T2-Binary Oppositions

Binary Oppositions

What is a binary opposition?

A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. For example there are binary oppositions for cowboys and Indians, cowboys for example use guns as a weapon and Indians would use a bow and arrow as a weapon.

Binary oppositions in the genre "Action" are used a lot to show the differences and oppositions between villains and heroes. Some examples of action films with villain and hero character are used would be Indiana Jones, Superman, Robin Hood and James Bond and in this post I am going to be talking about Binary oppositions in the James Bond Spectre trailer which is due to be released this year. 

Binary oppositions are used in all of the James Bond films between the villain and the hero who would always be James Bond(Daniel Craig). The Hero in James Bond Spectre movie is James Bond and he has a very professional and smart look to him self compared to the villain who would have the impression of looking less professional and more untidy compared to the Hero. This Binary opposition is not only used in James Bond films but is also used in other villain and hero movies.

 

As you can see from the image to the left, Oberhauser who plays the villain in the Spectre films has a much more untidy and less professional look compared to James Bond(image below) who has a more confident and smart look. This is the kind of image you would get in a lot of hero v villain movies.

Another Binary opposition used in action films and especially in the Spectre trailer is the difference in personalities of the villain and the hero. In the Spectre trailer, the hero James Bond has a much more calm and relaxed personality compared to the villain, Oberhauser who is a lot more hot headed and on edge. This is the case in a lot of hero v villain films as the hero always has to look more smart and relaxed as they are the good characters in the movie and if they were to be hot headed audiences could mistake them as a villain or on the villains side. 

The Villain will always have a hot headed and less calm personality as this is a stereotypical feature for a villain to have. Here are some more binary oppositions in villain v hero films...

Hero V Winner

Quick V Sneaky

Quiet V Loud

Winner V Looser 

Smart V Untidy 

 How the theory of Binary oppositions started and Levi Strauss:

Levi Strauss was an Anthropologist with a French background who lived in the early 1900's. He believed that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as he called it 'binary opposites'. 

In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, came together and discovered that the way we understand certain words does not depend so much on the meaning that they directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary opposite'.
They realised that words simply act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words was a relationship rather than a fixed thing just a relationship between opposing ideas.

Overall, Levi Strauss's theory is all about that conflict is based around the binary opposites and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.  

Here are some more examples of general binary oppositions...