one being one character being abducted by aliens – this is not the typical experience of the working class as discussed by Williams.These American Soaps also don’t conform to the “Socially extended” characteristic of realism that Williams discusses. All of the characters in these soaps are very wealthy and live in huge mansions, certainly not accessible to the working class.Christine Geraghty discusses the function of using the working class in soaps. “ Both programmes (Brookside and Eastenders) also use class as a way of developing characters and engaging the audience. The majority of the characters are working class and while that does not make them automatically sympathetic or correct in their judgements, the audience is invited to understand the programmes from that class perspective.” ( C. Geraghty to be continued, Soap Operas from around the world, Routledge 1995, Edited by Robert C. Allen)In British soaps, “Social Realism” is used, this is more specific to portraying the real lives of the working class and is a major characteristic in soap, “ ..the genre of Social Realism demands that life should be presented in the form of a narrative of personal events, each with a beginning, a middle and an end, important to the central characters concerned but affecting others in only minor ways.” ( Television Monograph Coronation Street, Richard Dyer et al, BFI Publishing 1981 p.28)There are more generic characteristics of Soap opera, these are related to the way the programme makers achieve “Naturalism” in the programme. The term naturalism is slightly easier to understand. It is simply the idea that everything that can be seen in shot looks “normal”. For example in Soap Opera naturalism is achieved by making the sets look like typical houses or pubs or factories, the characters wear normal everyday clothes and the lighting is set to look like normal domest...
