Analysis of an Episode of Hollyoaks

LIFESTYLES
The generations lead different lifestyles; for example Anita lives differently to her sister Leyla or their mother. Students and teachers also have different lifestyles. Different classed/statuses characters live differently as well, for example Darren lives different to a student like Elliot. These different lifestyles can also occur within a family; Ash lives a high, rich life whist his sisters live a simple student life.

RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships vary from family, sexual and loving. Family relationships are usually united and strong, but in such soaps the drama can tear a family apart. In the episode I watched, Ash was disowned by his family because he had told his sister she was adopted and had put his brother in a coma and lied about it. Another relationship seen in this episode was lust, between Cheryl and Calvin. She fancies him and when she has nowhere to go she stays at his house Calvin’s dad takes a shine to her.

PLOT
The plot of this episode mainly circulates around Ash being disowned by the family, and trying to get his sister Anita on his side, after telling her she was adopted. This branches into another family situation because of his previous relationship with Hannah, who was once diagnosed with anorexia. After an argument with Ash, Anita tells Gilly, one of Hannah’s friends, that Ash had hidden food in Hannah’s room to make it look like she was having eating problems and depend on him. Gilly told Hannah’s family what had happened and her mother went and apologised to her daughter for not believing her when she denied it, this resulted in them having a heart to heart and growing closer as a family. Ash realises that he has nothing left to stay for and after wrecking his restaurant, leaves the village for good.

Hollyoaks differs from other soaps by the way it shows special effects. Most soaps, like Eastenders, don’t use special effects, whilst Hollyoaks uses non-diegetic music, and imaginative beginnings that uses a short scene, which fits with the contents of the episode but is irrelevant to the story; for example, in one episode there was a large chess board and on one team was Darren and Hannah and on the other team was Tony and Cindy, this represented they games they were playing against each other and who had been caught up in the “game” but was not actually part of the characters lives.

Written by Thegla Savvides