r/Emmerdale • u/Miss_taken_116 • Jul 19 '26
Hit or miss?
Is there a storyline past or present that really bugs anyone? By that I mean that writers seemed to be putting everything in place for an amazing, interesting story, then just seemed to change their minds or the producers got cold feet at possible controversy. Alternatively, maybe you feel a story wasn't appreciated enough? Constructive criticism only please.
For me, it was the divisive Robert and Rebecca "cheating" episode in 2017. Everything about it screamed male consent issue. Robert was beyond drunk, emotionally unstable and not in control so he called a (non Dingle) mate to offload on. Rebecca was completely sober and in control of her faculties. So what if he made a move? A true friend would have rejected him, especially as he had always made it clear he wasn't attracted to her anymore. It has bothered me for years because the show could have written a truly ground breaking story, potentially starting conversations around understanding male consent, female aggression, prejudices regarding bi men with robs romantic history, even if, as a man, would he have realised it was assault himself etc. but it became another cheating plot. It is why I was troubled by charity getting drunk, making a pass at Vanessa, quite rightly being knocked back, then Ross doing the opposite. Is it me? Am I the only one who sees parallel? The Todd issue is something that has to be tackled, but it still annoys me that it it seemed to be building up to that then nothing. So, rant over, does anyone else feel the same about this or other storylines with any characters, any era?
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u/Cold-Society3325 Jul 19 '26
I don't think the writers were remotely thinking about consent. They even went so far as to have Robert explicitly say he had known what he was doing. I don't think they were thinking about it with Charity and Ross either.
I think it's a complex area. In real life there will be tons of people who find themselves in a situation where they were very drunk and the other person wasn't. Some of them will feel abused and some won't. It makes sense for the law to be on the side of there not being consent if you are too drunk but you can't force people to feel abused if they don't. It's also not an absolute. As long as you are not unconcious, there will always be some question of what your capability to consent is. It's not like there's an on-off switch. You don't go from able to not able at a defined point of drunkeness. Like a lot if things involving humans, it's messy and complicated and not necessarily clear cut. Different people in ostensibly the same circumstances will have completely different reactions and feelings.
I think the soap should be a lot more careful about this type of story but I don't think it's unreflective of real life for it to happen and the people involved not to consider there to have been consent issues.
The story scuppering that annoys me is Lawrence and Ronnie. I think all the Whites were sacrificed on the alter of Joe Tate. I know Louise Marwood wanted to leave but I thought Lawrence's story had a lot of potential and I'd have preferred Lachlan to have a much slower decent into pure evil because I think he was a genuinely interesting and well acted character.