Roland Barthes:
Mythologies (1957)
Lecture 1 [Introduction] [What is Mythologies
About?] [Interrogating the Obvious]
[Mass
Culture, Myth and the Mythologist]
[Myth
and Ideology]
Lecture 2
[Mythologies: A Postwar Text] [The
Intellectual
and Mass Culture] [Mass Culture and
the Intellectual]
[The Politics of Mythologies]
Lecture 3
[Barthes and Semiology]
[Further Reading]
Introduction
What is Mythologies About? Mythologies
is
a text which is not one but plural.
It contains
fifty-four (only twenty-eight in the
Annette
Lavers's English translation) short
journalistic
articles on a variety of subjects.
These
texts were written between 1954 and
1956
for the left-wing magazine Les Lettres
nouvelles
and very clearly belong to Barthes's
`période
"journalistique"'
(Calvet: 1973 p. 37). They all have
a brio
and a punchy topicality typical of
good journalism.
Indeed, the fifty-four texts are best
considered
as opportunistic improvisations on
relevant
and up-to-the-minute issues rather
than carefully
considered theoretical essays. Because
of
their very topicality they provide
the contemporary
reader with a panorama of the events
and
trends that took place in the France
of the
1950s. Although the texts are very
much of
and about their times, many still have
an
unsettling contemporary relevance to
us today.
Although there are a number of articles
about political figures, the majority
of
the fifty-four texts focus on various
manifestations
of mass culture, la culture de masse:
films,
advertizing, newspapers and magazines,
photographs,
cars, children's toys, popular pastimes
and
the like. This broke new ground at
the time.
Barthes showed that it was possible
to read
the `trivia' of everyday life as full
of
meanings.
Mythologies, however, includes not
just
the fifty-four journalistic pieces,
but an
important theoretical essay entitled
`Le
Mythe aujourd'hui' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
193-247).
`Le Mythe aujourd'hui' is a retrospectively
imposed theoretical conspectus (an
overall
view, summary or survey) which is an
important
theoretical or methodological tract
in its
own right, but in no way central to
an understanding
and appreciation of the other texts
in Mythologies.
The fact that it is positioned after
the
journalistic articles is significant.
This
expressed not simply the chronological
order
in which they were written, but also
how
Barthes wished us to read the text
as a whole.
`Le Mythe aujourd'hui' was not intended
to
be seen as the theory underpinning
the practice
of the fifty-four articles which were
more
spontaneous and intuitive. What `Le
Mythe
aujourd'hui' does, however, is to make
more
explicit some of the concerns that
underpin
the fifty-four essays. There is, then,
a
certain amount of continuity between
the
two `parts' of Mythologies.
Interrogating the Obvious
... ce qui m'a toujours préoccupé [...]
c'est le problème de la signification
des
objets culturels. (Barthes: 1981 p.
64) Dans
la vie quotidienne, j'éprouve pour
tout ce
que je vois et entends une sorte de
curiosité,
presque d'affectivité intellectuelle
qui
est de l'ordre du romanesque. (Barthes:
1981 p. 192)
Barthes often claimed to be fascinated
by
the meanings of the things that surround
us in our everyday lives. If there
is a certain
amount of thematic continuity between
the
two `parts' of Mythologies then it
is here,
in their shared interrogation of the
meanings
of the cultural artefacts and practices
that
surround us. Barthes often claimed
that he
wanted to challenge the `innocence'
and `naturalness'
of cultural texts and practices which
were
capable of producing all sorts of supplementary
meanings, or connotations to use Barthes's
preferred term. Although objects, gestures
and practices have a certain utilitarian
function, they are not resistant to
the imposition
of meaning. There is no such thing,
to take
but one example, as a car which is
a purely
functional object devoid of connotations
and resistant to the imposition of
meaning.
A BMW and a Citroën
2CV share the same functional utility,
they
do essentially the same job but connote
different
things about their owners: thrusting,
upwardly-mobile
executive versus ecologically sound,
right-on
trendy. We can speak of cars then,
as signs
expressive of a number of connotations.
It
is these sorts of secondary meanings
or connotations
that Barthes is interested in uncovering
in Mythologies. Barthes wants to stop
taking
things for granted, wants to bracket
or suspend
consideration of their function, and
concentrate
rather on what they mean and how they
function
as signs. In many respects what Barthes
is
doing is interrogating the obvious,
taking
a closer look at that which gets taken
for
granted, making explicit what remains
implicit.
A simple example of Barthes getting
under
the surface of things is the essay
`Iconographie
de l'abbé Pierre' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
54-6).
The abbé Pierre was a Catholic priest
who
achieved a certain amount of media
attention
in the 1950s (and in the 1980s and
1990s
too) for his work with the homeless
in Paris.
What interests Barthes is, perversely,
the
abbé Pierre's clothes and, in particular,
his haircut. We would expect such a
man to
be indifferent to fashion and to consider
a certain neutrality or `état zéro'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 54) to be desirable.
However,
far from being neutral or innocent,
the abbé
Pierre's clothes and hairstyle send
out all
sorts of messages. The abbé Pierre's
simple
working-class `canadienne' and austere
hairstyle
all connote the qualities of simplicity,
religious devotion and self-sacrifice.
His
clothes and hairstyle make a fashion
statement
of sorts - as much, if not more, than
a Lacoste
polo shirt or an Armani suit - and
are rich
in connotations:
... la neutralité finit par fonctionner
comme signe de la neutralité, ... La
coupe
zéro, elle affiche tout simplement
le franciscanisme;
conçue d'abord négativement pour ne
pas contrairier
l'apparence de la sainteté, bien vite
elle
passe à un mode superlatif de signification,
elle déguise l'abbé en saint François.
(Barthes:
1970 p. 54) Barthes is not claiming
that
the abbé Pierre cynically manipulated
his
public image, but is making the point,
rather,
that nothing can be exempted from meaning
(see Barthes: 1975 p. 90). Every single
object
or gesture is susceptible to the imposition
of meaning, nothing is resistant to
this
process. This is especially the case
when,
like the abbé Pierre, one is subjected
to
the attention of the media. Barthes
takes
his argument one step further however.
The
media's stress on the abbé Pierre's
devotion
and good works - symbolized by his
haircut!
- diverts attention from any form of
investigation
of the causes of homelessness and poverty.
Media representations of the abbé Pierre,
claims Barthes, sanctify charity and
mask
out all references to the socio-economic
causes of homelessless and urban poverty.
What emerges in `Iconographie de l'abbé
Pierre'
is a strategy that is repeated throughout
Mythologies: Barthes begins by making
explicit
the meanings of apparently neutral
objects
and then moves on to consider the social
and historical conditions they obscure.
