Claude Lévi Strauss - Media Theorist
- 2. Who Was Claude Lévi-Strauss? • Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French Anthropologist and Ethnologist • Studied Law and Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris • He was a secondary school teacher, then last minute was asked on a cultural mission to Brazil, he studied sociology by staying with many different tribes. • Claude was born in 1908 and died 2009, aged 100
- 3. Theories He Believed • Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the theory of binary oppositions. • Binary oppositions is a pair of related terms that are opposite in meaning. He suggested that narratives (the way events are put together to be shown to an audience) had to be driven by conflict from contrasting forces and that they’re theoretical opposites and set off against one another. • Examples are: Good vs Evil, Male vs Female, Dark vs Light. • You cant understand the word ‘coward’ unless you know the meaning of the opposite, ‘hero’. • This theory is an important concept of structuralism.
- 4. Why it’s important to us? • Claude Lévi-Strauss’ theory can be used to assess groups of texts and genres. • The theory makes films successful as throughout them conflict happens creating climax, strength and tension until some sort of balance is achieved at the end. • This theory can also be explained by juxtaposition. By putting the words ‘Good and Evil’ next to each other, the opposition expresses the struggle between the two.
- 5. Bibliography/Summary/Quotes • Through all his research Lévi-Strauss believed when he examined myths contain juxtapositioned binary opposites. • “The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions”. • “I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact”.
Editor's Notes
- Hero and Villain's in films makes the story more exciting