Mini Mock

Levi Strauss considered binary oppositions as fundamental organiser of human philosophy, culture and language. In Humans, binary oppositions are used to encode the representations of men. In one pivotal scene, George, who owns a synth named Odie, fixes him up as if he was a broken car or toy, however, he shows a lot of love towards fundamentally, something that is not real, just a replication of human behaviour. the way Odie is presented encodes the expression of a young child, his appearance is boyish and simple, but shows verbal characteristics of somebody old (particularly in memory loss) and encodes a father-son type dynamic between the two of them. However although Odie is meant to be the one looking after the much older George, the dynamic is clearly switched as George is fixing Odie and helping him recover his malfunctions.
This opposes the relationship the father of the main family shares with their synth Annita. He sees her as a supplement for the mother figure as his wife, Laura works regularly away and is not at home very often. He holds a sexual attraction towards Annita, when he first purchases the synth he is immediately reactive to her looks, clearly forming an attraction. There is a possibility that he wanted a female synth, like George wanting a son for him to look after and almost raise, the father wants almost an attractive maid to subserve to him as he is her primary user, not Laura.
What this opposition encodes about the representation of men is that the stereotypical representation of the father presents him as wanting someone young, attractive and subservient woman to do whatever he says and to hold possession over her. This fits into Van Zoonen's male gaze theory as it shows that men like women who are visually pleasing and purchased her because she was a stereotypical representation of a beautiful woman, a simulacra towards both synths in these scenes as they are represntations of their own personal “perfect humans” but they are only that, representations and are not real. George however, subverts classical representations as he is not interested in a synth for their beauty or subservience but for company and companionship. He sees his synth as a replacement for a child like the father sees Annita as a replacement for the mother figure, George wants to look after a synth that is designed to help him. He is unable to let go because of the relationship he has formed with Odie and like when he fixes him up, finds it hard to be able to let go of somebody he feels a connection with, he notably doesn't have any other human connection and instead spends his time with his synth. What the father's representation shows about encoding meaning through binary opposition is that although in that universe is a progressive world with the mother is the one working and him being a stay at home father, that there is still an exploitation of the female form, that it is something to be enjoyed by men and something they are able to purchase and use for sexual or any other purpose the man desires.