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Janine is Soaps greatest ever Character
Tillymint82
Posts: 946
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I have to say I'm going to REALLY miss Janine
She is for me the perfect soap character. The queen.
She's infinitely complex, multi layered and fascinating,
One minute you hate her for how cocky and nasty she is and the next your heart aches for how vulnerable and hurt she is.
Never has there been a greater soap character for me. I only hope that DTC Brings her back in a year or two.
She's a phenomenal actress, a platinum standard soap character and EastEnders is at its best when Janine is front and centre.
Heres hoping she's around or in the shadows for many many years to come.
Also David Wicks is just what the show needs. a brilliant brilliant character
She is for me the perfect soap character. The queen.
She's infinitely complex, multi layered and fascinating,
One minute you hate her for how cocky and nasty she is and the next your heart aches for how vulnerable and hurt she is.
Never has there been a greater soap character for me. I only hope that DTC Brings her back in a year or two.
She's a phenomenal actress, a platinum standard soap character and EastEnders is at its best when Janine is front and centre.
Heres hoping she's around or in the shadows for many many years to come.
Also David Wicks is just what the show needs. a brilliant brilliant character
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Comments
Greatest? No
Like many other soap characters she is a victim of her writing. Under DTC/Santer she was awful I recall a great many including myself found her just awful. Not good under John Yorke either. BK for all his faults redeemed her and it was only under him she began to shine.
Others i'd rate up there with her are ED's KIm Tate. Izzy Hoyland from Neighbours.
Annie from Sunset Beach.
Mercedes from HO.
All brilliant in their own way.
There has been an evolution to the character that has happened over 25 years - and the key thing to it, is it's been consistent. There's been no major overhaul, Janine has always been on this path.
There are very few characters across any medium that we've seen develop in this way, which makes her a truly unique character.
I think the only equivalent character I can think of would probably be Tracey Barlow - and having never really watched Coronation Street - my impression is she was never painted as a difficult child (she just listened to her tapes, upstairs), so her transition into soap bitch has possibly been less believable - I will need someone else to qualify that.
(obviously the likes of Ian Beale and Ken Barlow have been long running, but we saw them from being young adults - not children where they were formed)
There is another character who may achieve the same longevity and consistency of Janine and that's Tom from Hollyoaks, who frankly, IMO, is nowhere near Soap's Greatest Character, so there has to be something else that Janine has.
Tom is consistently good. Janine is consistently ambiguous. She can be a complete cow, but as a viewer we understand why she's like that, because we've been there to see her grow up. The writing for Janine can be more complex, because there's no need to explain every little action - the viewer knows why Janine acts in the way she does, in a way that we might need simpler writing to understand the way that the likes of Dexter or Roxy might behave.
The other thing that Janine had (apart from the history and the story lines) was Pat. Pat truly was one of the greatest soap characters there has ever been, and along with Frank probably told the most realistic love story in the whole of soap - no fireworks like Angie and Den, no forced sentiment like Kat and Alfie, just simple, honest to goodness can't keep your hands off each other physical and emotional attraction.
The pure realism in the way that these three characters were constructed and interacted with each other has created the legacy of Janine. Janine can be given outlandish story lines, and she can get away with them, because she's a grounded character - because of our relationship with her and our understanding of what makes her work.
I would say, not one of greatest soap characters ever, but possibly one of the best characters in television history.
(All in my own humble opinion)
Basically all of this. Excellent post.
She hasn't been that good lately because the show hasn't been either. Charlie Brooks is a terrific actress but the writing hasn't quite been here recently and I think she knew this as well because she left so soon after her break to the jungle.
Excellent post, I also am in complete agreement. I loved Pat, I thought she was brilliant. I watched the Jewish wedding episode the other day. Pat and Janine in that were just epic. Also, it was nice to see Janine in tears when Pat died. Proof that she does have a heart...somewhere...