The impact of soap operas on teenagers life in Romania

First of all I would like to say that soap operas are short film serials which are linked to each other and which present the life of some people. Because these film serials were helped financially by soap companies they were named soap operas.

As time passed by these soap operas began to become very fashionable in Romania too as more and more TV stations started broadcasting such kind of films. Therefore the numbers of the people who are watching them is constantly rising and especially the number of the teenagers who are getting more and more interested in soaps.

Many teen- agers after watching them tried to act or to behave like an actor from the soap did thinking that in this way maybe he could become more popular. Nowadays in Romania are two categories of teenagers. There are the ones who are in favour of watching and not only soap operas, and there are the ones who are against this. Im sure that the number of the teenagers in Romania who are crazy about soap operas is higher than in many other countries. For instance I saw on the TV that a group of teenagers opened some kind of a club only for soap opera fans. The building in which this club opened is covered with posters of famous soap opera actors. The members of this foundation are dancing on the music from the soaps and trying to imitate their idols.

The existence of such kind of foundations in Romania really strikes me. I could never imagine that these soaps can be loved so much by the teenagers. The reasons why they like to watch soaps are very numerous. I tend to think that many teenagers watch them in order to relax or because they find themselves in the same situations, which are pre-sented in the soaps and so, they could learn new and very important techniques with the help of which they could solve their problems. Soap operas often take complex, painful issues, like euthanasia, domestic violence, AIDS, drugs and deal with them responsibly. I believe that the things mentioned above are very important to know especially for a teenager, that is why soaps provide intelligent answers to help viewers who may be in similar situations.

Beside these there are also many other things which teenagers can learn from soap operas.

As I see it the only thing they should do is not to confuse fact and fiction on the screen. However there are some soaps which are used for propaganda but teenager should carefully select their soaps and see only the good side of the things presented in them. Soaps encourage teenagers to realize that violence is a reality that you cant turn off and that the amount of aggressive language from soaps can be heard on the street too. In my opinion soaps take an important role in the education of children and not only as they provide helpful information which they will use in their everyday life. Unfortunately the teenagers from Romania can watch only foreign soap operas because our country wasnt able to make, until now, any soaps.

In ...