Binary opposition

A binary opposition is a pair of opposites, thought by the structuralists (Levi Strauss) to powerfully form and organize human thought and culture.

Some are commonsense, such as raw vs cooked; however, much such opposition imply or are used in such a way that privileges one of the terms of the opposition, creating a hierarchy (in this case hierarchy is dominant ideology)

This can be seen in English with white and black, where black is used as a sign of darkness, danger, evil etc, and white as purity, goodness, and so on (Barthes-semiology (this then folds into the 3 interpretations of connotations, denotations and myths))

The table below shows dominant (patriotism) and binary opposition

 

in our film we are going to use dominant and opposition from the table above, we are using this as most people in our film are white but we are showing other ethnicity's and a female in power. The other ethnicity's are going to be good and bad to go against ideology as well as sticking to it as it states above black people are seen as dark and dangerous and in out film one is dangerous and will be wearing dark clothes and will show he has a dark personality, but our other character of different ethnicity will be the opposite.

A popular film that shows dominant ideology is Forrest Gump

 

Forrest Gump shows dominant ideology in a Hollwood film as he:

- Lives the American dream

- He is white

- He is Male

- Christian

- Thin

- Healthy

- He becomes rich (part of the American dream)

- The only bit of the dominant ideology not used and changed is the abled and logical part, but the majority of the the film shows the dominant ideology

This is important to our film as we are going to use as much dominant ideology as we can to make the film more appealing. But on the other hand with modern society we have thought that it would make it a fair representation of the new emergin dominant ideology.