For the life of me, I cannot fathom why this one-dimensional, hypocritical and abject bitch of a character has continued popularity. Not just popularity, but almost a sacred devotion of sorts, where any criticism of the fragrant Tanya brings scores of vicious little trolls crawling from the woodwork like termites to leave mean-spirited and vile messages dripping with venom and personal attacks against the character of the Madonna of soapsister bitchery.
On the other hand, several people are now emboldened and more and more posts are appearing wherein people are actually confessing that they don't like Tanya, never have and never will, and for many of the same reasons I have disliked the character from the start.
She arrived as the outwardly sweet and loyal second wife of serial cheat, Max Branning. Come on, no one could be as sweet as that Yummy Mummy was presented. It wasn't long into her tenure that we found out she had formerly been a teenaged kappa-slapper hairdresser, ex-drugster and a heavy drinker who ran, shamelessly, after a married man, not caring that he had a wife and child at home.
She bagged her prey by falling pregnant, and used Max - himself, jumped-up white trash - as her key to middle-class respectability. A year later, at the height of Stax and her pregnancy, we got introduced to her drug-addled older sister, Rainie (who later became her drink-addled younger sister), to whom Tanya had introduced drugs.
Even Stax failed to reverberate with Tanya, so far up her ample ass was her head stuck. When Tanya berated, gossiped about and mistreated Dawn, a young woman from a white trash family involved with and pregnant by a married professional who was the husband of the local mad doctor, she failed to see that Dawn was to Mad May exactly what Tanya was to Rachel, Max's first wife,.
She even failed to see the karma in Stacey seducing Max, even after Rachel warned her that Tanya would suffer the same fate as Rachel and for the same reason.
The one consistency about Tanya has been her selfishness and narcissism. Early on in her tenure in Walford, Lauren Mach I (the skinny po-faced one with the lollypop head) complained to Max about Tanya's constant selfishness, putting herself and her desires before her children's interests. Strange, that, because since Lauren Mach II arrived on the scene (the one with the entitled attitude and the upper lip stuck up her nose), she has pretty much the same outlook as Tanya.
Oh well.
It's not enough that, instead of concentrating on her children and her business after (rightly) throwing Max out of the house for shagging Stacey, she whored herself out to the local psycho (who happened to be Stacey's brother) in exchange for him helping her to kill Max (and then copping the blame), it's not enough that she listened to her then-BFF Jane Beale, who projected her own sexual frustrations on Tanya by telling her that Tanya was entitled to sleep with horny Jack, Max's brother, even though she was still married to Max at the time. It's not enough that she left Max when the money ran out, only to be shacked up with a rich-but-dim builder within three months. It's not enough that she robbed her employer blind and coerced gormless Greg into buying the Salon AGAIN for her. It's not enough that she's always always achieved success only via the auspices of whatever man she happened to be sleeping with at the time. It's not enough that she cheated on gormless Greg with Max and then laughed about Greg babysitting her child.
It's that everything, ultimately, is all about Tanya.
No matter what's happening in her life or in someone else's life, she always manages to make the situation all about her.
Examples?
On the other hand, several people are now emboldened and more and more posts are appearing wherein people are actually confessing that they don't like Tanya, never have and never will, and for many of the same reasons I have disliked the character from the start.
She arrived as the outwardly sweet and loyal second wife of serial cheat, Max Branning. Come on, no one could be as sweet as that Yummy Mummy was presented. It wasn't long into her tenure that we found out she had formerly been a teenaged kappa-slapper hairdresser, ex-drugster and a heavy drinker who ran, shamelessly, after a married man, not caring that he had a wife and child at home.
She bagged her prey by falling pregnant, and used Max - himself, jumped-up white trash - as her key to middle-class respectability. A year later, at the height of Stax and her pregnancy, we got introduced to her drug-addled older sister, Rainie (who later became her drink-addled younger sister), to whom Tanya had introduced drugs.
Even Stax failed to reverberate with Tanya, so far up her ample ass was her head stuck. When Tanya berated, gossiped about and mistreated Dawn, a young woman from a white trash family involved with and pregnant by a married professional who was the husband of the local mad doctor, she failed to see that Dawn was to Mad May exactly what Tanya was to Rachel, Max's first wife,.
She even failed to see the karma in Stacey seducing Max, even after Rachel warned her that Tanya would suffer the same fate as Rachel and for the same reason.
The one consistency about Tanya has been her selfishness and narcissism. Early on in her tenure in Walford, Lauren Mach I (the skinny po-faced one with the lollypop head) complained to Max about Tanya's constant selfishness, putting herself and her desires before her children's interests. Strange, that, because since Lauren Mach II arrived on the scene (the one with the entitled attitude and the upper lip stuck up her nose), she has pretty much the same outlook as Tanya.
Oh well.
