Picture this: you inherit a huge country house off a 99 year old distant relative you didn’t even know existed, less than a day after moving in you take a mysterious fall out a window, go into a coma for two weeks and now you can see ghosts. Welcome to the life of Alison Cooper.
Ghosts is a BBC sitcom first broadcast in April 2019 showing the history through the ghosts whose souls have never moved on since their death in the residence. With such a variety of recurring characters there are so many ways we can look at this text. When it comes to Binary Oppositions, there are plenty to look at and one might assume straight off that the most prominent would be life vs death but I think it is actually past vs present.
The ghosts of Button House are:
Julian Fawcett MP (a 1990s tory who died in a sex scandal)
Thomas Thorne (a regency era poet who died in a duel)
Robin (a caveman)
Mary (a medieval peasant who was burned at the stake)
Kitty (a Georgian noblewoman)
Pat Butcher (a 1980s scout leader who was killed after being shot in the neck during an archery lesson by one of his scouts)
The Captain (a world war 2 army captain)
Humphrey Bone (a decapitated Elizabethan nobleman)
and finally, Lady Fanny Button (an Edwardian noblewoman who died after being pushed out the window by her husband when she caught him in the act)
The range of ghosts and prominent personalities in Button House give audiences a brilliant glance into the rich history of the grounds and how it has changed since the beginning.
The binary opposition of past versus present is most obvious during interactions between Alison and Fanny who are extremely distant relatives. Fanny is often correcting the way Alison looks, walks and talks - trying to make her the best, most upper class version of herself she can be by the standards of early 20th century Britain. There is an episode in season 2 in which a lesbian wedding takes place at Button House and Fanny is absolutely horrified at the fact that, not only is it legal but, Alison, Mike and everybody involved are accepting and happy about it. Over the course of the episode, Fanny comes around to accepting what is happening which shows, not only the contrast between 20th century views vs 21st century views but also, the difference between Fanny’s previous views and her new ones.
The binary opposition of life vs death is probably most prominent when we are shown what Mike, Alison’s husband who cannot see the ghosts, can see during daily life with no ghosts around - a house with just the two of them, no spirits. This is such a stark difference because most of the show is spent with the ghosts visible to the audience and we just get used to seeing them that it seems so strange for them to not be there anymore - like a house so full of life (or death) is all of a sudden has a completely dead (no pun intended) atmosphere.
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