Mass Culture, Myth and the Mythologist
Le départ de cette réflexion était
le plus
souvent un sentiment d'impatience devant
le `naturel' dont la presse, l'art,
le sens
commun affublent sans cesse une réalité
qui,
pour être celle dans laquelle nous
vivons,
n'en est pas moins parfaitement historique:
en un mot, je souffrais de voir à tout
moment
confondues dans le récit de notre actualité,
Nature et Histoire, et je voulais ressaisir
dans l'exposition décorative de ce-qui-va-de-soi,
l'abus idéologique qui, à mon sens,
s'y trouve
caché. (Barthes: 1970 p. 9) Ce que
je n'aime
pas dans l'Occident, c'est qu'il fabrique
des signes et les refuse en même temps.
[...]
de quel droit parlerais-je au nom de
la vérité?
Mais à battre en brèche inlassablement
la
naturalité du signe; ça oui! (Barthes:
1981
p. 95)
Mythologies is, superficially at least,
a rather puzzling title for a book
concerned
with the meanings of the signs that
surround
us in our everyday lives. A myth, after
all,
is a story about superhuman beings
of an
earlier age, of ancient Eygpt, Greece
or
Rome. But the word `myth' can also
mean a
ficticious, unproven or illusory thing.
This
is closer to the sense that Barthes
explores
in Mythologies. Barthes is concerned
to analyse
the `myths' circulating in contemporary
society,
the false representations and erroneous
beliefs
current in the France of the postwar
period.
Mythologies is a work about the myths
that
circulate in everyday life which construct
a world for us and our place in it:
La France
tout entière baigne dans cette idéologie
anonyme: notre presse, notre cinéma,
notre
théâtre, notre littérature de grand
usage,
nos cérémoniaux, notre Justice, notre
diplomatie,
nos conversations, le temps qu'il fait,
le
crime que l'on juge, le mariage auquel
on
s'émeut, la cuisine que l'on rêve,
le vêtement
que l'on porte, tout, dans notre vie
quotidienne,
est tributaire de la représentation
que la
bourgeoisie se fait et nous fait des
rapports
de l'homme et du monde. (Barthes: 1970
p.
227) What joins the journalistic articles
and the theoretical essay is the conviction
that what we accept as being `natural'
is
in fact an illusory reality constructed
in
order to mask the real structures of
power
obtaining in society. Mythologies -
both
the journalistic articles and the theoretical
essay - is a study of the ways in which
mass
culture - a mass culture which Barthes
sees
as controlled by la petite bourgeoisie
constructs
this mythological reality and encourages
conformity to its own values. This
position
informs the various texts that make
up Mythologies.
We inhabit a world, then, of signs
which
support existing power structures and
which
purport to be natural. The role of
the mythologist,
as Barthes sees it, is to expose these
signs
as the artificial constructs that they
are,
to reveal their workings and show that
what
appears to be natural is, in fact,
determined
by history. This is certainly how Barthes
saw the role of the criticism in general
in the autobiographical Roland Barthes
par
Roland Barthes and its relevance to
Mythologies
is clear:
... l'opération critique consiste à
déchiffrer
l'embarras des raisons, des alibis,
des apparences,
bref tout le naturel social, pour rendre
manifeste l'échange réglé sur quoi
reposent
la marche sémantique et la vie collective.
(Barthes: 1975 p. 63)
Myth and Ideology
Le propre des Mythologies n'est pas
politique
mais idéologique. Le propre des Mythologies,
c'est de prendre systématiquement en
bloc
une sorte de monstre que j'ai appelé
la `petite-bourgeoisie'
(quitte à en faire un mythe) et de
taper
inlassablement sur ce bloc; la méthode
est
peu scientifique et n'y prétendait
pas; c'est
pourquoi l'ouverture méthodologique
n'est
venue qu'ensuite, par la lecture de
Saussure;
la théorie des Mythologies est l'objet
d'une
postface (Barthes: 1971 p. 96) Il ne
sortait
pas de cette idée sombre, que la vraie
violence,
c'est celle du cela-va-de-soi (Barthes:
1975
p. 88)
... on peut attaquer le monde et l'alienation
idéologique de notre monde quotidien,
à bien
des niveaux: Système de la mode contient
aussi une affirmation éthique sur le
monde,
la même d'ailleurs que dans des Mythologies,
à savoir qu' il y a un mal, un mal
social,
idéologique, attaché aux systèmes de
signes
qui ne s'avouent pas franchement comme
systèmes
de signes. Au lieu de reconnaître que
la
culture est un système immotivé de
significations,
la société bourgeoise donne toujours
des
signes comme justifiés par la nature
ou la
raison. (Barthes: 1981 p. 67)
It is possible to argue that `myth',
as
Barthes uses it in Mythologies, functions
as a synonym of `ideology' (for a more
detailed
discussion of this complex issue see
Brown:
1994 pp. 24-38). As a theoretical construct
`ideology' is notoriously hard to define.
However, one of the most pervasive
definitions
of the term holds that it refers to
the body
of beliefs and representations that
sustain
and legitimate current power relationships.
Ideology promotes the values and interests
of dominant groups within society.
I like
the explanation Terry Eagleton comes
up with
in his book Ideology: An Introduction:
A
dominant power may legitimate itself
by promoting
beliefs and values congenial to it;
naturalizing
and universalizing such beliefs so
as to
render them self-evident and apparently
inevitable;
denigrating ideas which might challenge
it;
excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps
by some unspoken but systematic logic;
and
obscuring social reality in ways convenient
to itself. Such `mystification', as
it is
commonly known, frequently takes the
form
of masking or suppressing social conflicts,
from which arises the conception of
ideology
as an imaginary resolution of real
contradictions.
(Eagleton: 1991 pp. 5-6) This particular
definition of the workings of ideology
is
particularly relevant to Mythologies.
Common
to both Eagleton's definition of ideology
and Barthes's understanding of myth
is the
notion of a socially constructed reality
which is passed of as `natural'. The
opinions
and values of a historically and socially
specific class are held up as `universal
truths'. Attempts to challenge this
naturalization
and universalization of a socially
constructed
reality (what Barthes calls le cela-va-de-soi)
are dismissed for lacking `bon sens',
and
therefore excluded from serious consideration.
The real power relations in society
(between
classes, between coloniser and colonised,
between men and women etc.) are obscured,
reference to all tensions and difficulties
blocked out, glossed over, their political
threat defused. Let me try to clarify
these
points with an example from Mythologies.
In `Le vin et le lait' (Barthes: 1970
pp.
74-77) Barthes explores the significance
of wine to the French. Wine is clearly
an
important symbolic substance to the
French
expressive of conviviality, of virility
and,
more importantly, of national identity.
Nothing
could be more expressive of an `essential
Frenchness' than a ballon de rouge.
