Pub Date : 2025-05-08DOI: 10.1177/17496020251340583
Mark Fryers, Adrian Ashby
Previous studies of EastEnders (1985-present) have focused on important feminist and queer scholarship or topics including class and ethnicity. Likewise, previous quantitative and qualitative analyses of the programme have been largely skewed towards female spectatorship. The significant male viewing demographic within audience research has been comparatively underrepresented. Taking an autoethnographic approach which seeks to triangulate previous ethnographic studies with the extant body of theoretical literature on EastEnders , this article seeks to fill important gaps in the EastEnders literature. Via autoethnographic discourse, this study focuses on the vital educative function (what we term ‘collective proselytising’) that EastEnders offered to the authors as well as its potential ongoing, longitudinal influence. In doing so, it exemplifies the role that the programme played in conveying education on issues such as class, sexuality ethnicity and, most prominently of all, gender inequality. With an emphasis on EastEnders ’ early years (the mid-1980s onwards), this article illuminates the social and educative function of the programme. In a period in which EastEnders offered a soap that was vital and dynamic to young male audiences, and before the programme deliberately targeted a male demographic with ‘tough guy’ archetypes, it also presented a form of masculinity that challenged rebarbative stereotypes. The article likewise works to highlight how individual and collective televisual memory plays a central role in underlining television’s socio-cultural importance.
{"title":"An ( EastEnders ) education: Social interventions, collective proselytising, male fandom and EastEnders","authors":"Mark Fryers, Adrian Ashby","doi":"10.1177/17496020251340583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251340583","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies of <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> (1985-present) have focused on important feminist and queer scholarship or topics including class and ethnicity. Likewise, previous quantitative and qualitative analyses of the programme have been largely skewed towards female spectatorship. The significant male viewing demographic within audience research has been comparatively underrepresented. Taking an autoethnographic approach which seeks to triangulate previous ethnographic studies with the extant body of theoretical literature on <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> , this article seeks to fill important gaps in the <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> literature. Via autoethnographic discourse, this study focuses on the vital educative function (what we term ‘collective proselytising’) that <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> offered to the authors as well as its potential ongoing, longitudinal influence. In doing so, it exemplifies the role that the programme played in conveying education on issues such as class, sexuality ethnicity and, most prominently of all, gender inequality. With an emphasis on <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> ’ early years (the mid-1980s onwards), this article illuminates the social and educative function of the programme. In a period in which <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> offered a soap that was vital and dynamic to young male audiences, and before the programme deliberately targeted a male demographic with ‘tough guy’ archetypes, it also presented a form of masculinity that challenged rebarbative stereotypes. The article likewise works to highlight how individual and collective televisual memory plays a central role in underlining television’s socio-cultural importance.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143927319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-05DOI: 10.1177/17496020251340357
Brett Mills
While soap operas typically focus their storylines on human characters, animals serve significant roles in them too. Focussing on the most common animal in the series – dogs – this analysis examines the functions animals play in EastEnders (1985-present), foregrounding species-based hierarchies and popular culture’s normalised anthropocentrism. The focus here is on how pets function as symbols of the domestic, the familial and human-animal relationships. Drawing on Animal Studies and Critical Animal Studies approaches the analysis shows how soap operas make use of representations of pets, and the functions these fulfil in terms of the particular pleasures long-running, episodic soap operas offer.
{"title":"BeastEnders: Pets and Soap Opera","authors":"Brett Mills","doi":"10.1177/17496020251340357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251340357","url":null,"abstract":"While soap operas typically focus their storylines on human characters, animals serve significant roles in them too. Focussing on the most common animal in the series – dogs – this analysis examines the functions animals play in <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> (1985-present), foregrounding species-based hierarchies and popular culture’s normalised anthropocentrism. The focus here is on how pets function as symbols of the domestic, the familial and human-animal relationships. Drawing on Animal Studies and Critical Animal Studies approaches the analysis shows how soap operas make use of representations of pets, and the functions these fulfil in terms of the particular pleasures long-running, episodic soap operas offer.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143909810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1177/17496020251339438
Faye Woods
The deaths of long-running, elderly characters offer up a chance to consider the ebb and flow and circular nature of soap narratives. This article uses the deaths of three of EastEnders ’s matriarchs to think about the soap opera’s use of aesthetics and space, alongside its layering of memory. Pat Butcher, Peggy Mitchell and Dot Cotton’s deaths – two on screen and one off – saw the programme intensify and disrupt its aesthetic and narrative conventions to signify these deaths as intensely emotional ‘events’. These endings were moments of pause in the ever-onwards flow of soap narrative. Long-running elderly characters embody soap memory, and through these deaths EastEnders revisited deep layers of its past to pay tribute to departing iconic characters by employing ‘practices of self-citations and self-referentiality’ (Holdsworth, 2011: 37). Here, objects and spaces, remembrances and returns are used to enrich the experience of long-time viewers. This article considers the use of Albert Square as a ‘time-rich’ (Lury, 2005:16) space and presents these episodes as examples of how the programme can shift its aesthetic conventions and unsettle its spatial dynamics for affective impact.
