The eponymous Digital Spy and Walford Web forum member the joy of pat is proving either to be a contrarian or an attention-seeker, in her challenge to defend the honour of Saint Tanya.
Since she first appeared in 2006, Tanya has existed almost completely as a female appendage to some man of action. She is the rife characterisation of the proverbial limp biscuit. Many people saw her, from the beginning, as the pretty and put-upon wife of a serial adulterer, mother to his children. It failed to register with many people that Tanya was Max's second wife and that Max's son from his first marriage was a testament to what happened during that first marriage.
Here's as much of Tanya's backstory that we were allowed from the period of her introduction (2006) until the Stax reveal. It's not made up; if you look hard enough on YouTube, you'll find it's all referenced in various episodes.
- Tanya was a teenaged hair-dresser when she met and began an affair with Max. Yes, at first she didn't know he was married, but once she did, it didn't stop her in her pursuit. Max referenced this in the episode where he told Tanya about Jim having feigned burying him alive. Yes, yes, yes, Max was the cheater here and was in a committed relationship with his wife Rachel and a father to a young son. People in marriages shouldn't cheat and are guiltier than those with whom they cheat if the cheating partner isn't married; however, it remains a more of society that women (or men, for that matter) who pursue someone in a relationship simply because they want that person for themselves and give no thought to breaking up a home or a family are just as bad, morally, as the adulterer.
- Tanya got up the duff by Max, who was married, and held out for marriage, herself. When Max left Rachel for Tanya, Tanya made Max promise that he would always put her children first. Again, Max referenced this in that selfsame episode listed above, and Tanya didn't dispute it.
- Tanya wasn't a sweet innocent to be corrupted when she bagged Max either. She had been promiscuous, free on taking drugs and drinking since she was in her early teens. She'd often come into work, having spent all night drinking, gorging on polomints to mask her drunk breath. She told Stacey this on the boozy afternoon they spent together in 2007, prior to the Stax reveal.
- She was from a sink estate and had a (then older, subsequently younger) sister, whom she introduced to a life of sex,drugs, drink and rock'n roll before abandoning her in the mire to pretend to be a respectable middle-class matron. That was referenced when Rainie first appeared in 2007.
So Tanya was basically a snob, trying to hide her real roots and social climb. She looked down at everyone in Walford. Who can forget the way she'd walk through the market with her nose wrinkled by an imaginary bad smell. In actual fact, she came froma strata of society marginally lower than anyone working on the market or even living in Walford at that time.
When Bradley and Stacey were planning their first wedding, she objected to Rachel's presence, even though Rachel was, really, the mother of the groom. Rachel proved prescient in warning her that one day Tanya would be Rachel, and Tanya would be outdone by an 18 year-old slapper. Tanya still refuses to see or acknowledge that Stacey did to her marriage, exactly what she did to Rachel/s - even after Max showed willing on Christmas Day 2010 to abandon everything - children, home, relationship with Vanessa, to run off and worship at the altar of Saint Stacey Slater.
- Everything Tanya has achieved, she's achieved through a relationship with a man. Max bought her her first business, and Greg did the same. When she quite rightly kicked Max out of the house in the wake of Stax, rather than concentrate on making her business a success and putting her children's interests first, she prostituted herself to the local psycho, sleeping with him to get him onside for a plot to kill Max - a plot she thought to land him in whilst she swanned off to the sun. After she reneged on that insipidity, after Max agreed to go away and give her time to think about their relationship and where she wanted it to go, she bunked down and slept with Jack, brought him into the family as the pater familias, even planned to bunk off to France with him, taking Max's children (thus, breaking the law), simply because she believed she was entitled to do this.
Let's mention that she tried to bury her husband alive and covered for her daughter when she tried to kill Max.
Really, that first little escapade should be made public knowledge, even though every time Max alludes, jokingly, to it, Tanya looks as though she's about to shit herself.
She left Max a second time because she'd spent him dry on whatever money he had. Instead of standing by her man, she left and within three months, she'd got a younger, richer and stupider model - Gormless Greg - who got her a house in the Square and repurchased the Salon for her, after she'd committed a big crime in robbing Roxy blind.
