When in the process of creating Eastenders, programme makers emphasised that it was about everyday life in the inner city; ''A slice of life". Smith, one of the creators had said that ''We don't make life, we reflect it".
Eastenders first featured gritty story lines in the eighties which involved drugs and murder which was reflecting a time in Britain where society and communities had been broken down. Similarly to Coronation Street in the 1960's, Eastenders represented the issues of people, particularly in the working class in Britain.
Such story lines included Sue and Ali's baby cot death, homosexuality between Colin and Barry which lead to homophobic Nick Cotton, the rape of Cathy Beale in 1988, Michelle Fowler falling pregnant with Den's baby as well as drug dealing, prostitution, mixed race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, racism, divorce and muggings.
Gradually as the show progressed into the nineties, it moved with society, as the issues in the eighties still existed, there was less attention to them. However they still featured hard hitting issues such as Mark Fowler discovering he was HIV positive in 1991 and the death of Gill, murder, adoption, alcoholism and domestic violence.
Euthanasia was also covered in the early 2000's between two well established characters; Ethel Skinner and Dot Cotton.
Although many of the issues where portrayed earlier on with Eastenders when they first started, some issues are addressed more now than before. For example, Sexuality; before with Sonia being a Lesbian, it wasn't fully embraced by the audience as it is now with Christian and Syed. Sonia was just a one off and then she was back with Martin, where as Christian and Syed are a couple in the square.
Issue's such as these are not really thought about unless on a soap although they do reflect on todays society. For example prostitution with Whitney was also apart of Children in Need to address the issue even further because of the amount of teenagers at the time this was happening to. By doing this, they are introducing a younger generation and portraying issues that teenagers do go through. Viewership is crucial and in order to attract certain audiences they have to appeal to them. Recently, Eastenders have been heading more towards a youth audience and therefore the style and format has slightly changed as drama and comedy are combined together. Fatboy being one of those characters as he along with a couple of other people between the age of 17 - 22 came together for E20 which is exclusively online which is mainly for the younger audience. Therefore they have been able to attract a new audience as well as keep the old ones.
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