{"title":"Death of a matriarch: Soap opera aesthetics, space and memory","authors":"Faye Woods","doi":"10.1177/17496020251339438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251339438","url":null,"abstract":"The deaths of long-running, elderly characters offer up a chance to consider the ebb and flow and circular nature of soap narratives. This article uses the deaths of three of <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> ’s matriarchs to think about the soap opera’s use of aesthetics and space, alongside its layering of memory. Pat Butcher, Peggy Mitchell and Dot Cotton’s deaths – two on screen and one off – saw the programme intensify and disrupt its aesthetic and narrative conventions to signify these deaths as intensely emotional ‘events’. These endings were moments of pause in the ever-onwards flow of soap narrative. Long-running elderly characters embody soap memory, and through these deaths <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> revisited deep layers of its past to pay tribute to departing iconic characters by employing ‘practices of self-citations and self-referentiality’ (Holdsworth, 2011: 37). Here, objects and spaces, remembrances and returns are used to enrich the experience of long-time viewers. This article considers the use of Albert Square as a ‘time-rich’ (Lury, 2005:16) space and presents these episodes as examples of how the programme can shift its aesthetic conventions and unsettle its spatial dynamics for affective impact.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143901345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1177/17496020251330853
Sarah Arnold, Janet McCabe, Kylie Andrews, Alec Badenoch, Jeannine Baker, Vicky Ball, Elisa Hendriks, Vanessa Jackson, Kate Murphy, Ipsita Sahu, Kristin Skoog, Kate Terkanian, Helen Warner
This provocation details varied perspectives of the International Women’s Broadcasting Histories (IWBH) network on researching the role of women in broadcasting. The conversational form allows us to roam across the topic widely, to express a range of discrete positions and distinct arguments, with the desire to bring dilemmas to the surface and explore their implications without reduction. Responding with a series of interventionist statements around the issues and challenges of doing archival research into women’s work, we opt for retaining different viewpoints in a raw state, with the aim of provoking discussion about the methodological opportunities and limitations when working within and outside of archives.
{"title":"Women’s broadcasting histories and the archive: National, transnational and transmedial entanglements","authors":"Sarah Arnold, Janet McCabe, Kylie Andrews, Alec Badenoch, Jeannine Baker, Vicky Ball, Elisa Hendriks, Vanessa Jackson, Kate Murphy, Ipsita Sahu, Kristin Skoog, Kate Terkanian, Helen Warner","doi":"10.1177/17496020251330853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251330853","url":null,"abstract":"This provocation details varied perspectives of the International Women’s Broadcasting Histories (IWBH) network on researching the role of women in broadcasting. The conversational form allows us to roam across the topic widely, to express a range of discrete positions and distinct arguments, with the desire to bring dilemmas to the surface and explore their implications without reduction. Responding with a series of interventionist statements around the issues and challenges of doing archival research into women’s work, we opt for retaining different viewpoints in a raw state, with the aim of provoking discussion about the methodological opportunities and limitations when working within and outside of archives.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143901341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-30DOI: 10.1177/17496020251339398
Rebecca Williams
This article focuses on EastEnders ’ fan responses to the storyline known as ‘The Six’, which began with a flash-forward in an episode aired in February 2023 and involves six female characters faced with a dead body in the local pub, The Queen Vic. It argues that ‘The Six’ can be read as a form of ‘event television’ which highlights the show’s attempts to innovate within the soap genre, to set up a core narrative enigma which fans could attempt to ‘work out’, and to enable fans to maintain existing attachments to the series’ characters. The article thus considers how this offered a form of ‘forensic fandom’ that brought reading modes such as looking for evidence within episodes and in paratextual materials together with the readings of characters and relationships more commonly associated with the genre of soap opera.
