Christmas Task 6 - Introduction and first paragraph

"Ideology denies itself as an ideology; In other words, it does not express itself as an ideology but as reality" -Nick Lacey.[1]

To what extent and why is the depiction of mental illness less truthful in contemporary British teen drama , such as 'Skins' , in comparison to mainstream soap operas , such as 'Eastenders' ?

The Media landscape is often criticized "for promoting stigma and discrimination towards people with a mental illness"[2] through unrealistic and exaggerated representations of those with mental health issues. This is apparent through a number of texts such as British Teen Drama, Skins and E4 Drama Shameless. Whilst some texts such as Soap Opera - Eastenders shows a truer to life representation of such issues, claiming to challenge television’s “dressed up”[3] representations, however a lack of realism is still evident.

BBC Soap opera Eastenders "Signs itself a being 'as it really was' “[4] working alongside a number of charities in the making of their mental health story lines. The story of ‘Stacey Slater’s’ bi-polar disease won a Mental Health Media Award in September 2009[5] for its realistic and positive representations of the disease. Unlike many texts from other genres and in the past, Eastenders has worked alongside a number of charities in order to appropriately reflect the image that the mentally ill are perfectly normal and safe, unlike the common representation that they are “unpredictable, unproductive, asocial, vulnerable and dangerous to themselves or others”[6]. Soap Opera’s have the perfect reputation in order to successfully represent such an issue, using characters and stories which to a certain extent present the everyday human.

Like Eastenders , Soap opera Corronation Street also claims to create a real-to-life representation. Their 20

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[1] Lacey,N. "Image and representation: Key concepts in media studies" (Basningstoke: Palgrave,1998)

[2] Author: Stuart, Heather “CNS drugs Volume 20” (Adis international 2006)

[3] Bennett,P. Slater,J. Wall,P. "A2 media studies: The essential introduction" (Oxon : Routeledge , 2006)

[4] Lacey,N. "Image and representation: Key concepts in media studies" (Basningstoke: Palgrave,1998)

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastEnders

[6] Wilson,C. Raymond.N Coverdale.J Panapa.A “Mental illness depictions in prime-time drama: Identifying the discursive resources” (The university of Auckland,1999)