Philosophy – Study Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Semiotics, Signs, Signifier and Signified, Political Propaganda
Sep 29, 2009
In Mythologies, Roland Barthes is able to take Saussure's foundational structure of semiotic analysis and work it into a greater tool – able to better interpret and consider the signs that are presented to us as individuals on a daily basis.
Playing With Loaded Signifiers – What is Mythology?
Barthes describes mythology as “part both of semiology inasmuch as it is a formal science, and of ideology inasmuch as it is an historical science: it studies ideas-in-form”. (pp. 121) Mythology can then be understood, in this sense, to be the study of manmade (and thus manipulated) sensory cues presented to us for popular consumption.
The important thing to remember when discussing the relationship between the signifier (what is displayed) and the signified (the concept provoked) in the framework of Barthes myth is that these signifiers are already loaded with meaning – they are not sterile and arbitrarily chosen. This is a primary point of distinction between Saussure and Barthes, although these notions are not, surprisingly, contradictory.
A picture of President Barack Obama, for example, has already been infused with a pre-existing litany of meanings pertaining to everything ranging from his race, his campaign, and most obviously, to the social concept of “change”.
Barthes merely suggests that myth belongs to a second order of signification beyond the first as introduced by Saussure, allowing it to become culturally influential : “myth is a peculiar system, in that it is constructed from a semiological chain which existed before it: it is a second order semiological system.” (pp. 123)
Examples of Myth as Propaganda, Signifier as Impoverished Vessel
“I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors.
I am therefore again faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a presence of the signified through the signifier.” (pp. 125, 126)
What Barthes is casting a full light on in this example is the obvious political intent of this image he is explicating, alongside the historical context that he knows to be the truth that is not being spoken. It is highly unlikely that colonialism was an immediate boon for the great majority of occupied African nations, and even more unlikely that the oppressed black population would feel patriotism toward France.
The Impoverishment of History, Pick-And-Choose Nature of Myth
However, what has happened here is that the black soldier in this image has been placed apart from his historical connotations, and the crafter of this image (in this instance, a propagandist) has been able to fill this empty vessel with only, and exactly, the associations they want to draw out. The propagandist needs their signifier to be a black soldier – this visual signifier has become an empty vessel to be filled with only, in this case, the positive and “inclusive” aspects associated with it.
“I shall call the signifier: meaning … (a Negro is giving the french salute); on the plane of myth, I shall it: form … the meaning is already complete, it postulates a kind of knowledge, a past, a memory, a comparative order of facts, ideas, decisions. When it becomes form, the meaning leaves its contingency behind; it empties itself, it becomes impoverished, history evaporates, only the letter remains … the form does not suppress the meaning, it only impoverishes it, it puts it at a distance, it holds it at one's disposal.” (pp. 126, 127)
By removing the immediate history and context of the signifier, the crafty sign-maker is then able to pick and choose from all of the associations at their disposal in order to present an entirely new entity, a myth, to the visual consumer.
Consider an alternate version of the poster bearing what is likely a much more historically accurate vision – the same black gentleman fending off a French colonial soldier attempting to force him back to backbreaking labour in indentured servitude. The obvious disparity between the message of these two posters should make the power of mythical language even more apparent.
Continue Reading About Roland Barthes' Mythologies
This article continues with a discussion of three types of myth reading and myth creation, as well as an examination of right-wing myth versus left-wing myth.
Sources : Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Vintage Classics, 2009.
Semiotics, Roland Barthes Mythologies, Sign
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