textual analysis of families/characters in Hollyoaks and Eastenders

I have looked through the character lists for both soaps and brainstormed personality traits and roles of the characters to see if they conform to the theorists ideas that i have looked at.

Conclusion
Hollyoaks doesn't conform to the stereotypes as much as idea suggest. This may be because it is aimed at a younger audience audience of 14-25 (according to a fan site). A lot of the ideas that I was looking at showed women in stereotypical sexist roles with the men having the ultimate power. Whilst in Hollyoaks the men did seem to have the ultimate power a lot of the characters roles explores new personalities such as cross-dressers, single male parents/house-husbands,lesbeins and students. This could be because of its younger audience so feel that they have to add these characters to reach out to a wider audience so more people will relate to the characters. Hollyoaks focuses on relationships between friends more.

Eastenders sticks a lot more to the ideas that i looked at. Such as matriarch women who are never really successul and are ultimately controlled by men (such as the storryline involving Peggy and Archie Mitchell, even the adverts for the storyline showed Peggy as Archie's puppet). Eastenders has more storylines based in the domestic setting and explores family relationships more.