In 1985, Australia adopted the global soap opera format with the television show, Neighbours. Although originally being cancelled by Channel 7, the show was later picked up by Ten and became a transnational phenomenon, particularly in Britain. As a result of this, three years later Seven began developing a soap called Home and Away. This, like Neighbours, achieved a particularly wide, international audience, however not to the same extent. How and why was it that these programmes, which employ almost every soap convention possible, gained such a following?
In terms of international viewership, Home and Away and Neighbours are one of Australia’s most successful television exports, with Cristal claiming that “Neighbours is probably the most successful international soap opera that's ever been”. In saying this, why has Neighbours had a greater degree of success overseas than Home and Away? Allen attributes this not to a difference in quality, but to a difference in focus, tone and content. Identification with the everyday in suburban life holds a much larger emphasis in Neighbours than in its competitors such as Eastenders, The Bold and the Beautiful and, of course, Home and Away. Brugiere seemed to concur with Allen claiming that the characters’ “greatest existential anguish consists in having to choose between two colours of wallpaper”. In saying this, Neighbours thus provides a relief from the unrealistic melodrama of Home and Away and also from the viewers’ everyday. Cunningham, Miller and Rowe expand on this notion of escapism from the perspective of the British public, stating that, via Neighbours, “Australia can be introjected as an alternative utopic admixture of exotic holiday brochure and cinema images” to the British lifestyle, and therefore, such forms of engagement provide “much pleasure and defies any simple correlation between the moral cause espoused at a public level and viewer reception.” Therefore, the greater international success of Neighbours over Home and Away is perhaps due to a more accessible and more casual escapism via the employment of the everyday.
This escapism however, although classless, reveals a very white, attractive, heterosexual utopia. This is something that is no doubt present in both Home and Away and Neighbours. Allen states that Home and Away presents a “cultural snobbery” and Germaine Greer holds a similar (albeit more hostile) view on Neighbours, claiming that “there are no Asian characters in Neighbours, the only Southern Europeans are ridiculous stereotypes…Religion is never discussed, sexual orientation is always heterosexual”. Although there has in fact been characters since who hold these traits, they have either come considerably late, or are few and far between, or both. In fact, the first openly homosexual character in both Home and Away and Neighbours came in 1994, almost a decade after the introduction of one in Eastenders and nearly two decades after The Young and the Restless. As such, this draws it back to the inclusion of the everyday as an escapism device. Neighbours producer Mark Callan stated, “we do our best when we portray the mundane in an entertaining way” The demographic of Neighbours and Home and Away, being a young, white audience, is susceptible to situations that appear normal and familiar, and thus are led to a comfortable escapism through the removal of taboo subject matter such as race issues and homosexuality.
In order to earn the success they have, Neighbours and Home and Away have taken typical soap conventions and have Australianised them. Consequentially, for overseas audiences, the mythic however simple qualities of Australian life, perpetuated by films such as Crocodile Dundee, have translated into some form of escapism or utopia, particularly the British. And in doing this, they adhere to the status quo as much as possible. Neighbours more so than Home and Away succeeds at this by employing the everyday as a bridge for their demographics, and focusing on the believable more than the unrealistic or, perhaps, uncomfortable.
References:
Allen, Robert C., Global Neighbours, in, ‘To be continued…: soap operas around the world’, New York, Routledge (1995) p.98-122
Cunningham S., Miller T., Rowe D., Australian Soaps in Britain, in, ‘Contemporary Australian Television’, UNSW Press (1994) p.127-137
Home and Away (1988-present), created by Alan Bateman
Neighbours (1985-present), created by Reg Watson
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