Is Coronation Street the right place?

Coronation Street has recently come under fire for a plot involving 16 year old teenager Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon). Centered around the subject of grooming, the plot has already seen naive Bethany fall prey to an older man called Nathan Curtis (Chris Harper) with recent scenes seeing her lose her virginity to him after having her drink spiked. The story line is set to gather pace in the coming weeks as Nathan tries to pimp the vulnerable schoolgirl out to his friends. While the controversial story line has been praised by some children's charities, it is still receiving its fair share of backlash with many believing the ITV soap has gone too far this time. Has Coronation Street gone too far? Or do these stories need to be told and if so, are pre-watershed soap operas the place to tell them?

The controversial 'grooming' plot has horrified some people

The world is a messed up place. Screwy things happen all the time. That's not to say that we would still know how to react were something like that happening to us. Nor, it's fair to say, would we know the signs of something messed up however obvious they may be. In many ways, the soaps give us lessons in what things we should look out for. In the case of Bethany Platt, she's suddenly started talking about this mysterious friend called Mel, a character Bethany's mother has never met. She's also started acting strange at home and disappearing suddenly. As a character, Bethany is also portrayed as naive and vulnerable having recently been involved in a bullying story line which then led onto her becoming addicted to diet pills. Add onto that, her recent crush on older man Gary Windass (Mikey North) and the signs are all there.

Sarah Platt controversially gave birth
to Bethany at just 13! 

In terms of how Coronation Street is servicing this extremely sensitive story line, they seem to be doing it justice. It would be so easy to sensationalize the subject, so easy to go wrong and I guess that it's probably a good thing that our oldest soap is the one covering it. They have over fifty years of experience after all and while Coronation Street is often seen as the more gentler of our soaps, they have shown in the past that they aren't afraid to tackle hard hitting stuff, the most famous story line also concerning Bethany Platt. In 2000, at the age of 13, Sarah Platt gave birth to Bethany which was the culmination in their controversial teenage pregnancy plot.

While controversy is all well and good, it is still important to tell the story well. These stories do NEED to be told, that much I'm sure we can all agree on. But is a pre-watershed soap opera the right place to do it? What do you think? Please, comment below and thank you for reading.