During her association with Greg, she revelled in making Jane feel bad about her crumbling relationship with Ian and made countless snide remarks about Vanessa. After marrying Greg, she immediately began an affair with Max. Who can forget that infamous scene of them lolling on the bed, laughing at "Bob-the-Builder" babysitting their son.
As much as Lauren is a budding alcoholic, her mother has alcohol issues, herself, learned from her own mother. Tanya drinks to celebrate, she drinks to commiserate. She drinks when she's alone, she drinks when she's in company. She drinks when she's bored, when she's sad; in fact, she's rarely without an oversized wineglass in her hand.
She's selfish and an abysmal parent. She tries to be more of a friend to her daughters, to the point that she undermines any responsible effort made by Max in parenting. When Lauren stole Max's credit card to buy a camcorder for 300 quid, Max ended up, prompted by Tanya, apologising to Lauren. When Max confined a drunken Lauren to her room, Tanya let her go out and about because "she needed air." When Abi actually asked if Tanya would give her consent to Abi's underaged marriage to Jay, Tanya's remark was she guessed she'd have to do so, if that's what Abi wanted. Wimp. Epic wimp.
Her proper backstory wasn't explored until MamaLag Cora showed up last year, and that didn't come about until she caught her cancer cold - a plot device which served only to try to make Tanya likeable again after showing her up as a bitch just as amoral as Max and with no moral high ground. Even the story about her helping her father to commit suicide was totally unrealistic, considering that diomorphine is administered only by a medical professional to terminally ill cancer patients, and it's not left within the reach of a thirteen year-old girl. Google diomorphine if you want to know what it is.
Everything that happens around Tanya, Tanya makes about Tanya. She even managed to make bringing a despondent and derelect Ian Beale back to so-called civilisation all about her wedding last week. The week before, the fact that her mother had had an illegitimate child years before she, herself, was born, became all about how this affected Tanya.
Tanya isn't a likeable or admirable character. She's one of the shallowest, most narcissistic and most selfish of any female character, with the possible exception of Kat.
It's a shame the show doesn't do a storyline about an epidemic of terminal headuparseitis in Walford. That would kill off Tanya and Kat pretty damned quick.
Since she first appeared in 2006, Tanya has existed almost completely as a female appendage to some man of action. She is the rife characterisation of the proverbial limp biscuit. Many people saw her, from the beginning, as the pretty and put-upon wife of a serial adulterer, mother to his children. It failed to register with many people that Tanya was Max's second wife and that Max's son from his first marriage was a testament to what happened during that first marriage.
Here's as much of Tanya's backstory that we were allowed from the period of her introduction (2006) until the Stax reveal. It's not made up; if you look hard enough on YouTube, you'll find it's all referenced in various episodes.
- Tanya was a teenaged hair-dresser when she met and began an affair with Max. Yes, at first she didn't know he was married, but once she did, it didn't stop her in her pursuit. Max referenced this in the episode where he told Tanya about Jim having feigned burying him alive. Yes, yes, yes, Max was the cheater here and was in a committed relationship with his wife Rachel and a father to a young son. People in marriages shouldn't cheat and are guiltier than those with whom they cheat if the cheating partner isn't married; however, it remains a more of society that women (or men, for that matter) who pursue someone in a relationship simply because they want that person for themselves and give no thought to breaking up a home or a family are just as bad, morally, as the adulterer.
- Tanya got up the duff by Max, who was married, and held out for marriage, herself. When Max left Rachel for Tanya, Tanya made Max promise that he would always put her children first. Again, Max referenced this in that selfsame episode listed above, and Tanya didn't dispute it.
- Tanya wasn't a sweet innocent to be corrupted when she bagged Max either. She had been promiscuous, free on taking drugs and drinking since she was in her early teens. She'd often come into work, having spent all night drinking, gorging on polomints to mask her drunk breath. She told Stacey this on the boozy afternoon they spent together in 2007, prior to the Stax reveal.
- She was from a sink estate and had a (then older, subsequently younger) sister, whom she introduced to a life of sex,drugs, drink and rock'n roll before abandoning her in the mire to pretend to be a respectable middle-class matron. That was referenced when Rainie first appeared in 2007.