It's not enough that, instead of concentrating on her children and her business after (rightly) throwing Max out of the house for shagging Stacey, she whored herself out to the local psycho (who happened to be Stacey's brother) in exchange for him helping her to kill Max (and then copping the blame), it's not enough that she listened to her then-BFF Jane Beale, who projected her own sexual frustrations on Tanya by telling her that Tanya was entitled to sleep with horny Jack, Max's brother, even though she was still married to Max at the time. It's not enough that she left Max when the money ran out, only to be shacked up with a rich-but-dim builder within three months. It's not enough that she robbed her employer blind and coerced gormless Greg into buying the Salon AGAIN for her. It's not enough that she's always always achieved success only via the auspices of whatever man she happened to be sleeping with at the time. It's not enough that she cheated on gormless Greg with Max and then laughed about Greg babysitting her child.
It's that everything, ultimately, is all about Tanya.
No matter what's happening in her life or in someone else's life, she always manages to make the situation all about her.
Examples?
- Tanya's cancer-cold, a storyline meant to make the viewers feel sorry for a bitch again, was all about Tanya laying the bulk of the secret of her illness on the shoulders of her oldest daughter and completely clueless about the burden imposed on the kid, who was only seventeen. In order to help Lauren "cope", she took her to a drinking session in the Vic, irregardless of the fact that Lauren was underaged and Mummy wasn't supposed to be drinking, herself, with her chemo.
- The cancer-cold reveal suddenly wasn't at all about the disease, but all the attention Yummy Mummy garnered revealing that she'd "killed" her father in an assisted suicide to ease his pain from cancer. Tanya was the victim.
- Discovering that her mother had had an out-of-wedlock baby when Cora was only a kid herself became all about Tanya's right to know she'd had a sister, rather than Cora's right to privacy - in fact in one of Cora's more memorable scenes, she told Saint Tanya more than a few home truths, which she promptly ignored in high dudgeon. Remember THIS?
- When Tanya tagged along with Max and Alfie in search of Ian, when they found him, disoriented, speechless and filthy - clearly unwell - and brought him back to the Brannings, suddenly Tanya made the discovery of Ian the Tramp her Epiphany and started begging Max to invite Rainie to her wedding.
- When Tanya sussed Janine wasn't coping very well with baby Scarlett, she jumped into help her. Admirable, except that during the course of the day, once again, Tanya made everything all about her. Instead of helping Janine to cope, she spent the day regaling her with stories about how much Lauren cried, how hard she worked and how easy Max had it when he came home and played with the baby. She ended by opening her mouth too much and speculating about how little she saw Max during the time Abi was a baby that he was probably having an affair - which, of course, hyped Janine's hormones and suspicions about Michael.
Look, we all know Tanya's slated to become friends with Sharon. (I know. Don't ask, it's simply too unreal). We know Tanya chooses her "friends" on the basis of how good they make her look. Her BFF for the longest time was plain Jane Beale, married to the local entrepreneur, a big, bovine girl considerably less attractive than Tanya. When Tanya returned with gormless Greg in tow, she made a beeline for Jane, and - after finding out that Jane was locked in a sexually frustrating and decidedly unstimulating union with Ian - regaled her with stories about how often and how long Greg and Tanya spent fucking, even discussing the length and circumference of Greg's penis. Jane, needless to say, all but disappeared under the table in the cafe in shame - not at Tanya's discourse, but at her own perceived misfortune.
Then, when Jane secured the job of her dreams as a sous-chef in a posh restaurant in Wales, it was Tannie-Poos who got jealous. Jealousy is behind her constant maligning of Sharon - the snide remarks, the pithy snarks about Sharon's son and her status as a single parent (ne'mind the fact that Sharon is a widow, something of which Tanya is unaware). And ne'mind the fact that Sharon decided not to marry a man she didn't love for want of his fortune, Tanya would have taken the money and faked the orgasms and thought nothing about it.
The only other time Tanya pursued a friend was her fervent desire to be BFFs with Dr May, the original mad doctor. May was well-spoken and from the real middle class, and if she hadn't been in need of allies against Dawn, she wouldn't have wiped her Jimmy Choos on Tanya, who is simply a chav who scrubs up well.
I am glad this woman is leaving. I hope she leaves and doesn't return. She's not a stand-alone character, and we've all seen how better Max is without her dragging him down anyway.
I have a suspicion that her new and impending marriage to Max won't occur simply because she'll find out Max is married already (and probably has a child). His "wife" will be some young, pretty and blonde Eastern European girl, whom he married out of pity in order to secure her a visa to stay and with whom he slept because - well, because he's Max and he does those things. And being a Branning, he would have impregnated her. She'll arrive just in time for Tanya to play the victim and go, and, thus, the Brannings will now go international, with the arrival of Tatiana and little Vladimir Branning.
One can only live in hope, and hope floats ... like shit.
I think Tanya is alive in well in a lot of communities. She dresses well (a little on the frumpy side at times, but it always looks more respectable than too short/low cut), she doesnt look too bad, but not sexily attractive enough for women to perceive her as a threat. All the while, she is schemeing/bitching behind their backs. I dont think she has ever had a true friend in her life, or even knows the value of true friendship. She just judges people on what she can get out of them.
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