The uproar
caused at the beginning of Monsieur
Coty's
presidential term of office by being
photographed
at home next to a bottle of beer, rather
than the obligatory bottle of red,
captures
this perfectly. Barthes unsettles the
mythological
associations of wine by making explicit
wine's
real status as just another commodity
produced
for profit. He draws attention to wine-makers'
exploitation of the Third World, citing
Algeria
as an example of a poor Muslim country
forced
to use its land for the cultivation
of a
product - `le produit d'une expropriation
(Barthes: 1970 p. 77) - which they
are forbidden
to drink on religious grounds and which
could
be better used for cultivating food
crops.
Barthes makes explicit the connections
between
wine and the socio-economics of its
production.
And this is an integral part of his
aim as
a mythologist: he must expose the artificiality
of those signs which disguise their
historical
and social origins.
Mythologies: A Postwar Text Roland
Barthes's
Mythologies is concerned with a number
of
important postwar issues (see Les trente
glorieuses: France 1945-75 for a general
overview of the period). These issues
are
both specifically French - peculiar
to France
of a particular historical period -
and applicable
to postwar developments in other European
countries. These issues include:
[France's Imperial Crises] [The Sexual
Politics
of the Domestic] [Changing Patterns
of Cultural
Consumption] [Technocratic Icons of
Modernization]
[Institutional Inertia]
France's Imperial Crises
Le mythe ne nie pas les choses, sa
fonction
est au contraire d'en parler; simplement,
il les purifie, les innocente, les
fonde
en nature et en éternité, il leur donne
une
clarté qui n'est pas celle de l'explication,
mais celle du constat ... (Barthes:
1970
p. 230) The period immediately following
the Second World War were the years
of decolonisation
in which the former colonial powers
were
divested of their former territories.
France,
as the main imperial power after Great
Britain,
was inevitably deeply embroiled in
these
processes (mainly in Indochina and
North
Africa). France, at the time Barthes
was
writing Mythologies, was in the midst
of
a bloody and bitter colonial war: la
guerre
d'Algérie. Barthes's Mythologies is
a book
which responds to decolonisation and
is all
about Frenchness and French identity.
There
are references, for example, to right-wing
politicians like Poujade and Le Pen
who whipped
up racist feelings in such articles
as `Quelques
paroles de M. Poujade' (Barthes: 1970
pp.
85-7) and `Poujade et les intellectuels'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 182-90). `Bichon
chez
les nègres' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 64-67)
is
another important text about racism.
One
of the most approchable essays on France's
colonial struggles - with more than
a few
contemporary resonances today - is
`Grammaire
africaine' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 137-144).
As
the title suggests `Grammaire africaine'
is an article about language, more
specifically,
about the language used in certain
right-wing
newspapers and magazines to describe,
assess
and analyse the conflict taking place
in
Algeria. What Barthes claimed to find
every
time he read a newspaper or magazine
article
on Algeria, was a carefully structured
and
codified way of talking and writing
about
Franco-Algerian relations with its
own covert
presuppositions and interests. Myth
- which
Barthes described as `une parole dépolitisée'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 230) - is at work
here
and in `Grammaire africaine' Barthes
seeks
to expose it by insisting on the social
and
historical `situatedness' of the language
used. What `Grammaire africaine' is
really
about is the way in which a certain
imperialist
political agenda is smuggled into the
reporting
of foreign affairs. Barthes exposes
the ideologically-loaded
nature of the terminology used to describe
France's major imperial conflict, identifying
the key mendacious signifiers whose
primary
function is to conceal the realities
of the
Algerian war.
Those who seek independance from French
rule, for example, are variously described
as `une bande' or as `hors-la-loi'
and their
demands are therefore considered illegitimate.
Such terms are never used for the colons,
the French settlers who are invariably
described
as a `communauté'. The presence of
this `communauté'
is justified by the unique `mission'
France
is obliged to carry out in the region.
The
so-called `destin' of Algeria is with
French
colonizers rather than as an independant
nation. In contradiction to the reality
of
the collapse of France's empire, this
`destin'
is claimed to be fixed and immutable.
The
word `guerre' is never used - Algeria
was
the quintessential guerre sans nom,
the undeclared
war - only terms like `paix' and `pacification'.
More often than not, however, terms
like
`déchirement' which suggest a natural
- and therefore not man-made - disaster
are used to designate the situation
in Algeria.
The whole tone of much of French journalism's
reporting of Algeria is marked by an
attempt
to drown out or disguise the true violence
of the war. Language here is not an
instrument
of communication but of intimidation
which
seeks to pass off a specific version
of events
(i. e. that of the French state) as
the sole
valid interpretation and to marginalize
those
versions which contradict it:
Le vocabulaire officiel des affaires
africaines
est, on s'en doute, purement axiomatique.
C'est dire qu'il n'a aucune valeur
de communication,
mais seulement d'intimidation. Il constitue
donc une écriture, c'est-à-dire un
langage
chargé d'opérer une coïncidence entre
les
normes et les faits, et de donner à
un réel
cynique la caution d'une morale noble.
D'une
manière générale, c'est un langage
qui fonctionne
essentiellement comme un code, c'est-à-dire
que les mots y ont un rapport nul ou
contraire
à leur contenu. C'est une écriture
que l'on
pourrait appeler cosmétique parce qu'elle
vise à recouvrir les faits d'un bruit
de
langage ... (Barthes: 1970 p. 137).
Another
important article of relevance to Barthes's
critique of French journalism's (mis)representation
of politics in Algeria is `La Critique
Ni-Ni'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 144-46). It neatly
takes
apart those journalists who have perfected
the art of taking sides whilst appearing
to be neutral and merely expressing
the voice
of common sense. Common sense, suggests
Barthes,
deeply ideological. Rather than expressing
natural, self-evident truths, it expresses
the world-order and outlook of a historically
specific social class. In his later
writings
Barthes replaces the term `bon sens'
or `sens
commun' with the term doxa which he
uses
to designate those ideas and values
that
claim their origins in common sense:
La Doxa
(mot qui va revenir souvent), c'est
l'Opinion
publique, l'Esprit majoritaire, le
Consensus
petit-bourgeois, la Voix du Naturel,
la Violence
du Préjugé ... (Barthes: 1975 p. 51)
The Sexual Politics of the Domestic
The
sexual politics of the domestic sphere
(images
of femininity, the role of women etc.)
is
another of the issues tackled by Barthes.
The immediate postwar years throughout
the
western world were those of a retour
au foyer,
a reaffirmation of traditional gender
roles
(see Women in Postwar France: the Domestic
Ideal for more details of this). Although
the situation of French women during
the
war was different to that of their
English
or American sisters in that, in general,
French women did not enter the workforce
occupying posts once held by men, their
experience
after the war was very much the same:
an
overt and covert attempt to push women
back
into the confines of the home and the
roles
of mother and housewife. After the
liberation,
French legislation targeting women
was firmly
based on women's role as mamans de
France.
