Though I've listened to Radio 4 ever since I was a teenager I've never been an Archers fan. I've barely sat through an entire episode of it in the past thirty or more years, so I'm not really able to judge its overall trajectory.
David Keighley, however, isn't just a long-time listener. He used to write blurb for The Archers in the early '80s. And his account of his falling-out-of-love with Radio 4's "everyday story of country folk" makes for an interesting read.
His basic point is that The Archers abruptly turned into just another agenda-ridden, politically correct BBC offering back in 1991 when a new producer arrived, and it's been like that ever since.
The current Rob & Helen Tichener domestic-abuse-and-stabbing story - which has been the talk of the newspapers as well as the Radio 4-listening public - comes in for particular criticism as presenting a melodramatic, false, feminist, black-and-white storyline.
And the fact that Radio 4 devotees and Daily Mail columnists are delivering their jury verdicts on whether Helen should be found guilty or not guilty and domestic abuse charities are receiving lots more money on the strength of it, doesn't stop it being a fiction.
And that, David thinks, is dangerous.
The Archers is currently harrowing its listeners with a heavy-handed melodrama about a bullied woman who eventually stabs her overbearing husband. I am not a regular listener, but as far as I could see she could have avoided the whole episode by leaving home before he got back from work. Yet the scriptwriters plainly want us to sympathise with the stabber.
...and goes further:
It’s no use saying it’s just fiction. These dramas have a huge influence on national thought.
And the remarkable reaction to the Archers 'melodrama' seems to prove that.
Others have asked this before, but it's worth repeating - via Peter Hitchens:
How is it that this amazingly influential sector of broadcasting [drama] is not in any way covered by the rules on impartiality? Isn’t it time we took it as seriously as it deserves to be taken?
"It’s no use saying it’s just fiction. These dramas have a huge influence on national thought".
ReplyDeleteMade this complaint to BBC in 2007 nearly a decade ago about the drama "Spooks" . The basic story- Israeli's bombed the Gaza strip and a girls school is collateral damage and the programme uses this to justify Al Qaeda planning an attack on a British school. .
It is significant to note that 5.68 million British viewers watched this on BBC1. And it was released on DVD in 2008. Below is also the actual account of the beginning of this drama. http://netanyalynette.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/fiction-as-fact-and-fact-as-fiction.html
Yes - Soaps are used as the cutting edge of the subversive tunnel makers. Sometimes it's been for the good e.g. in opening up discussion about domestic abuse initially. However, it's now become a full on PC assault on reality - biological reality, religious reality and social reality. I think the Helen and Rob story was good drama with the slow build over a couple of years and it was far more credible than most TV soaps. However, towards the end it became increasingly PC. Incidentally, I have to laugh at the TV advert about controlling behaviour "Is your partner telling you what to wear? That's wrong. Are they telling you who you can speak to? That's wrong." What they are describing is the behaviour of 90% of wives and girlfriends towards their male partners! As in "No you can't wear a fleece to a party." or "Well I don't want you talking to her, she's obviously just trying to split us up."
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