"EastEnders' East End and its version of working-class life are very stylised," John Yorke said.
"It's not realistic in that respect but you look for an emotional truthfulness," he told the Radio Times.
He said the BBC One soap "may be significantly white compared with the real East End".
But he added that it was "considerably more multicultural than it was even five years ago and is easily the most multicultural show on telly now".
The BBC's controller of drama production told the magazine that soaps had to find a balance in their storylines.
"Real life changes much more quickly than representations of it on television," he said.
"Soaps reach a point where they have a really big decision to make - do they stay true to the original vision or do they throw it away and adapt to a changing world?
"My own feeling is that the truth lies somewhere in between."
The magazine also interviewed Coronation Street executive producer Kieran Roberts.
He said the long-running ITV1 soap presented "a warm and cosy version of the world" but added "it's a community that's sufficiently real and sufficiently recognisable that people are drawn to it."
On the soap's ethnic mix, he said he felt they were getting it "about right".
"I'd be very worried if viewers - especially viewers from ethnic minorities - were saying they didn't think the show represented them fully."
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13344427
Is this not stating the bleeding obvious???
And this guy gets paid quite a lot of money to create this 'contemporary' drama!
For years I've held the opinion that Albert Square is located on Mars and not on planet Earth. Ever since Arthur Fowler died the show has lost any credibility, being about trying to emulate a Tarantino influenced Kray Twins East End rather than any recognisable version of reality.
I used to live in North London and the ethnic mix there is extremely diverse, so in the East End it's even more so. Yet on this show 80% of the characters are WASPS.
When will they dare have a black man owning the Queen Vic? Or have a black guy as the stallion of the Square, regularly servicing all the local ladies? Something tells me not to hold my breath.
As for Coronation Street, I reckon the entire cast could be replaced with Wallace & Gromit plasticine animations and nobody would realise. It's so completely unrealistic it doesn't gauge my interest in the slightest. (And how quickly has that tram crash been forgotten!!)
SEE BELOW COMMENTS TAKEN FROM 'THE INDEPENDENTS' BLOG AT http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/eastenders-is-not-realistic-says-bbc-boss-2281791.html
ctthorn
Eastenders has always been predictable rubbish for those who need to watch arguments and shouting between entirely one dimensional characters( try smelling the roses..... or reading a book). I see it every couple of years, the characters change but certain types get recycled; viewers seem to need to watch characters suffering...its depressing and the worst of human nature is on show. It claims it pushes the boundaries with social issues but its a worthless claim and the writers should be ashamed that they get away with the same old tosh. Can I have my licence fee spent on something of quality, not competing like this with the other idiot channels on their terms? Note that I am working class and drama should inspire, make you think, change your life. Watching Eastenders does the opposite.
martin_lowe
I'm relieved that the BBC have admitted that EastEnders isn't real, because having families scream at each other in the way that they do on the programme was profoundly depressing when imagining that art follows life.
Feel Good UK
Big Brother is the modern day soap opera, magnifying dramatized trivia and the unpredictable absurdity of life, whilst suggesting the unspoken subtext of its characters in its edit. It's what killed off Brookside (though that show had resorted to trying to copy other films and TV shows rather than trying to reflect any 'reality' in its last years - something EE and Corrie are also in danger of doing).
The soaps have got too far fetched. More psychological truth - which audience members can relate to - can be revealed in showing two people rowing over whose peed on the toilet seat, than any sensational (we've nicked this plot from Take A Break magazine) UK soap at the moment.
Odysseus
Leave it owt will ya. Not wot? Reelistic? You wanna watch wot yor sayin mate - know what I mean do yer. Eh? DO YER?
Soap operas like East Enders don't reflect or represent reality, they create it. People adopt the predisposition of the characters in their everyday lives. It's totally depressing.
ALANG
The problem with all the soaps is that there are just too many episodes to fill each week. As somebody who acts as a carer for a TV addict, and is therefore to some extent a captive viewer, I have to say that not only some of the plots far fetched (The Stape Accidental Murders Case Coronattion Street the pick and mix addiction to drugs and drink shaken off at a whim in Eastenders by one of the main characters), the nudge here-wink there would-be sexuality of Emmerdale, with older men and women chasing younger men and women, like a Carry On film), some are just downright depressing (a man in his early 20s who wishes to be aided to commit suicide in Emmerdale, who, though plainly depressed, has never received psychological help or even anti-depressants.
Some stories are just downright tedious (the ridiculous Punch & Judy marriage in Eastenders of Jane & Ian(?) - one episode last week where the bovine husband divides the dining table was lifted straight out of the Steptoe & Son episode "Divided We Fall"), an "amnesia" plot in Emmerdale, handicapped by the man involved being a very wooden actor who would seem to be more at home in a cheesy sitcom, in the same series a very "straight" actor plainly embarrassed at having to play a "gay" man, and only grins or scowls. Or cries. But I think I'd be crying if I had to deliver some of the risible, repetitive garbage he has to.
It would be far better if all the soaps just agreed to produce only 2 or 3 episode each week - they obviously have unwritten agreements since they make sure they don't clash with each other.