As such, it continued the Pétainist
family
policy and efforts to increase the
birth
rate. Quite apart from the specific
legislation
favouring women's retour au foyer (e.
g.
les allocations familiales) there was
the
ideological pressure coming from the
church,
the politicians and, above all, from
the
media.
It is interesting to note that one
of the
important development in the postwar
years
was the growing popualrity of weekly
and
monthly magazines, particularly those
aimed
at a predominantly female readership
like
Elle (founded in 1945), Marie-France,
Marie-Claire
and Femmes d'aujourd'hui. It was publications
like these that interested and irritated
Barthes (see Barthes: 1981 pp. 96-97).
He
even went so far as to describe Elle
as a
`véritable trésor mythologique' (Barthes:
1970 p. 128). The essay `Conjugales'
(Barthes: 1957 pp. 47-50) is particularly
interesting here. Barthes writes of
the fascination
of the popular press for marriages
and the
ways in which this legitimates a particular
social organisation
L'union de Syviane Carpentier, Miss
Europe
53 et de son ami d'enfance, l'électricien
Michel Warembourg permet de développer
une
image différente, celle de la chaumière
heureuse.
Grâce à son titre, Sylviane aurait
pu mener
la carrière brillante d'une star, voyager,
faire du cinéma, gagner beaucoup d'argent:
sage et modeste, elle a renoncé à "la
gloire ephémère" et, fidèle à
son passé,
elle a épousé un électricien de Palaisseau.
Les jeunes époux nous sont ici présentés
dans la phase postnuptiale de leur
union,
en train d'établir les habitudes de
leur
bonheur et de s'installer dans l'anoymat
d'un petit confort: on arrange le deux-pièces-cuisine,
on prend le petit déjeuner, on va au
cinéma,
on fait le marché.[...]
L'amour-plus-fort-que-la-gloire relance
ici la morale du statu quo social:
il n'est
pas sage de sortir de sa condition,
il est
glorieux d'y rentrer. (Barthes: 1970
p. 48)
The article `Jouets' (Barthes: 1970
pp. 58-60),
although not explicitly about the sexual
politics of the domestic, is concerned
with
the ways in which toys encourage children
to adopt pre-determined gender and
class
positions. Children are encouraged
to become
owners rather than creative users of
toys
which appear to be `productive' but
which,
Barthes claims, encourage passivity.
`Romans
et enfants' (Barthes: 1907 pp. 56-8)
is an
interesting essay on gender stereotyping,
this time focussing on women writers.
Women
writers are seen as acceptable but
they must
pay a heavy price for their creativity
by
neglecting their `biological destiny'.
`Celle
qui voit clair' (Barthes: 1957 pp.
125-8)
is an article on the agony columns
in women's
magazines. The advice dispensed in
these
columns constructs a female condition
- women,
unlike men are defined by their close
relation
to the heart - which it claims to be
eternal.
No references are ever made to women's
real
social and economic conditions as their
realm
is the home and the heart. The notion
- or
myth - of woman promulgated in le courrier
du coeur is that women have no other
role
than that defined by men: ... la morale
du
Courrier ne postule jamais pour la
femme
d'autre condition que parasitaire:
seul le
mariage, en la nommant juridiquement,
la
fait exister. On retrouve ici la structure
même du gynécée, défini comme une liberté
close sous le regard extérieur de l'homme.
(Barthes: 1970 p. 127)
The Changing Culture of the Working
Class
For me, cultural studies really begins
with
the debate about the nature of social
and
cultural change in postwar Britain.
An attempt
to address the manifest break-up of
traditional
culture, especially traditional class
cultures,
it set about registering the impact
of the
new forms of affluence and consumer
society
on the very hierarchical and pyramidal
structure
of British society. Trying to come
to terms
with the fluidity and the undermining
impact
of the mass media and of an emerging
mass
society on this old European class
society,
it registered the long-delayed entry
of the
United Kingdom into the modern world.
(Hall:
1990 p. 12) The thirty years between
libération
and the first crise pétrolière popularly
known as les trente glorieuses were
years
of unbroken prosperity and consistent
economic
growth. The changing cultural conditions
of a working-class made more prosperous
-
and more petit-bourgeois according
to Barthes
- due to the higher standards of living
of
the postwar period. This, remember,
is the
era of the so-called `affluent worker'
with
more disposable income than ever before.
What did this `affluent worker' buy
and what
were his/her cultural habits? One of
the
developments Barthes is writing about
in
Mythologies, is the transition from
a genuine
popular culture deep-rooted in ordinary
working-class
people's ways of life to mass culture
which
Barthes sees as a petit-bourgeois phenomenon
imposed upon a newly affluent working
class.
Indeed, one could go further and claim
that
this is the claim of the book: the
death
of an authentic popular culture at
the hands
of petit-bourgeois mass culture.
Technocratic Icons The status of technocratic
icons within contemporary society (the
Citroën
DS, the Eiffel Tower etc.) is another
theme
in Barthes's Mythologies. In the postwar
world things become charged with a
new value
and significance. As consumer durables
become
more affordable and more and more people
are able to acquire such possessions
as cars
and washing machines. The power and
presence
of advertizing also becomes more noticible.
Important essays include `Saponides
et les
détergents' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 38-40),
`La
nouvelle Citroën' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
150-2)
and `Publicité et profondeur' (Barthes:
1970
p. 82). The principal aim of these
essays
is to reveal the petite-bourgeoisie
as self-
congratulatory, enamoured of its material
benefits and its so-called technological
advances.
In postwar France the car became the
very
symbol of modernity. This is reflected
in
a number of films of the period such
as Lola
(1960), La Belle Américaine (1961)
and, more
catastrophically, Jean-Luc Godard's
Weekend
(1967). The automobile industry was
central
to France's increasing industrialization
with Renault's vast modern factory
at Billancourt
as its most visible reminder. This
factory,
incidentally, provided the setting
for Claire
Etcherelli's Élise ou la vraie vie
(1967).
In `La nouvelle Citroën' (Barthes:
1970 p.
150-2) Barthes understands this perfectly
and analyses the ways in which the
car has
become the very icon of France's modernization.
He compares the car to a mediaeval
cathedral:
both are works produced by anonymous
artists
which enchant the masses.
The are other articles on the importance
of advertizing, the `hidden persuaders'
(Vance
Packard) which was increasing used
in postwar
France to fuel the consumer boom. Jean-Luc
Godard in Une femme mariée (1964),
Deux ou
trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966)
and
Masculin-féminin (1966) explores the
role
of mass-produced images in his films
of the
1960s but Barthes is already there
before
him. Advertizing creates ultimately
alienating
images of a bourgeois savoir-vivre
to which
everyone is encouraged to aspire. More
than
this, however, advertizing is responsible
for promoting the `myth' of free choice.
