The Television Industry

Week 47 - Component 2 - The Television Industry

• Anita & A Washing Machine.

• Anita is a washing machine, for example Laura refers to her as a freak and 'it' emphasising that Anita is a machine.

• Anita is subservient. 

• The show doesn't have a preferred reading and instead has a very fractured ideology (confusing).

• Cyborg - half robot/half human

• Cyborg - People wearing glasses are using technology to see this helps and gives them a better life, so by wearing glasses you're trying to make yourself better.

• Globalisation & Technology - Someone gets their clothes from H&M, it is brought in by a lorry, which is made from china, this is an example of technology.

• The girl wearing her outfit is posing taking a selfie and she will post this to define herself and make herself look good, technology allows us to define ourselves.

• What is humanity?

• We look for something that will fulfil our lives.

• We can talk and we have our sophisticated communication.

• We understand each other and we feel empathy.

• We want to understand different things and to be inquisitive.

• We have an idea of education and we want to learn to make ourselves better.

• We are ingenius we think of different ways to get around an issue.

• We feel love and it is important to humanity as we are constantly surrounded by the ideologies that it is important (music).

• Humans is about the representation of humanity.

• Binary Oppositions in 'Humans'

• Anita is a washing machine but she is also attractive, and the women in the house don't like her as they may see her as competition.

• Gender Performativity

• Judith Butler

• Identity is a performance, and it is constructed through a series of acts and 'expressions' that we perform everyday.

• While there are biological differences dictated by sex, our gender is defined through this series of acts. these may include the ways we walk, talk, dress, and so on.

• Therefore, there is no gender identity behind these expressions of gender.

• Gender performativity is not a singular act, but a reputation and a ritual. It is outlined and reinforced through dominant patriarchal ideologies.

• This theory can be considered controversial due to christians having the belief that God created two genders and this theory challenges that.

• bell hooks - feminist theory

• Women are stereotypically supposed to look after kids therefore if a man does it there is stigma around it.

• This theory isn't just about women its about men and black people etc.

• End patriarchal depression.

• Optimistic and positive

• Argues that feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination, and that the position of the underrepresented is by class and race as well as gender.

• 'Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined woman's liberation as women gaining social equality with men since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status.'

• Patriarchal Oppression and the 'ideologies of domination' in Humans

• When the 4 Synths and the Human show the flashback to when they separated in the woods the male human is leading them and he is the main patriarchal role and emphasising his dominance.

• When Anita is sold, the father decides to buy the synth, he buys her to help him look after the kids and the housework which suggests that he is incapable and lazy and they need a woman to do the work.

• Laura says that she wants to take her back and Joe then puts his foot down and commands that they are not taking Anita back. Laura doesn't like her being there as she is helping with Sophie and is doing the housework. Laura knows that she has her set role and nobody else can do it as it is her role.

• When the man in the brothel rapes Niska it is an ideology of patriarchal domination there is no feelings involved, and we are told that she wants to feel pain as she doesn't want to enjoy this and she is making a choice.

• Joe is the primary user so he has more control and dominance over Anita than the other members of the family as they are secondary users.

• Creation of sentient synths by male David Elster - initially to replace his wife.

• Laura is 'replaced' by a synth (domestically, maternally and eventually sexually)

• The salesman is male - selling a woman - as are the corporate figures who dictate their use.

• The majority of the ethnic actors are synths ('servants') emphasising Stuart Hall's notion of the black 'slave' stereotype. This is particularly apparent when looking at Anita in the home and Fred in the fruit picking.

• The attitudes of the males, particularly towards Niska in the brothel - 'using' women who are clearly not equal.

• The physio synth Simon is a hyper-masculine (Zaitchik & Mosher) stereotype - and replaces Pete Drummond in Jill's affection