Monday's Lesson
Answering Questions:
What historical context does this genre have? How has it shifted?
Classic Sci-fi was first well known with the publishment of 'War of the Worlds' by H.G Wells in 1897. From then on Sci-fi followed allegory of present and internationally scary events of their time. For example, the original Godzilla which was released in 1950, was an allegory for the nuclear attack on Japan by America around the time of World War Two, an event that is historically infamous and the creature itself embodied how Japan viewed America for their ability to kill and destroy with little will or humanity. However, in Humans, their allegory is relevant in advance of what our realities could be. The synths represent how technology has developed so far and fast that us as the general public cannot keep up with the consistent development and therefore this fear has been embodied into the show. Will the population of us who are not rich, celebrities or work for the manufacturers become obsolete in a world where their work can become cheaper and replaced by a machine. For example, when the family are watching a news report on the development of these Synths, the oldest daughter Mattie, who has been shown to be gifted in physics and interested with machinery and their function watches the interview says 'are we just all going to be poets then?'. This presents the fear of the public of their lives being overrun by machinery like they did back in the industrial revolution, where manual workers became unneeded as their jobs could be replaced with one payment and no human rights. In England today, we have the smallest percentage in primary and secondary sector jobs as they are now either done by machines or transported from other countries who are paid less. In a world with few conglomerates and faceless corporations who practically have power over the rest of the world, the lack of humanity shows evidence of a preference of profit over human decency, which is shown in Humans by the way the Synths presents an alternative for people.
How do audiences respond to and interpret the representations in this product?
Stuart Hall used reception theory to describe the ways in which audiences respond to ideologies and representations in a media product. In Humans, although there is a dominant reading, it deliberately presents ambiguity in order for the audience to hold a negotiated reading. For example, in the scene where we first meet Anita, the audience is meant to respond with the idea that she is somebody beautiful and desirable. However, we are also meant to acknowledge that there is a clear sexism in the choice of the synth as the daughter says “can we take her back if she isn’t pretty,” implies that they made an active choice to have a women, to replace the role of the mother they clearly have in a way lost as she’s a working woman. When Laura first repsonds to Anita, we feel sympathy toward her but we’re also meant to
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