life’s torments’. This representation is noticed because of
a) the emphasis on expressions, tones all with no restraint,
b) dramatic music, and
c) lingering close up shots
d) story-lines with twists and turns drawn from possible real life situations
all packaged to get viewer involvement.
e)pivotal themes of inter-personal relationship – the ‘mythic’ family is a major theme. Marriages, divorces, acts of revenge, acts of caring, the absence of a male heir(in Indian set ups where inheritance and family name are major elements). All this provide ample situations that can keep adrenaline flows high enough to send the TRPs shooting up!

These are the general traits in most soaps but it would also be important to remember that it has its national and regional variations. In the case of serials on Indian channels it is the sub-culture features that mark out the regional language serials from the Hindi serials on the National Hindi channels.