In `Saponides et détergents' (Barthes:
1970
pp. 38-40) he discusses the different
advertising
approaches to Omo and Persil. Their
advertising
promotes two different products with
two
different properties. In reality, these
two
products are almost the same and are
both
manufactured by the Anglo-Dutch multinational
Unilver.
Institutional Inertia The atrophy and
complacency,
mendacity and inertia of French institiutions
(the educational system, the judiciary
etc.)
was something that preoccupied the
French
as much as the English in the postwar
period
and especially Barthes. Miscarriages
of justice,
an educational system that was dogmatic
and
out-of- touch with its youth, a complacent
and arrogant political class.
In `Dominici ou le triomphe de la littérature'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 50-53) Barthes argues
that the language used to condemn Gaston
Dominici implies a whole psychology
of petit-bourgeois
assumptions and linguistic terrorism.
He
was a simple peasant accused of killing
a
family of English holiday makers and
faced
with a legal language he did not understand.
In `Le Procès Dupriez' (Barthes: 1970
pp.
102-105) Gérard Dupriez, a man who
killed
his father and mother without motive
is condemned
to death because the law works on a
fixed
notion of what constitutes the psychology
of human motivation.
The Intellectual and Mass Culture Many
have
claimed, and with good reason, that
Mythologies
is one of the principal texts of contemporary
cultural studies. John Storey has described
it as `one of the founding texts of
cultural
studies' (Storey: 1992 p. 77) and Antony
Easthope as one of the two books (the
other
being Raymond Williams's Culture and
Society)
that `initiate modern cultural studies'
(Easthope:
1991 p. 140). Barthes is fundamental
to contemporary
cultural studies because he was amongst
the
first to take seriously `mass culture'
and
to apply to it methods of analysis
formerly
the preserve of `high culture'. What
makes
Barthes even more interesting was that
he
did this at a time of rapid social
and economic
change when cultural practices were
undergoing
major shifts.
Certainly, Barthes's Mythologies is
a text
that breaks new ground insofar as it
takes
as the object of its intellectual inquiry
the world of mass culture: cinema,
sport,
advertizing, the popular press, women's
magazines
and so on. Barthes was one of the earliest
commentators on mass culture, on the
modern
consumer culture of the postwar era.
Barthes
expands the definition of intellectual
activity
in France. He examines a strikingly
broad
range of subjects and cultural artefacts:
wrestling, the circus, shopping, toys,
cars,
washing powders, food, women's magazines,
beauty competitions, photography, popular
fiction.
Roland Barthes's Mythologies is a book
which
plays around in the consumer toyshop.
It
is a text which plunges into the `image
trove'
(see Rylance: 1994 pp. 63-64) of culture
- understood in the most inclusive
way possible
- to find new objects of intellectual
speculation.
Mythologies takes great relish in its
exploration
of cultural artefacts and phenomena.
The
book enacts a paradox in its imaginative
and playful readings of culture in
a heavily
mythologized world which should have
abolished
such imaginative play.
On one level, what Barthes seems to
be doing
in Mythologies destabilizing the boundary
between `high culture' and `popular
culture'.
Barthes accords popular culture a complexity,
a density and richness of texture thought
to be the sole preserve of high culture.
One key example of this is wrestling
discussed
in the article `Le monde où l'on catche'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 13-24). Wrestling
is often
thought of as the least intellectual
pastime
in our culture and is dismissed as
vulgar
fodder to the uneducated masses. What
Barthes
does, in a striking and provocative
gesture,
is claim that wrestling and its audience
are in fact every bit as sophisticated
as
high drama or opera. Wrestling is a
modern
variant of the classical theatre or
of an
ancient religious rite in which the
spectacle
of suffering and humiliation is played
out.
Like these high cultural forms, wrestling
is a formal spectacle informed by fixed
codes
and conventions and played out in rigorously
formalized gestures and movements.
It is
every bit as codified, conventionalized
and
choreographed as classical tragedy
- the
dramatic genre to which Barthes compares
wrestling throughout the article. Another
important article which adopts a similar
approach is `Au Music-Hall' (Barthes:
1970
pp. 176-179) about, as the title suggests
music hall. In this article Barthes
invokes
the nineteenth-century poet Charles
Baudelaire
to describe the formalized beauties
of the
spectacle.
Although Barthes undertakes a sympathetic
appraisal of two cultural practices
that
one would certainly not describe as
belonging
to the the world of `high culture',
these
two articles are exceptions. Moreover,
both
wrestling and music hall are two manifestations
of earlier forms of popular culture
rather
than modern mass culture. Barthes can
grant
them the same value as high cultural
forms
because they belong to and spring from
a
recognisable tradition. Barthes's analysis
of mass culture which forms the basis
of
most of the book, on the other hand,
is characterized
by a certain denunciatory rhetoric.
Barthes
sees modern mass culture as controlled
by
the ethos of the petite-bourgeosie.
The working
class have lost their own culture populaire
and have bought into a culture - la
culture
petit-bourgeoise - which is not their
own.
The essays collected in Mythologies
express
both pessimism and nostalgia: pessimism
at
the state of culture in France which,
contrary
to what most people think, is threatened
by mass culture which seeks to homogenize
and efface difference; nostalgia for
a pre-lapsarian
state (literally, before the fall)
when the
working class had their own vibrant
culture,
an authentic culture populaire which
proudly
asserted its difference from petit-bourgeois
norms. Barthes sees culture as somehow
fallen
under the influence of the petty-bourgeoisie.
Take these statements made by Barthes
in
later interviews and writings:
La populaire? Ici, disparition de toute
activité magique ou poétique: plus
de carnaval,
on ne joue plus avec les mots: fin
des métaphores,
règne des stéréotypes imposés par la
culture
petite-bourgeoise. (Barthes: 1973 p.
62)
... le prolétariat (les producteurs)
n'a
aucune culture propre: dans les pays
dits
dévelopés, son langage est celui de
la petite-bourgeoisie,
parce que c'est le langage qui lui
est offert
par les communications de masse (grande
presse,
radio, télévision): la culture de masse
est
petite-bourgeoise (Barthes: 1984 p.
110)
L'un des aspects de la crise de la
culture,
en France, c'est précisément que les
Français,
dans leur masse, me semble-t-il, ne
s'intéressent
pas à leur langue. Le goût de la langue
française
a été entièrement hypothèqué par la
scolarité
bourgeoise; s'intéresser à la langue
française,
à sa musicalité (...) est devenu par
la force
des choses une attitude esthétisante,
mandarinale.
Et pourtant, il y a eu des moments
où un
certain contact était maintenu entre
le `peuple'
et la langue, à travers la poésie populaire,
la chanson populaire ou la pression
même
de la masse pour transformer la langue
en
dehors des écoles-musées. On dirait
que le
contact a disparu; on ne le perçoit
pas aujourd'hui
dans la culture `populaire', qui n'est
guère
qu'une culture fabriquée (par la radio,
la
télévision etc.). (Barthes: 1981 p.