So Tanya was basically a snob, trying to hide her real roots and social climb. She looked down at everyone in Walford. Who can forget the way she'd walk through the market with her nose wrinkled by an imaginary bad smell. In actual fact, she came froma strata of society marginally lower than anyone working on the market or even living in Walford at that time.
When Bradley and Stacey were planning their first wedding, she objected to Rachel's presence, even though Rachel was, really, the mother of the groom. Rachel proved prescient in warning her that one day Tanya would be Rachel, and Tanya would be outdone by an 18 year-old slapper. Tanya still refuses to see or acknowledge that Stacey did to her marriage, exactly what she did to Rachel/s - even after Max showed willing on Christmas Day 2010 to abandon everything - children, home, relationship with Vanessa, to run off and worship at the altar of Saint Stacey Slater.
- Everything Tanya has achieved, she's achieved through a relationship with a man. Max bought her her first business, and Greg did the same. When she quite rightly kicked Max out of the house in the wake of Stax, rather than concentrate on making her business a success and putting her children's interests first, she prostituted herself to the local psycho, sleeping with him to get him onside for a plot to kill Max - a plot she thought to land him in whilst she swanned off to the sun. After she reneged on that insipidity, after Max agreed to go away and give her time to think about their relationship and where she wanted it to go, she bunked down and slept with Jack, brought him into the family as the pater familias, even planned to bunk off to France with him, taking Max's children (thus, breaking the law), simply because she believed she was entitled to do this.
Let's mention that she tried to bury her husband alive and covered for her daughter when she tried to kill Max.
Really, that first little escapade should be made public knowledge, even though every time Max alludes, jokingly, to it, Tanya looks as though she's about to shit herself.
She left Max a second time because she'd spent him dry on whatever money he had. Instead of standing by her man, she left and within three months, she'd got a younger, richer and stupider model - Gormless Greg - who got her a house in the Square and repurchased the Salon for her, after she'd committed a big crime in robbing Roxy blind.
During her association with Greg, she revelled in making Jane feel bad about her crumbling relationship with Ian and made countless snide remarks about Vanessa. After marrying Greg, she immediately began an affair with Max. Who can forget that infamous scene of them lolling on the bed, laughing at "Bob-the-Builder" babysitting their son.
As much as Lauren is a budding alcoholic, her mother has alcohol issues, herself, learned from her own mother. Tanya drinks to celebrate, she drinks to commiserate. She drinks when she's alone, she drinks when she's in company. She drinks when she's bored, when she's sad; in fact, she's rarely without an oversized wineglass in her hand.
She's selfish and an abysmal parent. She tries to be more of a friend to her daughters, to the point that she undermines any responsible effort made by Max in parenting. When Lauren stole Max's credit card to buy a camcorder for 300 quid, Max ended up, prompted by Tanya, apologising to Lauren. When Max confined a drunken Lauren to her room, Tanya let her go out and about because "she needed air." When Abi actually asked if Tanya would give her consent to Abi's underaged marriage to Jay, Tanya's remark was she guessed she'd have to do so, if that's what Abi wanted. Wimp. Epic wimp.
Her proper backstory wasn't explored until MamaLag Cora showed up last year, and that didn't come about until she caught her cancer cold - a plot device which served only to try to make Tanya likeable again after showing her up as a bitch just as amoral as Max and with no moral high ground. Even the story about her helping her father to commit suicide was totally unrealistic, considering that diomorphine is administered only by a medical professional to terminally ill cancer patients, and it's not left within the reach of a thirteen year-old girl. Google diomorphine if you want to know what it is.
Everything that happens around Tanya, Tanya makes about Tanya. She even managed to make bringing a despondent and derelect Ian Beale back to so-called civilisation all about her wedding last week. The week before, the fact that her mother had had an illegitimate child years before she, herself, was born, became all about how this affected Tanya.
Tanya isn't a likeable or admirable character. She's one of the shallowest, most narcissistic and most selfish of any female character, with the possible exception of Kat.
It's a shame the show doesn't do a storyline about an epidemic of terminal headuparseitis in Walford. That would kill off Tanya and Kat pretty damned quick.
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