Coronation Street: Representation Of Britishness

Coronation Street
Discuss how ‘Coronation Street’ has contributed to the representation of Britishness and how British people deal with universal issues and themes.

Coronation Street or 'Corrie' is an award winning, prime time soap opera, set and produced in Manchester, created by Tony Warren. The show was first broadcast in December of 1960 on ITV and is now the longest running and most watched soap opera of British television. Coronation Street introduced Britain to the society of Northwest England; it is arguable as to how accurate the representation of Britishness is within the show in how society deals with universal issues and themes.
The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed the rise of British New Wave, a trend in filmmaking which took up serious social issues and were
placed within the contemporary cultural context. Coronation Street follows this pattern portraying the lives and struggles of the working class to its audience whilst offering an escapist break from it. Though ‘Coronation Street’ avoids the grittier aspects of social reality in its early years, it focuses on relatable issues for its audience demographic. The issues of the show are mainly familial in nature presenting challenges, fights and tensions within the home. Sometimes called kitchen-sink dramas, these storylines offer validity to viewers experiencing the same situations in their own lives. Not everyone can relate to drug abuse, domestic violence, hate crimes and teenage pregnancy however many viewers can relate to family arguments, financial stress, and parental expectations.
Tony Warren said that he wanted to write something that “resembled closely the places where he grew up.” The accents, clothing and representation of society are reflective of this as they are typical of British life. In ‘Coronation Street’ life revolves around the pub or the café and everybody in this close-knit community wishes to know each other’s business. The show has been criticised for its inaccurate representation of British life as it does not portray a variety of people from ethnic minorities and the level of crime and tragedy would be far lower in real life. Soaps contain multiple narratives based around a diverse range of characters and their complex inter-relationships. These narratives are the pleasure which serve to attract audiences; the melodramatic narratives may hinder levels of cultural verisimilitude of the soap however they serve as a form of escapism for the audience.
Coronation Street has been chronicling its characters' lives since 1960, with a mix of social realism, melodrama and humours that has won it millions of regular viewers globally.
Over 10 million people watched the soap as Hayley Cropper, sick with incurable pancreatic cancer, took an overdose of drugs and died peacefully in the arms of her husband Roy. Whilst some critics praised the storyline for its sensitive handling of terminal illness and death, others said it risked encouraging suicides as anti-euthanasia group ‘Care Not Killing’ said the program was "in great danger of normalizing an occurrence that is actually very rare indeed."ITV said in a statement that "Coronation Street regularly features storylines that concern sensitive medical and social issues and it was recognized that Hayley becoming terminally ill would have a profound resonance for our audience." Conventional of soap opera, ITV provided a relevant telephone helpline for its audience, calls for the suicide helpline tripled after the broadcast of Hayley’s death suggestive of the fact that soap opera presents a realistic representation of British life whilst also providing emotional relief and support for its
audience.
Audiences expect what they see on soap operas to have some connection with their own lives and experiences, or for them to be based on some sort of recognisable reality. This helps the audience to identify and understand the text and its meaning. Coronation Street is noted for its depiction of a down-to-earth working class community combined with light-hearted humour and strong characters. The show is imbued with a definite feeling of community; through its account of everyday British life the soap opera shows a high degree of social realism making it the second most award-winning British soap opera in the UK.