Neighbours been criticized for incest

[simmins]

NEW TV soap storyline involving incest between an aunt and a nephew has been branded "sick" and "opportunistic" by a leading family group.

The latest Neighbours plot features Miranda's Parker's sister, Nicola West (Imogen Bailey) and nephew Riley Parker (Sweeney Young) in a secret intimate relationship.

It comes after the world was sickened by news that Austrian father Josef Fritzl had imprisoned and raped his daughter for nearly a quarter of a century.

A South Australian father and daughter also recently caused outrage when they revealed they had a child together.

The Australian Family Association has accused producers of using the recent news events to try to attract viewers.

Queensland president Mark Holzworth said: "Is Neighbours redefining itself as as some kind of sick mockumentary?

"Incest is a very sensitive subject that I wouldn't expect a prime-time program aimed at children to be tackling. They are dealing with young minds who can't fully understand or analyse the issues."

It's not the first time Neighbours has featured incest. Two storylines in the late 1990s also caused a stir and were censored by the BBC.

The first had Lucy Robinson in a relationship with her half-brother Glen – whom her dad had fathered during the Vietnam War – despite both knowing that they were related. The second involved Serena Bishop (Lara Sacher) and Luka Dokich (Keelan O'Hehir), who embarked on an intimate relationship, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they were half-siblings, sharing a mother, Liljana Bishop (Marcella Russo).

Neighbours new executive producer, Susan Bowen, defended the storyline. "It is controversial, but all our stories are handled carefully," she said.

But Ms Bowen said Neighbours would "grow in leaps and bounds this year" and that the three new additions were doing "extremely well". regarding 3 new cast members

http://www.neighboursfans.com/forum/index.php?act=idx and http://www.neighbourssource.com/

Neighbours storylines are planned 7 months in advanced! How can Neighbours be branded as 'sick' and "opportunistic"?

Newsflash: it's a good 7 months turnaround from storylining to screen in any major Aussie soap. Neither of those stories was news in January.

[WillowsTara]

I think this story is good, I haven't watched Neighbours much lately but...well if they saw that incest lasted alot longer in my story and if it was a Tv Show they would probasbly be over it.

I have heards the story about the first one (Was the second story willing? Because if so they cannot compare that to a horrific crime, oh and in the first new story the father also had several of his daughter's kids, he was there father and grandfather,).

But I like it, because when a show like Neighbours is willing to take a chance and go into Incest or homosexual relationship despite the fact they may get critized by the haters, they still do it anyway (Aleasy Lana didn't end up a psycho unlike some in H&A).

[-Tess-]

It is bad, I agree, but it's not as bad because Nicola and Riley aren't actually genetically related.

(This should also be in the Neighbours thread, here.)

[Drew]

I haven't been watching much of it, but it isn't really incest. They're just related by law.

[emmasi]

I do think the storyline is sick and pathetic, but not for the reasons stated there, which are absolutely ridiculous. As simmins pointed out, this storyline was written and filmed months in advance, and it would be near impossible to pull it off air now because Riley and Nicola are unfortunately involved in a lot of other storylines right now, and it would screw everything up to take out their scenes together. To say this is anything like that case in Austria - THAT is sick and opportunistic of this "journalist," trying to cash in on that horror to create controversy around a TV soap for God's sake. Whoever wrote that article should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, and by the way, might want to watch an episode of Neighbours before condemning it for BLOOD incest (which they obviously are, going by all the comparisons they've made.) Absolutely ridiculous. I hope they get fired for being so amoral and disgusting. How anyone could want to profit from that poor girl or her children is just incomprehensible to me. They're worse than her father. He is clearly sick and disturbed, because no normal person would EVER do those things. What's the media's excuse for making a circus of her suffering? Oh right, money. I guess that makes it all okay then.

[Lesley Bee]

That's what i was thinking, Riley is adopted so technically Miranda's sister isn't biologically related to him.

[claire_louise]

If they aren't biologically related, I don't see the problem. Obviously it would cause a scandal if it happened in real life, but objectively speaking they aren't doing anything wrong and it isn't against the law. They had a similar storyline on Eastenders with Sharon and Dennis getting together (they were adoptive brother and sister but didn't actually meet until they were adults), and no one over here batted an eyelid.

[WillowsTara]

That is true, Miranda's sister is in no way related to Riley by blood I mean, unless Riley's real mum is an missing sister of Miranda which would make them blood related but I doubt it (Although it would make a pretty interesting twist, that Riley and bridget would be tied by blood to Miranda officially anyway)

[emmasi]

The only problem I have with it is that Riley was only 12 when he became Nicola's nephew, and she's older than him so she could have been conditioning him for years if she wanted to - it's just creepy.

Elle and Oliver on the other hand, when they thought they were brother and sister, they still wanted each other and I think they might have actually slept together knowing there was a chance they were related - I see that differently. While there's still a definite ick factor, they are both adults and equals and that was their decision to make, just as it's their decision now to be together even after sharing that awkward history.

There's no way to know how long Nicola has been looking at Riley like a potential lover, and the fact that he would choose to break it off to spare his mother if he was strong enough, makes me think that Nicola should be the adult and think of that too, and agree to let it be, which she's not. She's being creepy and manipulative, and I shudder to think how long she's been that way with him. Besides which, he is her younger nephew, which gives her a sense of social power over him. It's wrong of her to abuse that, even if the age difference is only a matter of 5 years or so (I haven't checked but I'd guess she is older than that.)

To get back to the point, I'd assume that the "news" Neighbours took this story from is the generic kind of story where two relatives choose to have a sexual relationship, even if it is wrong because of the social power I mentioned before. It is certainly NOT cashing in on anything that's been talked about recently.