Reception
In 2002, Zoe and Kat's storyline was nominated for 'Best Storyline' at the British Soap Awards, but lost out to the bullying plot in Brookside. The episode where the truth about Kat being Zoe's mother won 'Best Single Episode'. For her portrayal of Zoe, Ryan was nominated in the category of "Best Actress" at the 2005 British Soap Awards. For EastEnders' 25th anniversary in 2010, Zoe finding out about her mother was voted the greatest EastEnders moment by What's on TV. Also the EastEnders website named the moment where Kat told Zoe that she was her mother one of the most 'dramatic endings'.
The kiss between Zoe and Kelly received criticism. Lesbian news site AfterEllen.com branded it a "gratuitous ratings-stunt" and said "The writers bottled out and the two young women dismissed it as a one-off, assuring each other that neither of them was 'like that,' leaving lesbian and bisexual viewers feeling cheated. This was a wasted opportunity, a chance to explore an emotionally complex situation between best friends that became just another exploitive TV moment instead." In an interview about homosexual television characters in The Guardian, scriptwriter Daran Little criticised lesbians in British soaps: "Most lesbian characters are so lipstick. They start off straight and, lo and behold, they just can't resist it. You can see the straight fantasy at work behind the character". Journalist Paul Flynn stated that Zoe was an example of this, describing her as a "tabloid-friendly 18-year-old—who brushed with lesbianism for all of five minutes." Kinsella defended the kiss in an interview, commenting, "It's not a gratuitous ratings getting move, it's not some kind of big lesbian kiss. It's the way two best friends who have a lot of love for each other show their emotions."
Read more about this topic: Zoe Slater
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)