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Realism Essay

Decent Essays

Realism

Realism means accuracy of speech and setting, thorough background detail and a concern for vermisimitude or realism could mean the willingness to face the facts. Realism is hard to define. There are different types of realism documentary, social, emotional and dramatic.

Technical codes play an important role in making realism in soaps, this refers to documentary realism where soaps are supposed to look like they haven’t been constructed and camera work shouldn’t be too complicated, it should be like looking in on someone’s life through their window. The editing should be invisible making the soap look like a continuous shot so it doesn’t look like we are watching a piece of …show more content…

The setting of Eastenders is a mythical 1950’s setting with the street markets and the close community people knowing everybody else’s business. I think that they have made this representation look very realistic but I also think that people will find it hard to relate to this more because most London communities are not like this anymore and people would feel uneasy and unsafe with the idea of keeping their backdoor open all day.

Storylines are another important element in realism; it involves the use of social realism where soaps use social issues (eg. Teenage pregnancy; In Coronation Street Sarah Platt deals with the pressures of becoming pregnant at the age of 13. Another example of a social issue is family feuds, which is shown constantly in Eastenders within the Slater family.) that effect the working class. This is good because the audience will then feel that they can relate to at least one social issue and involves them more with the soap. Emotional realism is also used, people become attached, they are watching something that is emotionally true to life but what they see isn’t real on a denotative level. An example of this is in Coronation Street, when Karen was experiencing a miscarriage and having to cope with the grief afterwards. Another example is in Eastenders, when Little Mo was experiencing constant domestic violence from

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