177)
Contrary to the accepted opinion of
France
as the powerhouse of European culture,
Barthes
sees France as a deeply philistine
country
with little understanding or appreciation
of the complexities of intellectual
and cultural
life. Mythologies is a very entrenched
and
self-defensive collection of texts,
and may
be read as an apology or defence of
intellectuals
against the incursion of the barbarity
of
mass culture. Andrew Leak's description
of
the attitude adopted by Barthes in
Mythologies
as a `posture of isolation and singularity'
(Leak: 1994 p. 9) is a good one. Barthes
expresses a self-consciously intellectual
contempt for mass-culture. According
to Barthes
the intellectual has to retain distance
from
the mass, must become what Claude Duneton
calls a `rieur' and maintain a sarcastic
or ironic distance from mass culture.
This
conviction is apparent at the very
beginning
of Mythologies: ... je réclame de vivre
pleinement
la contradiction de mon temps, qui
peut faire
d'un sarcasme la condition de la vérité.
(Barthes: 1970 p. 10) Although he may
have
a valid point in claiming that much
mass
culture is a degraded, inferior replacement
to popular culture, he doesn't acknowledge
that the consumers of mass culture
may well
be able to resist its messages. In
short,
Barthes produces a patronizing portrait
of
the consumer as a passive recipient,
a void,
an empty vessel waiting to be filled,
to
be told what to think and how to act.
Indeed,
one of the criticisms that can - and
have
- been made of the work of `early'
Barthes
(i. e. of the 1950s and early 1960s)
is that
he is too text-oriented and does not
concern
himself with how texts are received
and consumed.
Barthes's account of a working class
uncritically
consuming an alien - and alienating
- culture
seems to belong to a familar tradition
of
intellectual contempt for both that
culture
and its audience. To conclude this
section
then, I would claim that although Barthes
goes some way in in abolishing what
the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would later
call
`la frontière sacrée' (Bourdieu: 1979
p.
7) between `high culture' and `popular
culture',
granting the latter a complexity once
considered
the sole preserve of the former, Mythologies
nonetheless is informed by a certain
hierarchy
of cultural value. Mass culture is
clearly
seen as inferior to both the `high
culture'
it mimics and the `popular culture'
it replaces.
This disdain for, and condemnation
of, mass
culture runs throughout the book.
Mass Culture and The Intellectual L'opinion
courante n'aime pas le langage des
intellectuels.
Aussi a-t-il été souvent fiché sous
l'accusation
de jargon intellectualiste. Il se sentait
alors l'objet d'une sorte de racisme:
on
excluait son langage, c'est-à-dire
son corps:
«tu ne parles pas comme moi, donc je
t'exclus.»
(Barthes: 1975 p. 107) In Mythologies
mass
culture is seen to have an altogether
harmful
effect on French political and cultural
life,
homogenizing difference and encouraging
uniformity
to petit-bourgeois social norms. But
this
mass culture is also seen to be hostile
to
any questionning or intellectual inquiry.
This explains in part the often defensive
and entrenched position Barthes adopts
in
his discussion of representations of
the
intellectual within mass culture. In
a piece
written for Le Monde in 1974 on the
status
of the intellectual in France, Barthes
made
the claim that: L'intellectuel est
traité
comme un sourcier pourrait l'être par
une
peuplade de marchands, d'hommes d'affaires
et de légistes: il est celui qui dérange
des intérêts idéologiques. L'anti-intellectualisme
est un mythe historique, lié sans doute
à
l'ascension petite-bourgeoise. Poujade
a
donné naguère à ce mythe sa forme toute
crue
(`le poisson pourrit par la tête').
(Barthes:
1981 p. 186) Poujade's claim that a
dead
fish starts to rot from the head down
is
indicative of petit-bourgeois distrust
of
intellectuals, a distrust that Barthes
appears
to come across again and again in his
readings
of mass culture. In a number of the
texts
like `L'écrivain en vacances' (Barthes:
1970
pp. 30-33) discuss this. `L'écrivain
en vacances'
about the portrayal by a right-wing
newspaper
(Le Figaro) of well-known writers on
holiday.`La
Critique Ni-Ni' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
144-146)
is an interesting essay to read in
the light
of Barthes's preoccupation with the
marginalization
of the intellectual in French society
by
the popular press. `Critique muette
et aveugle'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 36-7) argues that
one
common form of anti-intellectualism
is to
feign incomprehension. The challenge
of difficult
ideas can be disarmed and their intellectual
threat defused. By accusing a writer
of being
obscure and lacking `le bon sens',
one can
escape serious argument and, more importantly,
avoid having to make explicit one's
own ideological
position. They seek to avoid serious
intellectual
debate by appealing to a universal
common
sense. Barthes, howevers, holds firm
to the
notion of the intellectual's responsibility
to to challenge such dominant - and
complacent
- modes of thought, as he makes clear
in
a later text:
Admettons que la tâche historique de
l'intellectuel
(ou de l'écrivain), ce soit aujourd'hui
d'entretenir
et d'accentuer la décomposition de
la conscience
bourgeoise. Il faut alors garder à
l'image
toute sa précision; cela veut dire
que l'on
feint volontairement de rester à l'intérieur
de cette conscience et qu'on va la
délabrer,
l'affaisser, l'effondrer, sur place,
comme
on ferait d'un morceau de sucre en
l'imbibant
d'eau. (Barthes: 1975 p. 67)
The Politics of Mythologies
The decidedly idiosyncratic Marxisms
of
Sartre and Brecht are as `useful' to
him
as is Marx himself. Barthes's attitude
towards
constituted theoretical thought in
Mythologies
- and elsewhere - could be described
as cavalier,
in the best sense of the word: he picks
up
concepts, uses them, and drops them
when
they have outstayed their welcome.
(Leak:
1994 p. 38) The question of Barthes's
politics
has long been a problem to Barthes's
critics.
He is notoriously difficult to pin
down -
he prides himself on being irrepérable
-
on the matter of political allegiances
past
and present. He began and, arguably,
ended
his intellectual career as a `man of
the
left' but he was never a member of
the Parti
communiste français (PCF) unlike so
many
other writers and intellectuals in
the postwar
period. But Barthes's Mythologies as
a collection
of polemical texts taking issue with
the
taken-for-granted truths of our culture,
engage with all important political
questions.
As a mythologist who finds everywhere,
even
in the most unlikely places, the hidden
myths
which help perpetuate the status quo,
Barthes
in Mythologies cannot but take sides.
In Barthes's view, myth reinforces
the ideology
of capitalist society. The essence
of myth
is that it disguises what are in fact
bourgeois
representations as facts of a universal
nature.
