Binary Oppositions & Ideology

Russell Brand & Nigel Farage clash over immigration on Question Time

The most identifiable and explicit binary opposition is between the two themselves; Nigel Farage is the polar opposite to Russell Brand in every way shape and form, the fact that these two people look so different primarily, indicates their conflict and difference and also due to their opposing political ideologies it causes the two to almost repel one another and become conflicted. 

Brand is represented as a conventional working class citizen and he emphasises this by exaggerating the fact that he is 'just like you,' causing the audience members to identify with him and his ideologies because they share similar backgrounds. Brand highlights how Farage was brought up within a privileged family and attempts to use this to create an emotional and personal identification with the ordinary people within the audience. 

Within the audience, there are characters that hold different ideologies and there are some which oppose the majority and some which reinforce the majority; the man who speaks first stimulates the crowd to oppose Brand's views, which were initially the ones that majority of the audience conformed too and agreed with. This man's ideologies of believing that Brand cannot have his say unless he runs for parliament emphasises the importance and the effects of ones ideologies and how they can stimulate different responses from different cultural backgrounds, some being positive and some being negative. This is reinforced by the woman in the audience opposing the views of the man in the audience and supporting Brand's ideologies. This therefore presents a binary opposition between ordinary people as their views are conflicting with one another. 

Too Fat To Work | This Morning - Katie Hopkins and Jay Cole Interview

This clip is very interesting as there is an obvious binary opposition between Katie Hopkins and Jay Cole but then there is also Holly and Philip, who have their own opinions which also conform to each of the two interviewees. It is apparent that Hopkins is completely against the idea of employing someone who is fat and admits that she is a 'fattist,' whilst the person in that position of wanting to be hired completely disagrees with this and finds it an abomination to think that this is the case in this generation. Holly also agrees with her and there is tension between her and Hopkins as she agrees with Cole and believes in equality; both conforming to this particular ideology of equality. I would argue that Philip is almost siding with Hopkins yet still plays the devils advocate due to his subtle highlighting of the way the world is today; when he says that 'you can't change you race or whether you're disabled or not but you can change your weight,' it almost conforms with the ideologies presented by Hopkins and there is a binary opposition now between Holly and Philip and also Cole and Hopkins. 

The ideologies presented by Hopkins are discriminative and she believes that fat people should not be employed as they are 'lazy and lack ambition.' The fact that her ideologies are so strong and dominant shows her clarity and the fact that she is so set in her ideological beliefs that she becomes passionate when addressing the issue, similar with Cole as she is in the position of being the unemployed woman. The fact that she is in this position to know how it feels causes her ideologies to almost become much stronger as the audience sympathise with her however, her ideologies may be dominantly read by some people or completely opposed by others like Hopkins. The ideologies presented are completely conflicting and present the two binary oppositions in dispute.