Exam question

Liesbet Van-Zoonen argues that media language encodes how male and female characters act in media products. Explore how representations position the audience in Humans and Les Revenants

In this exam I will be talking about how you can apply Lisbet Van-Zoonen's theory to my case studies, Humans and Les Revenants when talking about how they encode how both male and female characters act in the two media product, I will be talking about how the representations of male and females position the audience and comparing them to one another.

In Les Revenant, the sex scene between Lena and her boyfriend portrays the youth clutter of male and females.  You see the couple having sex for the first time which positions the audience in a voyeristic mode of address making it seem quite uncomfortable for the audience.  However, the male in the scene is seen as dominant one and takes the lead by closing the curtains, asking Lena is she wants to have sex and being the one to start the act, this is seen as a hegemonic normality when sex scenes are presented in a media product so the audience can assume that the male is not loosing his virginity so this positions them  with a better understanding of the type of guy the boyfriend is, as he never tells Lena it is his first time.  This is encoded through the dialogue and how male is presented in the media product and it is only the audience that notice these things, positioning them with a greater knowledge of the type of person the boyfriend is.  Lena however, is seen as being pure at the start but not at the end o the act, she is wearing all white pyjamas when she goes to open the door to let the boyfriend in.  The all white has connotations of purity so the audience can see she is  a symbol of innocence, the male character however is seen wearing red, which has connotations of danger, blood and death, this is a literal red flag for the audience so the audience assume that the male may not be the best influence on Lena or the family itself.  However, in Humans, there are scenes of a similar trend however, the scene is set in . brothel of which Leo has just entered.  This seen portrays the males and females as being two completely different things, partly due to the fact the males are humans and the females are synths.  Leo and his whole persona change as soon a the enters the brothel, the audience are positioned in an environment that majority of them will be unfamiliar to (due to them being majority middle class) so they feel equally as uncomfortable as Leo as it is a surrounding that is alien to them both.  Leo is portrayed as being stereotypically male in this senario, he puts on a 'cool' front and is trying to appear as hegamonically alpha male as possible.  He is seen as wearing an outfit of majority green, depicting camouflage, undercover, so the audience are positioned as thinking he is doing the manly deed of saving the damsel in distress, the helpless blond lady, only to the opposite and get her hopes up to let her down and tell he cannot save her...yet.  The role is then reversed, the female character, the one is thought to be helpless an who has a loss of control over the situation, then takes the lead, making Leo seem more camouflaged by making seem they had just had sex to which Leo is made to feel even more uncomfortable as he realised he is not in control of the environment.  This positions the audience in a voyeristic mode of address, not only do you see Leo think that he is going to have sex with who he was meant to save against his will, you see him loose control of the situation at hand, this is unexpected and uncomfortable to watch as Leo is presented to be in control and it slowly crumbles away from the minute he entered the brothel.  

Another seen which encodes how male and female characters presented and act in a media product in Les Revenant, is the scene where you see Mrs Costa in the Kitchen.  This seen is a very small scene put packs an impact on the audience.  The scene starts as a hermeneutic code with the element of mystery as to what is behind the door, the music alongside the tracking shot adds tension, presenting Mr Costa as brave as he walks down his corridor towards the 'danger' with assertiveness, this positions the audience as a secondary character and lesser than Costa who seems to be unfazed by the element of threat that is being created by the diegetic music.  The scene ends with a false jump scare where the door is pushed open and Mrs Costa is sat there eating spaghetti out of the pot, she looks and smiles and says she was so hungry she could not wait.  The represents women as venerable and, in Mrs Costa's case, childish, being so hungry she is eating out the pot is something a child would do and the fact she is venerable is due to the fact she is sat there, eating, and slightly old and delicate and if Mr Costa was a threat, when the door opened she would not be able to defend herself.  This positions the audience into feeling sorry for her and wanting to take care of her as she seems hegamonicly kind and sweet and the audience gravitate towards liking her because of this, this is why the following scenes of her getting tied and bound in her house while Mr Costa sets fire to the house and proceeds to kill himself are so hard hitting and make the audience realise men are capable o not being able to handle what is going on and thinking they are loosing their mind and seeing what that can take them.  An example the audience feeling sympathy towards a character in humans is when Odie is in the shop, getting Jam for his owner, George, Odie is a sweet and child like synth so the audience can not help but feel as if they need to protect him as he is so innocent and child like, the is a typical of male character representations in media products, therefore making him a noticeable character and one the audience can grow to like as he is not like other characters in the show.  The shopping scene allows the audience to feel sympathy towards Odie as he starts to glitch out on his own and hurts a shop worker in the act, due to no fault of his own, this positions the audience into feeling sympathetic towards him as there is nothing he can do to stop it and those who do not understand his condition assume his is just a broken synth, this aligns the audience with Odie as they want to help him as he is represented as a snyths equivalent to some one with special needs/dementia so for the audience to see how he is treated and then having the owner is told to to just 'scrap' him is hard for the audience to watch as it is not Odie's fault, it positions the audience in a helpless circumstance where one of the less stereotypical characters could potentially die.