Myth like ideology is ever-present
it is
impossible to escape or elude it on
a daily
level.
Mythologies examines the ways the petty
bourgeoisie in twentieth-century France
naturalizes
and universalizes its own values via
specific
mecanisms - the press, advertizing,
the legal
system and the like. Barthes examines
the
way in which apparently apolitical
activities
- wrestling, the Tour de France, strip-tease,
drinking wine and eating steak and
chips
- are expressive of certain ideological
positions.
French culture appears to be natural
but
is, in fact, deeply historical and
political.
The petite bourgeoisie projects a certain
state of affairs - a state of affairs
in
their own interest - as being natural
with
the aim of naturalizing it, legitimating
it by making it appear immutable, unchangeable.
Brian Rigby claims that `There is a
distinct
Marxist strain in Mythologies, and
the essays
can be seen as an attempt to show how
the
whole of mass culture is a capitalist
mystification
of social and cultural reality' (Rigby:
1991
p. 177). The essay `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
comes close to being a theory of ideology
as a system of representations by which
the
ruling class reproduces its dominance
at
the level of daily experience.
Barthes and Semiology
On peut donc concevoir une science
qui étudie
la vie des signes au sein de la vie
sociale;
elle formerait une partie de la psychologie
sociale, et par conséquent de la psychologie
générale; nous la nommerons sémiologie
(du
Grec sémeîon, `signe'). Elle nous apprendrait
en quoi consistent les signes, quelles
lois
les régissent. Puisqu'elle n'existe
pas encore,
on ne peut dire ce qu'elle sera; mais
elle
a droit à l'existence, sa place est
déterminée
d'avance. La linguistique n'est qu'une
partie
de cette science générale, les lois
que découvrira
la sémiologie seront applicables à
la linguistique,
et celle-ci se trouvera ainsi rattachée
à
un domaine bien défini dans l'ensemble
des
faits humains. (Saussure: 1949 p. 33)
...
à l'obsession politique et morale succède
un petit délire scientifique (Barthes:
1975
p. 148)
Passion constante (et illusoire) d'apposer
sur tout fait, même le plus menu, non
pas
la question de l'enfant: pourquoi?
mais la
question de l'ancien Grec, la question
du
sens, comme si toutes choses frissonnaient
de sens: qu'est-ce que ça veut dire?
Il faut
à tout prix transformer le fait en
idée,
en description, en interprétation,
bref lui
trouver un autre nom que le sien. (Barthes:
1975 p. 154)
Barthes is particularly interested,
not
so much in what things mean, but in
how things
mean. One of the reasons Barthes is
a famous
and well-known intellectual figure
is his
skill in finding, manipulating and
exploiting
theories and concepts of how things
come
to mean well before anyone else. As
an intellectual,
Barthes is associated with a number
of intellectual
trends (e. g. structuralism and post-structuralism)
in postwar intellectual life. However,
at
the time of Mythologies, Barthes main
interest
was in semiology, the `science of signs'.
Semiology derives from the work of
the Swiss
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure's
linguistic theory as elaborated in
Cours
de linguistique générale, a collection
of
lectures written between 1906 and 1911
and
posthumously published in book form
in 1915,
was philosophically quite radical because
it held that language was conceptual
and
not, as a whole tradition of western
thought
had maintained, referential. In particular,
Saussure rejected the view that language
was essentially a nomenclature for
a set
of antecedent notions and objects.
Language
does not `label' or `baptise' already
discriminated
pre-linguistic categories but actually
articulates
them. The view of language as nomeclature
cannot fully explain the difficulties
of
foreign language acquisition nor the
ways
in which the meanings of words change
in
time. Saussure reversed the perspective
that
viewed language as the medium by which
reality
is represented, and stressed instead
the
constitutive role language played in
constructing
reality for us. Experience and knowledge,
all cognition is mediated by language.
Language
organizes brute objects, the flux of
sound,
noise and perception, getting to work
on
the world and conferring it with meaning
and value. Language is always at work
in
our apprehension of the world. There
is no
question of passing through language
to a
realm of language-independant, fully
discriminated
things.
Central to Saussure's work is the concept
of the sign and the relationship between
what he terms signifier and signified.
Indeed,
a sign is, in Saussure's terms, the
union
of a signifier and a signified which
form
an indissociable unity like two sides
of
the same piece of paper. Saussure defined
the linguistic sign as composed of
a signifier
or signifiant and a signified or signifié.
The term sign then, is used to designate
the associative total of signifier
and signified.
The signifier is the sound or written
image
and the signified is the concept it
articulates:
... le signe linguistique unit non
une chose
et un nom, mais un concept et une image
acoustique
(Saussure: 1949 p. 98) For example,
/cat/
is the signifier of the signified «cat».
Saussure claimed that the connection
between
signifier and signified was entirely
arbitrary
- `Le lien unissant le signifiant au
signifié
est arbitraire' (Saussure: 1949 p.
100),
that there was no intrinsic link between
sound-image and concept. However, the
lingiustic
sign was, as well as arbirtrary, was
a relational
or differential entity. The signifier
produces
meaning by virtue of its position,
(similarity
or difference) within a network of
other
signifiers. According to Saussure words
do
not express or represent but signify
in relation
to a matrix of other linguistic signs.
To
return to my earlier example, the signifier
`cat' signifies the concept of a domestic
feline quadruped only by virtue of
its position
(similiarity or difference) within
the relational
system of other signifiers. In defining
the
linguistic sign in this way Saussure
broke
with a philosophical tradition which
conceived
of language as having a straightforward
relationship
with the extralinguistic world. The
key text
which exemplifies Barthes's early interest
in and exploitation of Saussure and
Semiology
is `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'. `Le Mythe
aujourd'hui'
is Barthes's retrospectively written
method
or blueprint for reading myths. In
`Le Mythe
aujourd'hui' Barthes manipulates and
reworks
Saussure's theory of the sign and of
signification.
He is not, however, interested in the
linguistic
sign per se so much as in the application
of linguistics to the non-verbal signs
that
exist around us in our everyday life.
What
excites him is the possibility of applying
a methodology derived from Saussurean
linguistics
to the domain of culture defined in
its broadest
and most inclusive sense.
Barthes's relationship with his intellectual
influences - Marx, Brecht, Freud, Lacan
etc.
- is notoriously idiosyncratic. He
rarely
adopts ideas wholesale, but tends to
alter
them to his own purposes, extending
their
reach and implications. This is certainly
true of his appropriation of Saussure's
theories.
But how does Barthes make use of Saussure's
theory of the sign and of signification?
Well, let's take Barthes's own example
from
`Le Mythe aujourd'hui':
... je suis chez le coiffeur, on me
tend
un numéro de Paris-Match. Sur la couverture,
un jeune nègre vêtu d'un uniforme français
fait le salut militaire, les yeux levés,
fixés sans doute sur un pli du drapeau
tricolore.
