Representation of Women and Cyborgs

Representation of Women and Cyborgs

• Autonomy
• Having control over your own life.
• Automaton
• No control, a robot.

• Representation
• Re presentations of something to show it again, the producer does this to show their ideologies and values on certain groups.
• The producer is trying to manipulate the audience maybe to change the way they vote but usually is more subtle for example making the audience fall in love with the main character or making the audience feel scared.
• The target audience and the group being presented impact from the representations, this then cultivates in the mind and we consistently see it but it confirms our world view. 

• Roles women/synths play in Human:
• Mother
• Professional
• Caregiver
• Mother (Anita)
• Sex Worker
• Child
• Son
• Friend
• Maid
• Caregiver
• Butler
• Slave
• Rebel

Exam Question

According to Claude Levi-Strauss texts convey their meanings through a system of binary oppositions.

Evaluate this structuralist theory. Refer to the set episodes of Humans and The Returned in your response. (30)

Closing Montage - Representations of Gender

• Maternal - Mid shot of Anita standing over Sophie

• Child - Connotations of innocence, as she is getting kidnapped by Anita without knowing.

• Sex Worker/Slave - Slow zoom which turns into a close up of the synth shows feelings of uncomfortableness for the synth as the audience feels uncomfortable watching her it represents the feelings of the synth. The man is blunt aggressive and demanding and he has this specific look, they picked him due to him being stereotypically unattractive so he looks like he's a man who uses sex workers.

• Dad says 'not taking it back', not taking notice of his wife discomfort with the synth and showing his patriarchal role, this shows his dominance and his dominant role.

• Dad buys Anita so it makes him in charge of her and emphasising his dominance.

• In the brothel scene, Miska is getting raped because she shows no consent, but then again she is a robot so it is not possible to give consent as she has supposedly no feelings.

• Representation of women that they are meant to look pretty, as the little girl said that she wants a pretty synth. Like a doll, they want her to be like a pretty doll so they can look like her and they're aspirational.

Madonna/Whore Complex

• Sigmund Freud developed a theory to explain men's anxiety towards women's sexuality, suggesting that men define women into one of two categories;

• Madonna - Women he admires and respects
• Refers to the virgin mother (Mary)

• Whore - Women he is attracted to and therefore disrespects.
• Sleeps with a lot of people for fun, pleasure or money.

• The Madonna is typically virtuous, nurturing, saintly and sexually repressed.

• The Whore is sensual, sexualised and desirable without purity.