I have a guilty secret - well, one of many. This one regards my occassional habit of watching Eastenders - not compulsively but enough to know who’s who and what’s going on. I can’t call it a guilty pleasure like, for example, shooting up with crystal meth might be although it’s probably just as bad. It sometimes passes the time and sometimes distracts but more often than not in totally annoys me. The main cause of my frustration? Simple - why oh why oh why do characters in soap operas never change? Why are they so devoid of any character growth or any type of personal story arc?

This is largely a rhetorical question because the answer (I believe) is that the viewers like familiarity and need to have it clearly defined who the bad guys are, who the good guys are and who’s going to provide the comic relief. If Grant Mitchell came back to Walford having spent the intervening years in learning yoga in India under the tutelage of some Swami (which is not an entirely implausible story point for the character considering that he is a veteran of the Falklands War ) then the viewers are not going to be happy. They want the tough guy, the hard man, the thug, the lad and the bald headed brother of Phil Mitchell to be exactly that - no more, no less.

The problem is that character stagnation really pisses me off. Take Janine Butcher, for example. You know she’s a nasty piece of work and she always be. She’s also remarkably stupid! She has to be considering that she doesn’t learn at all from her experiences, whether it be a descent into alcholism and prostitution, being charged for the murder of Barry or whoever and whatever shit situations that she got herself into. You’d think that there would be some sort of rehabilitation, some type of change in character , some sign that she’s actually taken on board the fact that being a nasty bitch gets her into more trouble than being, I don’t know, nice to people for a change.

On Holby City recently we’ve seen signs that one of the characters, Jac Naylor, the motorcyle riding, self serving, career obssessed, frigid bitch troll from hell maybe melting a little after a series of selfless acts that have got other people out of trouble. She even got accused of murder allowing her to appear in the police-procedural spin-off, Holby Blue where there were moments - just moments but there nevertheless - where her stony and grim facade began to crumble. Of course, none of the other characters trust her (apart from one or two who are gullible and trusting and who will ultimately be upset at their betrayal at her hands) and are suspicious of her motivations because a leopard, as they say, never changes it’s spots and neither do characters in soap-operas. As a viewer, however, I’m pretty damned certain that she’s just not going to become a church-going, goody two shoes anytime soon and that’s a shame because it makes the series predictable in the same way that you just knew that a red-shirted nameless supporting character in Star Trek was always, always going to get killed when they made planetfall.

In films there is invariably some type of character arc and progression (or decline) that is integral to the story whether it be Luke Skywalker evolving from farm-boy to hero of the Rebellion in Star Wars or Michaeal Dorsey’s personal transformation and growth away from being a misogynistic perfectionist to a likeable and empathetic character in Tootsie. Of course there are some character archetypes that don’t tend to change over the course of a film, like superheroes, for example, or a character like James Bond. Even so, it’s not impossible for these characters to evolve and grow either, as the recent incarnation of 007 demonstrated in Casino Royale. That’s probably why there are so many superhero origin films - they show the growth and change from being your common, garden variety John Doe into a super-powered and heroic, crime-fighting do-er of good.

Superhero sequels, however, must be much tougher to write so as to include some character growth because, well, they’ve grown already. Superman doesn’t need to change because he’s Superman and is the ultimate archetype of an indestructible hero. All the audience want to see is him getting into a punch up with the villains and winning the day - they expect the same familiar character that they desire from their soap operas. A well written sequel, however, will be able to find some room for a character arc: Superman 2 has everyone’s favourite son of Krypton having to literally transform into a powerless human so that he can have a proper relationship with Lois Lane before eventually coming to terms with his destiny and the personal sacrifices that will entail. Spiderman 2 has Peter Parker follow a similar arc - he loses his powers because of stress and lack of confidence but by the end of the film has accepted his destiny and his responsibilities.

It’s hard to concieve of characters in any regular soap-operas being archetypes, though - stereotypes, perhaps, but definitely not archetypes. I know that if I stop watching Eastenders now and come back in 6 months or a year, Ian Beale is still going to be a cock, Peggy Mitchell will still be a load mouthed, opinionated and predujiced cow and Bradley Branning will still be a wet good for nothing moping after Stacey. Perhaps it would be more interesting if the writers decided to evolve the characters - perhaps it would make the storylines less predictable (we just know that psycho-boy Sean is not going to be a changed man despite his promises to that Mitchell bint - the one who’s not Samantha Janus) but perhaps it might also make the show less annoying and a little more interesting.

Personally I’m going to try and wean myself off the habitual watching of this shite and on to something less soul destroying and damaging like, say, a crack habit. In the meantime I’m going to hope against hope that Jac Naylor actually does turn out to become a genuinely nice person just so that I can say I was wrong.