Guest blog post by football blogger Football Explainers who is also at Twitter @footexplain
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One of the areas Coronation Street has tackled, somewhat subliminally, is social mobility and aspiration. Right from the first episode in 1960, characters have gone on a journey to better themselves (some even, the opposite) in the tiny Weatherfield bubble. It is a quality which goes overlooked but you wouldn't necessarily underpin it as the reason why you fell in love with the show in the first place.
If you, like myself, are glued to the classic episodes on ITV3 you may have begun to notice Sally's transformation from a wild child off the estate to an aspirational snob. It isn't exaggerated as it is now, but there are delicate signs which make her development as a character all the more believable. Today's Sally mirrors an Annie Walker-tribute act with added fresco wallpapers.
The 'rags to riches' formula has worked on countless others. It seems to be Corrie's tried and tested method for introducing a female character. Before Shona, there was Gemma who atoned for her wicked past. Before Gemma you had Kylie, Becky, Fiz, right the way down to the Battersby sisters who gave the street a much-needed shake up.
Leanne in particular has mellowed since her arrival, and is a prime example of someone who has managed to get by without a university degree or serious job prospects. Perhaps that is one of Corrie's greatest qualities: projecting the image you don't need to bundle yourself in debt in order to achieve your ambitions. There is a life to be lived.
Which leads me on to last week's Corrie. One of the subplots involved Sophie applying for a position as manager of a restaurant. She didn't get the job in the end having made it as far as the interview stage, which was a surprising twist to the usual soapland job process. Aidan and her sister Rosie, there for moral support, believed the successful candidate was appointed because of cronyism.
It may be presumptuous to think that. For a start, could it just be that the applicant was better suited for the role? She may have had years of experience in the restaurant industry. Sophie meanwhile has been a shopkeeper at Dev's, clipboard-hugging secretary for her father, window cleaner, and now we're led to believe she would fit in a swish restaurant like a glove? In today's competitive job market, her CV must have been impressive to even get a call back.
I'm not denouncing Sophie for being portrayed as ambitious (it's nice she went for a job OUTSIDE the street), but there has to be some logic. When Kylie worked at the bistro, she started out as a waitress and worked her way up to earn some managerial responsibility. She became fiercely independent, demonstrated a knack for learning things quickly, and for the first time in her life enjoyed what she was doing. That was until producer Stuart Blackburn decided to move her out and send her life spiralling down.
Liz, who had no experience of bar work when Bet offered her a job, enjoyed a similar rise. Her and the Rovers are inseparable and she's a natural with punters. The career trajectory hasn't exactly been consistent or well-thought out with others: Michelle, who joined as a singing barmaid quickly morphed into a businesswoman at t'factory without any training, or dubious backstory for viewers to swallow. Then she went back to the Rovers but had she continued to graft at Underworld the "transformation" might not have been so preposterous as it was then.
I suspect Aidan's involvement in Sophie's job hunt will lead to her working for him. If so, let's hope the bosses will let her grow as a character and commit to her career trajectory instead of looking for short-term gain.
Guest blog post by football blogger Football Explainers who is also at Twitter @footexplain
Fancy writing a guest blog post for us? All details here!
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