Giving teenage soap characters dead-end jobs and low aspirations risks shattering young viewers' career dreams, TV writers have been warned.
Now I don't watch EastEnders, but apparantly there's this character called Stacey Slater who works on a trading stall. The LSC says that if she were to put her skills to good use and take a Level 2 diploma in fashion retail, for example, she could progress from Walford market to her own designer fashion boutique.
Please, if you read this blog, and you know this Stacey, is this a realistic aim for her? And please, if you read this blog, and you teach on a Level 2 diploma in fashion retail, is this really the main thing holding her back from starting her own little business?
2 comments:
Come come now. We know that the LSC isn't referring directly to this little soap programme character. It's not her lack of post 16 qualification that's causing her problems. no it's the fact that her father couldn't read and she came from a broken home with a mish mash of parental figures. It is society I blame, really I'd have thought now nearly a decade into a Labour administration that we'd have truly found the panacea to lift those poor young people out of poverty. If not Bliar, maybe Bono could help. Swing through the square and perform a charity concert.
OK OK I'll cut the crap, I'm quite positive the LSC does not intend policy to help Stacey Slater, rather they are making a serious point for discussion - does the portrayal of youth on TV impact the youth / yoof who watch it. Of course it does. That's why now we have a culture of youth who think "I want to be famous" when asked what for their response it "being famous for being on TV" the disease that is famoulitous is a condition of reality programming. People think they'll go on some idiotic programme like "big I've eaten a hamster get my x factor brother dance moves out out of here" Youth don't realise that to be famous you used to have to achieve something, leading a cause, curing cancer developing technology discovering gravity etc. No they want to be famous for being a national spectacle and a moron on television.
The LSC has a point in wanting TV writers to provide decent character with real ambition not fool hardiness, which is just as dangerous. Rather a character like the "Sonia" character from East End Street Dale who is / was studying hard to become a nurse, a worthwhile endeavour that is achievable
M has pretty much covered it, I reckon.
Hmm... Anyone watched Grange Hill lately?
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