Binary Opposites

Binary opposites wassomething that i grasped hold of very easily. Itt was basically something that we all see in every form of entertainment/media we come in contact with. books, films, and comics all follow this sort of opposition to give their story balance and interest to their viewer.

Go(o)d   (d)evil   
Life         Death      
Light        Dark       
Male        Female
White      Black
Land       Sea

these comparisons are obvious binary opposites. the collumn on the left is often favored over the other in some way be it for good reason or bad. we prefer good,life and light over their opposites. Males were often (and still are in some countries) the dominant gender and there have always been a racial divide between whites and blacks.
land and sea is a bit more complex as its obvious that we're land creatures, but structures like piers allow us to enter a part of our binary opposite. when we do enter our binary opposites, things start to get interesting and we start to lose ourself in some way.
Piers allow us to "step onto the sea" and we're in a anomoly zone where unusual activities happen. i.e. meeting of lovers/romance, drug dealing. Better examples is when we enter dark places like clubs or cinemas. we usually wouldnt sit in a dark room full of strangers or enter a crowded place where we know suspicious things happen. it goes against our natural instincts but we go back to these because we like this.

Knowing the importance and our inerests in binary opposites is important as applying this to film causes the viewer to become inticed by the film.
Batman was an example brought in both the seminar and lecture. Batman is obviously the hero of the main story and he has many villians. However we know that he has a troubled past and in the end, he's a brute who uses violence to solve most of the problems he encounters. essence of good and evil. same can be said about his villians. all of whom have a history and a reason for their actions and none are completly "insane".
Another example is Frankenstein. The story of this has many binary opposites involved Frankenstein creating the monster immediatley touches on...

God (Frankenstien)  and Man(the monster
Human(Frankenstein) and Non-Human (monster)
Life and Death
Parent and Child

These may be the reason why it is one of the most iconic horror stories of all time and why it is able to capture the audiences interest in whatever time period.


UPDATE 03/12/2010

My friend told me about the new film Megamind and told me the story line. apparently the main character is a super villian who kills his arch nemesis near the beginning. however this means that there is no binary opposite of the villian, rendering his existence useless. It reminds me of the scene in Dark Knight when batman interegates the joker and the joker says "i dont wanna kill you. What would i do without you. you complete me"
Back to megamind, the villian then creates a new superhero but he ends up doing bad things and the main villian ends up being the superhero.

I think thats the main plot of the story but i found it was a really nice twist on the whole binary oppposite theme most fillms have. it shows that even though the theme has been used for years, certain twists to them still keep it fresh and interesting.