{"title":"Solving ‘The Six’: EastEnders , convergence culture, and ‘forensic fandom’","authors":"Rebecca Williams","doi":"10.1177/17496020251339398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251339398","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on <jats:italic>EastEnders</jats:italic> ’ fan responses to the storyline known as ‘The Six’, which began with a flash-forward in an episode aired in February 2023 and involves six female characters faced with a dead body in the local pub, The Queen Vic. It argues that ‘The Six’ can be read as a form of ‘event television’ which highlights the show’s attempts to innovate within the soap genre, to set up a core narrative enigma which fans could attempt to ‘work out’, and to enable fans to maintain existing attachments to the series’ characters. The article thus considers how this offered a form of ‘forensic fandom’ that brought reading modes such as looking for evidence within episodes and in paratextual materials together with the readings of characters and relationships more commonly associated with the genre of soap opera.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143893522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-22DOI: 10.1177/17496020251336669
Katie Crosson, Tom May
The Play for Today Viewing Group, consisting of academics from the United Kingdom and Ireland who meet virtually multiple times per year to discuss a teleplay, collectively analyse two Play s for Today , The Bevellers (1974) and Not for the Likes of Us (1980). These plays reflect Play for Today ’s historical tendency towards a greater inclusion of female workers alongside emergent forms and patterns of work, and from heightened studio realism, shot on video, to its use of film and critical dissection of its attractions. Analysis reveals the plays’ thematic intersections concerning work, gender and the body: this comparative approach discerns how Play for Today was a strand of interconnected dramas within British television's flow possessing deep social and cultural significance.
{"title":"Spaces for criticism: the Play for Today Viewing Group on work, gender and the body in The Bevellers (1974) and Not for the Likes of Us (1980)","authors":"Katie Crosson, Tom May","doi":"10.1177/17496020251336669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251336669","url":null,"abstract":"The <jats:italic>Play for Today</jats:italic> Viewing Group, consisting of academics from the United Kingdom and Ireland who meet virtually multiple times per year to discuss a teleplay, collectively analyse two <jats:italic>Play</jats:italic> s <jats:italic>for Today</jats:italic> , <jats:italic>The Bevellers</jats:italic> (1974) and <jats:italic>Not for the Likes of Us</jats:italic> (1980). These plays reflect <jats:italic>Play for Today</jats:italic> ’s historical tendency towards a greater inclusion of female workers alongside emergent forms and patterns of work, and from heightened studio realism, shot on video, to its use of film and critical dissection of its attractions. Analysis reveals the plays’ thematic intersections concerning work, gender and the body: this comparative approach discerns how <jats:italic>Play for Today</jats:italic> was a strand of interconnected dramas within British television's flow possessing deep social and cultural significance.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143863026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-24DOI: 10.1177/17496020251325376
Cathrin Bengesser
{"title":"Book Review: Babylon Berlin German visual spectacle and global media culture BaerHesterSmithJill Suzanne (eds), Babylon Berlin German Visual Spectacle and Global Media Culture. London: Bloomsbury, 2024; 272 pp. ISBN 978-1-350-37005-0 £58.50 (hb)","authors":"Cathrin Bengesser","doi":"10.1177/17496020251325376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251325376","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143695243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-21DOI: 10.1177/17496020251325375
Phil Wickham
{"title":"Book Review: UK and Irish Television Comedy Representations of Region, Nation and Identity IrwinMaryMarshallJill (Eds). UK and Irish Television Comedy Representations of Region, Nation and Identity. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2023; 250 pp. ISBN 9783031236280 £119.99 (hbk), 978303123631 £119.99 (pbk), 9783031236297 £99.99 (ebk)","authors":"Phil Wickham","doi":"10.1177/17496020251325375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251325375","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143666160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-19DOI: 10.1177/17496020251325373
Emma Horsley-Heather
{"title":"Book Review: Histories of Children’s Television Around the World GozanskyYuval (ed), Histories of Children’s Television Around the World. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2023; 289 pp. ISBN 9781433196720, £84 (hbk), 9781433199028, £32 (pbk), 9781433198939 £32 (pdf), 9781433198946 £32 (epub)","authors":"Emma Horsley-Heather","doi":"10.1177/17496020251325373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020251325373","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143661177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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