How are gender and age represened in an episode of EastEnders?

In Mondays episode of Eastenders i looked at how they presented gender and age ,both were reoccurring themes throughout the episode. 

At the beginning it showed Ricky, a middle aged man playing on a old games console, possible from the era that he was born. In contrast they then showed Peter, a teenage boy playing COD on his x-box. Therefore showing that no matter what age you are, you have a childish side to you and enjoy a 'younger persons' toy. This also showed that it is mainly boys that play on computer games, to support this the next shot was the boys mother coming in having been shopping, to show that this is a womanly thing.

Age was distinctively shown through the clothing of the characters, Whitney a teenage girl was dressed in 'chav'  like clothing, new to the shops and not covering as much flesh as an older person would wear.  Where as Jane, an older middle aged lady was wearing more clothing, less up to date and stereotypical 'mum clothing'.  Although on the other hand Bianca, a middle aged women was dressed in youth clothing, instead of clothes that you would expect a woman of her age to be wearing; showing that age does not affect the way in which people dress and poses the question should we categorise clothing to specific age groups.

Age  reversal was also shown , when the little boy was not excited about Christmas ,but his mother was extremely excited and tried to get the boy excited. This is unusual as you would expect the boy to be excited about christmas and the mother not. Although on the other hand there was a clip of a young boy being taught mechanics by his older relative. Showing how we use age to our advantage and learn form our older peers. Although in this scene Gender is also covered as his wife interrupts and shows that she knows more than she does, mechanics is a stereotypical mans job, and here it is shown that this is not necessarily true, women are just as capable.

Ian, a middle aged man is shown to be having an affair with an older lady, known as a 'cougar' as she is with a  younger man. This therefore shows age once again.

Both Jane and her little boy, decorate the tree and have great fun while doing this, showing that age does not influence everything and there are some similarities in the hobbies that different age groups enjoy.

Putting all of these points into consideration, i think we can see that Eastenders deals with Gender and Age often throughout a short, half an hour episode and make us think about the stereotypes and the way that different age groups and gender are represented.