Cela, c'est le sens de l'image. Mais
naïfs
ou pas, je vois bien ce qu'elle me
signifie:
que la France est un grand Empire,
que tous
ses fils, sans distinction de couleur,
servent
fidèlement sous son drapeau, et qu'il
n'est
de meilleure réponse aux détracteurs
d'un
colonialisme prétendu, que le zèle
de ce
noir à servir ses prétendus oppresseurs.
(Barthes: 1970 p. 201) Barthes then,
is at
the barber's and is handed a copy of
Paris-Match.
On the front cover he sees a photograph
of
a black soldier saluting the French
flag
and he instantly recognises the myth
the
photograph is seeking to peddle. However,
Barthes provides a methodological justification
for this essentially intuitive `reading'
of the photograph, a methodology derived
from Saussure's theory of the sign.
Barthes
sees the figuration of the photograph,
that
is to say, the arrangement of coloured
dots
on a white background as constituting
the
signifier and the concept of the black
soldier
saluting the tricolour as constituting
the
signified. Together, they form the
sign.
However, Barthes takes this reading
one step
further and argues that there is a
second
level of signification grafted on to
the
first sign. This first sign becomes
a second-level
signifier for a new sign whose signified
is French imperiality, i. e. the idea
that
France's empire treats all its subjects
equally.
The central modification to Saussure's
theory
of the sign in `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
is
the articulation of the idea of primary
or
first-order signification and secondary
or
second-order signification. This is
central
to Barthes's intellectual preoccupation
in
Mythologies because it is at the level
of
secondary or second-order signification
that
myth is to be found. In `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
Barthes attempts to define myth by
reference
to the theory of second-degree sign
systems.
What myth does is appropriate a first-order
sign and use it as a platform for its
own
signifier which, in turn, will have
its own
signified, thus forming a new sign.
Recurrent
images used to describe this process
pertain
to theft, colonization, violent appropriation
and to parasitism:
... le mythe est ... un langage qui
ne veut
pas mourir: il arrache aux sens dont
il s'alimente
une survie insidieuse, dégradée, il
provoque
en eux un sursis artificiel dans lequel
il
s'installe à l'aise, il en fait des
cadavres
parlants. (Barthes: 1970 p. 219) This
is
a central and particularly powerful
image
of myth as an alien creature inhabiting
human
form and profiting from its appearance
of
innocence and naturalness to do its
evil
business. Like a parasite needs its
host
or the B-movie style alien invader
needs
its zombie-like Earthling, myth needs
is
first-order sign for survival. It needs
the
first-order sign as its alibi: I wasn't
being
ideological, myth might innocently
claim,
I was somewhere else doing something
innocent.
His model of second-degree or parasitical
sign systems allows for the process
of demystification
by a process of foregrounding the construction
of the sign, of the would-be natural
texts
of social culture. Myth is to be found
at
the level of the second-level sign,
or at
the level of connotation. Barthes makes
a
distinction between denotation and
connotation.
Denotation can be described, for the
sake
of convenience, as the literal meaning.
Connotation,
on the other hand, is the second-order
parasitical
meaning. The first-order sign is the
realm
of denotation; the second-order sign
the
realm of connotation and, therefore,
of myth.
To put it crudely then, the important
`lesson'
of `Le Mythe aujourd'hui' is that objects
and events always signify more than
themselves,
they are always caught up in systems
of representation
which add meaning to them.
There are a number of very useful web
sites
which you might want to click on: Daniel
Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners
is a good
place to start and there is also a
Media
and Communications Studies Site with
links
to other web sites of relevant interest.
Further Reading
Works by Barthes Cited
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris:
Seuil,
1970)
Roland Barthes, `Réponses' in Tel Quel,
47 (1971) 89-107
Roland Barthes, Le Plaisir du texte
(Paris:
Seuil, 1973)
Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes par
Roland
Barthes (Paris: Seuil, 1975)
Roland Barthes, Le Grain de la voix:
Entretiens
1962-1980 (Paris: Seuil, 1981)
Roland Barthes, Le Bruissement de la
langue
(Paris: Seuil, 1984)
Works on Barthes
E. T. Bannet, Structuralism and the
Logic
of Dissent: Barthes, Derrida, Foucault,
Lacan
(London: Macmillan, 1989)
A. Brown, Roland Barthes: The Figures
of
Writing (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)
J-L. Calvet, Roland Barthes: un regard
politique
sur le signe (Paris: Payot, 1973)
J. Culler, Roland Barthes (London:
Fontana,
1983)
A. de la Croix, Barthes: pour une éthique
des signes (Brussels: Prisme, 1987)
J. B. Fages, Comprendre Roland Barthes
(Paris:
Privat, 1979)
A. Lavers, Roland Barthes: Structuralism
and After (London: MacMillan, 1982)
A. Leak, Roland Barthes: Mythologies
(London:
Grant & Cutler, 1994)
M. Moriarty, Roland Barthes (Oxford:
Polity,
1991)
S. Nordhal Lund, L'Aventure du signifiant:
une lecture de Barthes (Paris: PUF,
1981)
P. Roger, Roland Barthes, roman (Paris:
Grasset, 1986)
R. Rylance, Roland Barthes (Brighton:
Harvester,
1994)
J. Sturrock (ed.), Structuralism and
Since:
From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida (Oxford:
Oxford
University Press, 1979)
P. Thody, Roland Barthes: A Conservative
Estimate (London: MacMillan, 1984)
2nd ed.
S. Ungar, Roland Barthes: The Professor
of Desire (Lincoln, Nebraska: 1983)
G. Wasserman, Roland Barthes (Boston:
Twayne
Publishers, 1981)
M. Wiseman, The Ecstacies of Roland
Barthes
(London: Routledge, 1989)
Works of Related Interest
Pierre Bourdieu, La Distinction: critique
sociale du jugement (Paris: Minuit,
1979)
T. Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction
(London:
Verso, 1991)
A. Easthope, Literary into Cultural
Studies
(London: Routledge, 1991)
J. Forbes & M. Kelly (eds), French
Cultural
Studies: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995)
Stuart Hall, `The Emergence of Cultural
Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities'
in October, 53 (1990) p. 11-23
T. Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics
(London:
Methuen, 1977)
C. Jenks, Culture (London: Routledge,
1993)
Brian Rigby, Popular Culture in France:
A Study of Cultural Discourse (London:
Routledge,
1991)
K. Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization
and the Reordering of French Culture
(London
& Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1995)
F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique
générale
(Paris: Payot, 1949)
John Storey, An Introductory Guide
to Cultural
Theory and Popular Culture (London:
Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1993)
Concept & Text: Tony McNeill The
University
of Sunderland, GB Last Update 15-Apr-96 |
Evans Experientialism 
