TV - component 2 section a - Explore how audiences are positioned by the representation of social issues in Humans and Les Revenants

How do audience responses to this product demonstrate sociohistorical circumstances?

Here are three ways in which this question could be phrased in the exam:

Explore how audiences can respond to the socio-historical contexts of Humans and Les Revenants

To what extent do Humans and Les Revenants reflect the social context of the time they were made, and how can audiences respond to them?

Explore how audiences are positioned by the representation of social issues in Humans and Les Revenants

Knee jerk reaction

While both Humans and Les Revenants present fantastic situations to their target audiences, they both, through allegory explore a range of social and political issues that will easily be identifiable to a range of their target audiences. By positioning audiences in often uncomfortable situations, both programmes ensure that they maintain and gratify their core audiences.

Plan 

• Stereotypes
• Consent and female autonomy
• Slavery - Fred's branding references both US slavery and the holocaust
• Anita removes Sophie from the house. A stranger in the house. Reflects a societal fear of 'stranger danger'
• Moral panic
• AI and the singularity - the fear of being replaced by digital 
• Sex and sex robots - raises issues of consent
• Sexual objectification
• Religious issues: coming back from the dead. Purgatory
• Themes of immigration: new arrivals to town. 'Mass immigration'.
• Teenage sex: sexual awakening and he loss of virginity
• Stuart Hall: readings
• Binary oppositions provoke 'black and white' issues provokes an audience reaction
• The rights of machines, the rights of women
• Henry Jenkins: fandom
• Odi reflects how we treat people with disabilities

The final montage in Humans

These notes were pinched from students. Thanks all!

• Use of a CU of Laura's concerned face looking at Anita whilst the sound from the news show Matilda is watching is in the background, the news show is on Channel 4 adding to the immersion
• Non-diegetic synthesised music which is a proairetic code suggesting that the robots will turn against their masters. Binary opposition between white and not white
• Audience can get involved in philosophical debates about what is life?
• Brothel setting encoded through mise en scene
• use of a two shot of Laura's concerned face looking at Anita questioning her autonomy. Binary opposition between humanity and and robotics
• non diegetic synthesised music - a generic convention of the sci-fi genre
• proairetic code for dealing with a robot crisis 
• binary oppositions - old and young, white and asian, human and robot
• Matty's documentary playing in the background - use of channel 4 is an example of digital convergence, adding to the realism of the show
• Mise en scene of Sophie curled up in bed with a teddy bear hard cutting to anoushka in a brothel wearing lingerie - binary opposition 
• Mid shot of anoushka's face with a blank expression - she is the victim in the situation, she is passive
• the audience is positioned in an awkward position through the direct mode of address forcing the audience to confront issues of sex work.
• The audience can get involved in philosophical debates and discussions 

Note - this session was a little rushed for a variety of reasons. It would have been excellent to have spent more time looking at preferred, oppositional and (especially) negotiated readings. Personally, I would argue that both shows deliberately lack a preferred reading, and instead encourage the audience to negotiate a 'side' to the argument, which in turn ensures that fan communities are formed online. A good example of a Humans fan community is the r/humanstv subreddit, where fans share theories using digitally convergent technologies, and even name themselves after main characters, which is an excellent example of Gauntlet's theory of audience identity.