There are far too many similar characters who are interchangable. I could go on, but I can't be bothered!
voxpop2012
EastEnders 'is not realistic' says BBC boss.
No sh*t Sherlock !
koos de la rey
But the BBC's Robin Hood series, set in medieval England "is" realistic? with it's Black African friar Tuck and litany of Asian and African faces, they should rename this show "Robin in da hood, bro!!!"
So long as it's "multi-cultural" though, eh. Oh yeah, thats all that matters. Jeez! So long as we see just what the leftwing have done to the native demographics of London over the past forty/fifty years.
3 people liked this.
icarus_69
It was arch-Conservative Enoch Powell who started the mass immigration from the West Indies, not leftwingers.
jeremy and 1 more liked this
Run4demHills
Eastenders and Corrie's popularity really depresses me.
Dick McLaughlin
I thought they were documentaries!
1HughJardon1
EastEnders 'is not realistic' says BBC boss
You need to try and explain that to the underclass in this country then, because I'm sure they think it's real
bleachers
Are you confusing class with stupidity?
FrankLe
The subtle but profound distortions that TV automatically uses when it's 'doing real' adds up to a monstrous lie! Everything is larger than life, more intense, sharper and extraneous details omitted.
Overall effect, to produce a reality that is more persuasive and convincing than peoples real lives.
Example; in the aftermath of a seriously life threatening incident overhearing someone say "better than watching it on TV though. . . " or hearing someone talking about something they had done "Nothing like it is on the telly. . . "
It used to be said that TV rots your brain but the truth is it's rotting your reality.
jillhare
But it's drama. Drama IS bigger than life. It always has been. It's meant to be. It can be politically correct, scarey, boring, funny. But it's still not real. Even reality TV isn't real. That's more like pantomime and certainly controlled and edited improvisation.
But I can't agree that drama is a 'lie'. If drama was 'real' or a re-creation of true human interaction, it would be unwatchable. Just listen to real conversations and the white noise of everyday life.
If TV is 'rotting ... reality' (presuming you're talking about drama programs), it must be those brains who've forgotten they're watching drama.
Your comment, FrankLe, is an exact explanation of what drama is. But it's not a lie.
FrankLe
I could sopena Plato, author of 'The Republic' here but I'll settle for Chris Lehmann.
"So on the pseudodocumentary machinery grinds-with the occasional lurid
intrusion from the actual real world to remind viewers that this isn't
all quite the harmless fun and games we're all encouraged to think it
is. In 2009, for example, VH1's gruesome bottom-feeding defilement of
human intimacy, "Megan Wants a Millionaire," was abruptly canceled when
one of its contestants, an investment banker named Ryan Jenkins, was
accused of murdering his real-life girlfriend, a swimsuit model named
Jasmine Fiore, who was found crammed into a suitcase discarded in a
trash bin in Buena Vista, California. Jenkins later committed suicide
while on the lam from authorities in Canada".
How's that for drama?
captain_swing
They've never been well written or well acted either.
Claus von Gettysburg
Well as long as the multicultural racial balance is correct then don't worry about the writing.
DelcanAhern
Yes, political correctness and tokenism are 'de rigueur' in broadcasting!
The reality of the multicultural and religious, ethnic and racial situation in the UK can best be seen via the results of Census 2001. Population of just under 59 million, religious and ethnic breakdown, ignoring references to Cornish identity and Jedi, it is immediately clear that more than 90% are white and Christian.
The other groups make up, at best, only a few per cent in each category. The simple truth is that there are indeed some elements of the population who are not Christian and a few percent who are not white!
Dark_Heart_of_Toryland
Conceivably, it may have escaped your attention that, in this age of globalisation, there are some parts of the country which are a bit more cosmopolitan and a bit less monocultural than the depths of rural Middle England, one of these places being London. The ethnic mix in London, where Eastenders is supposed to be set, is hardly reflected by the broad national mean, as measured by the census. Describing the country as 90% Christian is also wide of the mark. In fact, only 71% described themselves as Christian in the census; but of those, most appear to be of the 'birth, wedding and funeral' variety - at least to judge by the minimal levels of regular church attendance in the UK. It's also worth noting that in the same census, 15.5% marked themselves as 'no religion'
Ian1
Er, 90% of British people are Christian? Really? That'll be why the churches are so full to busting that they have to turn people away at the doors every week.
From the ONS website:
"There are 37.3 million people in England and Wales who state their religion as Christian."
Now, I'm no mathematical genius, but 37.3 million out of 59 million wasn't 90% last time I checked.
bleachers
The article is about Eastenders. That said, the ethnic makeup of the program should show the reality, 85% "minority" 15% white.
The BBC should change the name from Eastenders to Spot The White Man.
obidoug 2 hours ago
Stenders and Corrie have never been realistic
ALANG
I think, in a way, they depict life as it was seen years, decades ago. Quite often attempts at humour in Eastenders is as heavy handed as it was in some of the Ealing comedies of the 40s and 50s, and Coronation Street likewise, though the Frank Randall/George Formby type films of the same period. There are times you expect to see Hylda Baker in her curlers...
As for Emmerdale it is the Archers with pictures, it's cast the victim of a terrible plot.....abysmal dialogue and sub-standard production.
