In episode two of Homeland we start to sympathise with the character of Brody. The ongoing flashbacks helps us to relate to his traumatic experience he has had. Both positioning of Brody and Carrie are shown asleep as they are awoken by Brody's nightmare. The gun noise also startles us and creates a clear distinction between the past and reality.
As an opening shot we see Brody exhausted yet fearless as he chants the patriotic song. This suggests he is still respectful of his country, making the audience almost proud he hasn't given up.
The episode is created post 9/11 enhancing a personal response to the American audience. As Brody is comforted by the corner of his room the increasing ringing sound causes him to become more irritable. This creates tension for the audience as we are unaware of what Brody will do in his fragile state. The flashback to Brody holding himself in the corner of the Iraq prison also highlights the trauma he has been through and how he is effected. He is unable to control his thoughts which results in apart of him being unable to escape what happened to him in his past. This makes the audience question if he has recovered and whether this isn't the end of his torture.
This is also enhance when Jess informs him of his violence during the night. We can see he is sorry for how he has hurt his wife and almost shocked he was capable of hurting her. He remains to have no control over what is happening.
You have picked up on some useful evidence here, but your response feels a little unstructured and some of your points remain undeveloped; you make a nice point about 9/11 but need to go further to show how it is relevant to the question about audience positioning.
ReplyDeleteThe audience is put in a difficult place here - on the one hand we aren't sure if we can trust Brody; and on the other, we are asked to feel deep sympathy for the horror he has experienced. Sympathy is a powerful tool for positioning audiences; it immediately aligns us with a character - even when we aren't sure we want to feel sympathy for them.