Barthes, day
two:
Reading
Culture
Brief review
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Last time we discussed Roland Barthes' influential
theory that culture is like a language system that
we are able to read as text.
He says that we live in a world filled with signs
that we constantly read and interpret. The
meanings we are able to produce from these signs
are shaped by culture.
Barthes also says that we should recognize that
many of the meanings produced by these signs
are not politically neutral. They produce myths
that promote the social status quo and keep us
from seeing how the world really works.
Key terms
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Barthes' term myth is similar to the related term
ideology in that both refer to ways to seeing the world
that protect the existing power structure by making it
seem natural and inevitable rather than historical.
Note: if something is historical, that suggests it was
produced by human activities in the past and may be
changed in the future.
For example, any attempt to explain away a social
inequality (class, race or gender inequality) as
something natural rather than historical (e.g., those
people are just naturally inferior) is ideological.
When an ideology is concealed within cultural signs,
it becomes what Barthes calls myth—a fantasy that
protects and promotes current ways of doing
business.
Case Study: Car Mythologies
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What “myths” are at work in the following
images?
What social contradictions are being glossed
over and presented as natural?
For example, what is the difference between the
real and imagined relationship of automobiles to
nature?
Jeep
“Grand Cherokee”
Pontiac “Firebird” (2001)
What the myth
leaves out . . .
Barthes reading of a car ad
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What does Barthes think of the presentation of
the new Citroën (see-tro-en)? Why does he
compare it to a Gothic cathedral? How is a car
like a house of worship?
Barthes compares the car to a cathedral because it is
built by largely invisible craftsmen and aspires to be the
supreme creation of its age. It is also like a cathedral in
that many admire its form, but few actually come to use
it.
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Barthes then notes that the smoothness of the new
Citroën almost conceals its industrial production—making
it a work of nature or God rather than a factory product of
man. It is even called the “Goddess”
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Unlike the deliberately rugged trucks and SUVs we
looked at earlier, this car seems like it is trying to
domesticate the automobile by making it seem smooth,
calm and peaceful.
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Barthes thinks it almost resembles a kitchen appliance.
Kitchen machinery is often made to look unthreatening.
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Another mythology: Einstein's Brain
1. How is Einstein’s brain “mythical” in Barthes' sense of
the word? In other words, what secondary and
ideological (i.e., status quo serving) connotations has
Einstein acquired in popular culture? Does it naturalize
anything that is actually social and historical? See pg. 68
Einstein mythologized as either superhuman
or less than human—a thinking machine
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“the man who is too powerful is removed from
psychology and introduced to the world of
robots; as is well known, the supermen of
science-fiction always have something reified
[“thingified”] about them” (68)
Einstein's thinking is reified in the image of his
“brain.” It becomes something purely
anatomical and machinelike. It becomes
natural rather than social/historical.
Related example of reification: IQ
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IQ (intelligence quotient) is a number score
reached by taking one of several possible
standardized tests that attempt to measure human
intelligence.
IQ is really just a test score, which can change
depending on the test, your preparation for it, your
cultural familiarity with the questions etc.
However, we often use IQ to casually refer to a
person's “intelligence.” We reify [thingify] IQ and
treat it as though it were a natural quality, rather
than simply a test score.
Process of development over time
falls out of the picture
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Photographs of Einstein show him standing next to a
blackboard covered with mathematical signs of
obvious complexity; but cartoons of Einstein. . .
show him chalk still in hand, and having just written
on an empty blackboard, as if without preparation. .
.” (69)
Einstein becomes an embodiment of genius inspiration or
machine-like superiority, and his training and his
historical situation fall out of the mythologized picture.
Case Study: Toys
Barthes' “Toys” (page 53)
Barthes holds that toys are important cultural artifacts
that “mean something.” But just what might they mean?
And why are they important?
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There are at least two major types of toys in the world:
(1) the toys that children find or invent themselves and
(2) the pre-made toys that adults choose to give to their
kids. In his short essay “Toys,” Barthes argues that
there is something troubling and ideological about the
toys given to children in post-war France.
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What does he observe about these toys?
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According to Barthes. . .
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Childish inventiveness is actually discouraged
by the toys. They are miniature imitations of the
adult world, adult activities and adult work—
cars, hair styling dolls, pretend cooking
equipment, toy soldiers etc. Or, they are blocks
or other “do-it-yourself” materials—better for
inventiveness, but still somewhat restrictive.
He also notes that most “do-it-yourself”
activities use prefabricated components with
predetermined uses.
These toys seem to prepare children for the
work routines of adult life.
Some toys have an ideological
(status quo serving) purpose
Increasingly complicated toys also make children
into owners and users rather than creators. Kids
now own their toys in much the same way that
adults own their cars—they may be able to
choose from prearranged selections, but they
have no hand in how they work, what they look
like, or what they are able to do. Look at the child
as “little householder” section on page 54.
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Wood vs. Plastic
Barthes suggests that plastic toys and
excessively mechanical toys seem to lack
something of the duration and the spirit of earlier
wooden toys. Wood wears out over time, but
plastic breaks easily and, once broken, is
discarded. Plastic toys are both standardized and
impermanent.
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“Wood does not wound or break down; it does not
shatter; it wears out, it can last a long time, live
with the child, alter little by little the relations
between object and hand. If it dies, it is in
dwindling, not in swelling out like those mechanical
toys which disappear behind the hernia of a
broken spring” (54-55).
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The World of Wrestling
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What value does Barthes find in [pro] wrestling?
Why does he think the question of whether or
not it is a sport misses the point?
How does the spectacle of wrestling produce
myths that support the status quo?
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Not a sport so
much as a
theatrical
spectacle of
good vs. evil,
betrayal,
revenge, and
eventual justice.
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Barthes demonstrates
that the meanings it
produces are not really
different from those of
High Art theater such
as opera or Greek
tragedy.
This drama is
celebrated, but
wrestling is often
belittled as dumb or
unsophisticated.
There is a class
politics at work here.
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Wrestling produces
myth in that enacts
fantasies of good vs.
evil, masculine vs.
feminine and the idea
of ultimate justice in a
world where such
justice is hardly
natural or even
common.
More recent Law &
Order example
For next week
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Read the essays about cars, driving and the
myths of automobility posted on the website.