Narratives are based on binary oppositions. A dominant ideology of the film is created, so people are able to make judgements. This can also determine weather the narrative is reactionary or radical.

Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist in the 1900s, proposed a theory of ‘binary opposites’ which entails that the majority of narratives in media forms such as books and film contain opposing main characters. These binary opposites help to thicken the plot and further the narrative; and introduce contrast.

What is Levi-Strauss structuralism theory?

Structuralism is an approach used to analyze culture. Developed by Claude Levi-Strauss, it asserts that human culture, being the set of learned behaviors and ideas that characterize a society, is just an expression of the underlying structures of the human mind.

What is structuralism vs functionalism?Structuralism suggests that the goal of psychology is to study the structure of the mind and consciousness, while functionalism puts forth that understanding the purpose of the mind and consciousness is the aim of psychology. Functionalism was developed as a response to structuralism.

narratives are structured around binary oppositions. For example, good vs evil, human vs alien. It creates a dominant ideology of a film. So the audience can be encouraged to make a judgment on the binary oppositions they are given. For example, which one they prefer and which one also chose to follow more than the other.

 BINARY OPPOSITIONS- eg: good v evil

Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology.

Binary Oppositions :

– texts can be seen to either support the dominant ideologies of a society, which would make it a reactionary text ,or to challenge, question or undermines the dominant ideologies of society, in which case it could be seen as a radical text.

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racial otherness

he wrote ‘there aint no black in union jack’. there are anxiety’s regarding immigrant behaviour. Gilroy argues, marginalised the immigrant black community from the outset. constructing them as racial ‘other’ in the predominantly white world. This also shows that the specials were a more challenging political group as they challenged society’s norms.