Example 1: I am sitting in my favorite armchair and watching the final part of the series Forbidden Love. At the most exciting moment, it occurs to me that I have forgotten a kettle on the stove. I hurry to switch it off. Five minutes after I return to my seat, an explosion-like sound comes from the kitchen. I’d turned up the flame instead of putting it out. The kettle fell victim to Forbidden Love.

Example 2: As soon as the series ends, I get online. Everybody is discussing it on Twitter. Only one person writes about the recent terror attack in Turkey, and there is no feedback on it. Even a famous Turkish actress sent a message to her ex-boyfriend by referring to the series: "Let our ex-boyfriends watch Forbidden Love and understand how they will suffer if we die.”

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Just like every joke has some truth in it, there is a problem hidden below the surface. Surveys and statistical data show that the number of divorces and conjugal infidelity has increased in Azerbaijan in the past several years. You may claim that people used to separate from and betray their partners before as well but nobody talked about it. However it’s clear that endless soap operas aired on state and private as well as foreign channels are among the primary reasons for the above-mentioned trend. What are the social hazards posed by soap operas - which are often of low quality and unprofessionally made and are meant to entertain the audience, increase the popularity of a particular channel and earn money by airing more commercials?

One side of the coin

First of all, in Azerbaijan, the word "series” is usually associated with «soap operas», humble Marias, Juans, Lucases, and the whining "haves” produced in Latin America. (Despite the fact that Marias have already surrendered their popularity to Turkish films). The intellectual elite consider them a sign of bad taste (but they do watch in secret). Nonetheless, the series culture has long emerged in the world. The modern German, Turkish and Russian cinematography owe their development to series. They play an important role in the creative work of the well-known dogmatist Lars von Trier, the mystics admirer and symbolist David Lynch, and the German film director Wim Wenders.

In terms of topics, there are two kinds of series. First, Latin American style series, namely TV shows or simply "soap operas” mostly viewed by our audiences. In such series, the plot is always the same – a rich girl falls in love with a poor boy or vice versa. Detective, thriller or mystic elements included in such series are solely the backdrop. The natures of the main characters neither change nor develop throughout 150-200 episodes. Therefore, the spectator's attitude to the characters stays intact and one-sided – a love-hate attitude.

Serial dramas, sitcoms and feature films fall under the second type of series. Their length may differ. The length of Sex in the City, The Client Is Always Dead, the very popular Lost, and Pacific co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks depends on their rating; on the contrary, the length of such series as Twin Peaks, Brigade, Moscow Saga and Forbidden Love was known from the very outset.

In contrast to soap operas, the analysis of the characters’ reactions to various situations, their personalities, and most importantly, their behaviors are at the forefront of serial films. This means that favorite characters may be hated by the end, and the end is not necessarily happy. A sitcom is a genre of comedy that features recurring characters in a common closed environment and ends, as a rule, with a social message.

Of course there are positive sides to soap operas, too. There is no absolute good or evil in this life. The same is also true for soap operas. Each show guarantees long-term normal living conditions, jobs and salaries to, in the best case 1000 and in the worst 50-100 people. Moreover, they create an appropriate environment for actors, film directors and even producers to stay in shape and develop their skills. Actors sharpen their reaction to unexpected situations, learn to be on set any time and adapt to any changes as well as develop their improvisation skills.

Secondly, series increase awareness among the masses. Yes, they do spread knowledge, for example there are women who designed a self-made Spanish-Azerbaijani dictionary. They might not be fluent in their native language but know the meanings of Spanish words. When the Brazilian soap opera Clone was on, viewers swarmed to internet cafes in order to understand what cloning was about.

Today characters from the Turkish series Ezel quote Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde, and Jalaladdin Rumi. Viewers who have never held a book in their hands learn about the existence of such authors and read books seen in the hands of favorite actors. Furthermore, our women learn about good manners, good looks to attract men, romantic candle lit dinners, appealing night gowns. Soap operas are good for men too – women complain less that they see nothing but cooking pots, the kitchen and bazaars. As a famous Russian comedian once said: "Our women travel to Spain, Mexico and Brazil every day and return to their villages only during commercial breaks.”

Other side of the coin

On one hand, magnificent palaces, designer clothes, handsome men and beautiful women wearing those clothes are screened. Those men and women are smitten with each other, get married, deliver chubby babies, and overcome all obstacles in life. On the other side of the screen, women spend their time behind a gas stove, flounder around in the net of their ever-increasing problems, release their stress only when they forget their daily concerns and build their own world by watching soap operas. Women and young girls who are the main consumers of soap operas associate themselves with the characters, compare their grey and monotonous lives with what they see on TV, experience desired and imaginary feelings they might never be able to have in real life and often believe that everything they see on the screen is real. The illusion conveyed by the black box turns into a kind of elixir, a drug for a tired and bored audience.

A series is like an uninvited guest coming and going as it pleases. A viewer gets used to it and lets it in – asks it for advice, learns from it and listens to it. In ancient China, hostages used to be placed in a space where water would continuously drip on their head. Drops constantly falling on the same spot gouged the skull and entered the brain as a result of which hostages died. The effect of the series resembles that of Chinese torture; it works its way into our subconscious drop-by-drop, changes us and turns us into zombies. In the soap operas of the 90s, female characters kept their virginity until the end or slept only with one beloved. Now they usually get raped, and they take it as their fate and conceal it from others. It is transmitted into our brain every day and teaches us to acquiesce to violence, brutality and injustice; it is inculcated in our minds that resistance is useless.

They say that if you cannot fight a situation, adapt to it. The series is that type of situation. It is the reality of our daily life. We cannot pretend that we don’t see it. But there is a way out, namely the production of national series and the creation of a local market such as exist in Russia and Turkey. If several foreign-made series were aired on Russian channels every day in the 90s, the number has now been reduced to a minimum. Turkish TV does not show foreign soap operas anymore. They either adopt plots of foreign soap operas and professionally localize them, or adapt literary masterpieces to modern life (The Fall of Leaves, Forbidden Love, Madam's Farm). Those series meet the needs local viewers and captivate the Arab world.