Humans Mini Mock

Humans Mini Mock

To what extent does the first episode of Humans conform to conventions of the science fiction genre? [15 marks]

media language

DAC

buying anita scene eg. music, colouring lighting, synths, glowing green eyes, allegory of how women are treated 

breakfast scene - unconventional seems like a normal family eating breakfast although anita and hyperreality

conclusion- summary 

PEA genre conventions 

In the TV series, 'Humans' we see that it is British and of the sci-fi genre, genre is categories of what theme a media text follows using generic conventions. We see that 'Humans' is sci-fi from the main theme of the show being about robots or more known as synths that have human like features, there are themes of technology, synth music and unaturalness in the synths' glowing eyes. However we could argue that it is also unconventional in the science fiction genre as everything we see is current and reflective of contemporary British life, which we all see today, 'Humans' is also a sub genre of an alternative present.

In 'Humans', we can see that it very much follows the conventions of the sci-fi genre from the use of mise-en-scene. For example, the scene where Joe and Sophie go and buy Anita, when we see Anita being pushed from the warehouse into the shop the colouring is blue tinted and cold, connotating a sterile environment with harsh high key lighting further creating this feeling to the audience. The non-diegetic music is synth, a technical music genre, as well as featuring synths, which are artificial intelligent robots. Using the theory of genre by Neale, the audience can see that this is immediately a sci-fi genre because of the familiarity of the repetition of the conventions, however the audience should also see something new to make the show interesting, usually producers have a hybridity in genres, 'Humans' is also an alternative present, the audience can relate to it apart from the synths that are involved. Another important genre convention is that sci-fi always have an allegory, in this case we see 'Humans' portraying many current issues, in this case women, later in this scene, Joe and Sophie objectify the synths, however, it is an allegory for how women are seen, it is a hegemonic patriachal representation of women because we see one synth cooking and wearing a maid outfit, Joe says, 'Look Soph, that's a really posh one', Zoonen's Feminist theory talks about the objectification of women.

In 'Humans', we could argue that it is also unconventional in some ways as it features less stereotypical conventions of the sci-fi genre. For example, the breakfast scene

(Ran out of time.)