Claude Levi Strauss

Claude Levi Strauss was a 20th Century French Anthropologist, born November 28th, 1908 - died October 31st, 2009 at the age of 100. 

Levi-Strauss showed the importance of structuring oppositions in myths and in language. He said "abiding structure of all meaning-making, not just narratives, was a dependence on binary oppositions or a conflict between two qualities or terms. He then created his theory "Binary Opposites".

Binary Opposites Theory:

Mid 20th Century Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes two major European thinkers discovered the way we understand certain words rather than it depending on the meaning of the word it more depends on the difference between words. They called this "Binary Opposites".

Levi-Strauss believes that words purely act as a symbol for societies idea of the meaning of words, this then meant there was a relationship between opposing ideas. To this day Binary oppositions are found in a range of media products such as Films, Film Trailers and TV Programmes.

An Example of Binary Opposites would be;

Good vs Evil: Used in many films in order to attract the audience into hating the Villain who is evil and love the Hero who is kind and helpful. These are Binary Opposites because they are completely different and are opposite to each other. Relating to a film would be Batman and the Joker, the Joker always trying to cause chaos and Batman saving the day.

Human and Supernatural: Always seems to be a love story or connection between a human girl and a supernatural creature or man. These are Binary Opposites as they are different one is a supernatural creature with powers for example Spider man and the other is normal human being for example Mary Jane.



More about the Theory:
The idea of Binary Opposites also links in with the themes, different genres and the meaning behind a TV Programme or a Film. This is commonly used in Horror, Thriller and Action genres. In Actions pacifically where the main male character rescues the main female character from the danger of the Villain.
 For example:

Dark vs Light: Which is mainly used in Action, Thriller, Horror genres/themes of a media product. Dark vs Light is commonly used to show the evil in someone by having a dark light on them and the innocence of the light. It also represents freedom over imprisonment as the bright lgiht is associated with heaven or freedom whereas the darkness is associated with being trapped and not being able to see you way to the light.

Feminine vs Masculine: Which is mainly used in Horror or Thriller films as it is the stereotypical female who is seen as the victim through being kidnapped and tortured by the male characters this shows the male character in the bad light representing he is the killer. 

However, TV Programmes are moving away from this typical stereotype by showing the female as the killer or torturer and the males as the victims. Recently there has been a strand like this in Criminal Minds when a young girl was rapped and killed during a party, then her mother goes out and kidnaps all those who were involved in being with her daughter at the party. For example; Her best friend who took her there and the left her there. This shows how the female is the killer or torturer and then young girl and the boy she killed as the victim.

Linking with Vladimir Propp

Claude Levi Strauss linked in his idea of binary opposition with Vladimir Propps's ideas about Stock characters. He did this by showing the opposites of the stock characters making them Binary Opposites. 

For example;

The Villain being portrayed as evil and weak as he always loses and The Hero who is handsome and strong as he always wins and gets the princess.

Cinderella: The Two ugly step sisters and the wicked stepmother force Cinderella to do all the cleaning and work around the house creating them as the 'villains' by locking her away in her room when the Prince comes to visit. The Prince is the one who saves Cinderella from them living conditions and being treated like a slave and takes her to his kingdom creating him as the 'hero'.

Binary Opposites used in reality TV shows (Australia)

Beauty and the Geek was introduced to TV in the 2000s, it is seen as a reality show which brings Binary Opposites together to experience different lifestyles. 

The shows portrays the females as beauties and the males as Geeks due to their intelligence requiring their study skills to pass the different activities each week.