Myth

With examples from advertisements on TV or in print, discuss Barthes’ idea of the term ‘myth’. In Barthes’ terms ‘myth’ refers not to the classical mythology of the ancient Greeks or Romans as such, but rather to a more contemporary promotion of ideology. It concerns an understanding of the world which is entirely constructed and yet is read as ‘natural’, as ‘what-goes-without-saying’ (Barthes, 1993:11). Building on Saussure’s science of semiology, Barthes introduces us to myth in his most famous work Mythologies ([1956] 1993) and develops the idea further in Elements of Semiology ([1973] Tudor, 1999:76) and Rhetoric of the Image ([1964] 1977). This essay will locate Barthes’ work within the Structuralist tradition and describe his use of the term ‘myth’ and its ideological function. Through analysis of a number of contemporary advertisements this essay will go on to discuss the strengths and limitations of the theoretical framework demonstrated and described in Barthes’ Mythologies and other works.

Published in 1956 and translated into English in 1972, Mythologies represented a new and exciting direction for cultural criticism (Masterman, 1986:4-5). The book collects together a series of essays, originally appearing in the French publication Les Lettres Nouvelle between 1954-56, each focusing on an aspect of everyday, 1950’s French life. With topics as diverse as ‘The world of wrestling’ and ‘Soap powders and detergents’, Barthes intuitively began to ‘track down, in the decorative display of what-goes-without-saying, that ideological abuse which … is hidden there’ (Barthes, 1993:11). The second half of the book, in an essay entitled ‘Myth today’, Barthes ‘appropriates and extends Saussure’s theories [of

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semiology], giving the analysis of myth a framework and structure which the earlier essays could only feel for’ (Brooker, 1998:42-3)

The Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, proposed a system of language whereby ‘signs’ are produced through the arbitrary relationship between a ‘signifier’ and a ‘signified’. In other words, while a picture of a tree is directly linked to an actual tree in that it resembles a tree, within language the word ‘tree’ – the signifier – has no inherent relationship to an actual tree – the signified – other than within the socially agreed structure of language (Hawkes, 1977:129). Language, then, is a system within which we have agreed that the word ‘tree’ stands for a ‘thing’ with a big, wooden trunk and leafy branches. Barthes extends this system so that the sign produced by the relation of the signifier (the word ‘tree’) to the signified (the actual tree), becomes merely the signifier of a ‘secondorder system’ - the idea of a tree as, for example, ‘solid, deep-rooted, stable, enduring’ - and so represents something entirely other than a tree. Here we have, as Barthes (1993:109) states ‘a type of social usage which is added to pure matter’ (Authors italics)

Barthes’ classic example of myth in action is the cover photograph of a magazine which shows a Negro in military uniform, proudly saluting the French flag. Underlying this first-order semiological system, which is simply a Negro soldier saluting the flag, is a deeper meaning, a myth: ‘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

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of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his socalled oppressors’ (Barthes, 1993:116).

Now we begin to get at the root of Barthes’ idea of myth. In this second-order system ‘the sign reflects major culturally variable concepts underpinning a particular world view’ (Chandler, 2002:145). This ‘particular world view’, according to Barthes, is that of the dominant bourgeoisie who maintain the status quo by presenting a ‘message’ which deliberately confuses nature and history (Barthes, 1993:11). Rylance (1994:47) illustrates this with Barthes’ Mythologies essay ‘Wine and Milk’ and states Myths are based on a concealment of some meanings and the interested promotion of others: wine is good; the facts of Algerian wine production remain a secret … Barthes objects not to the pleasures of wine … but to the convenient forgetting which sustains consumption-driven myths about the world

In this way, mythological signs ignore history and ‘pass themselves off as depth or truth, possessing the substance of reality itself’ (Rylance, 1994:48). Here we encounter what Hawkes (1977:133) describes as an extremely powerful, because covert, producer of meaning at a level where an impression of ‘god-given’ or ‘natural’ reality prevails, largely because we are not normally able to perceive the processes by which it has been manufactured

Whilst ‘the bourgeoisie is the villain of Mythologies’ (Sturrock, 1979:62), their dominance and control of language, and therefore of myth-production, is assumed by Barthes – perhaps we can take this to be the ‘mythology of the mythologist’ to which Barthes readily concedes (1993:12). In ‘Myth today’ (1993:137) Barthes states that Whatever the accidents, the compromises, the concessions and the political adventures, whatever the technical, economic or even social changes which history brings us, our society is still a bourgeois society … The same status – a certain regime of ownership, a certain order, a certain ideology – remains at a deeper level

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He goes on to describe how, at the economic level the bourgeoisie is happy to be identified – ‘capitalism is openly professed’ – yet politically and ideologically the bourgeoisie become invisible and hidden – it has ‘obliterated its name in passing from reality to representation’ (Barthes, 1993:138). It is this hidden ideology, this ‘depoliticised speech’ which Barthes seeks to uncover. As Masterman (1986:5) states The task of cultural criticism was, for Barthes, … to challenge the undialectical and common-sensed representations … through a criticism which restored the history, the politics and the struggle to those representations

Barthes lays out for us exactly how this can be done, both in the theoretical framework laid out in ‘Myth today’, and in his subsequent work describing the denotative and connotative function of images and advertisements. Tudor (1999:75-77) describes how, in Elements of Semiology [1973] Barthes extends his earlier account to describe the relationship between the first- and secondorder semiological systems, where the literal meaning of the first-order system – the denotation – acts as the foundation for the symbolic second-order system – the connotation. As Sturrock (1979:63) describes it The denotation is the literal meaning, the connotation the mythical meaning: for the sake of argument connotation can be classified as a symbolism, since connotations are, as it were, additional meanings present along with the literal meaning of the sign in question

Barthes essay Rhetoric of the Image (1977) takes an advertisement for Panzani pasta (left) which he analyzes by separating the ad into three messages. First we have the linguistic message – all the words that are used in the ad – and which can have two functions: to relay information and/or to anchor the pictorial message and so ‘guide the Ruth Phillips 20007592

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identification and the interpretation of the pictorial components of the image’ (Forceville, 1996:71). The image, then, presents both a ‘non-coded iconic message’ – the denotation, or the literal objects in the picture – and a ‘coded iconic message’ – the connotation, the underlying meaning achieved through myth (Cobley & Jansz, 2004:47-8).

So while the Panzani ad may seem innocent enough in its depiction of cooking ingredients in a string bag, the connotative analysis of the ad goes much further. The linguistic message denotes the name of the product but connotes ‘Italianicity’. The picture itself Barthes separates into four messages, or signs: the composition of the products spilling out of a shopping bag suggest a return from market, which connotes the ‘freshness’ of the products and the idea of ‘home cooking’; the yellow, red and green colours of the image connote, like the linguistic message, ‘Italianicity’. Then there is the connotation of ‘a total culinary service, on the one hand as though Panzani furnished everything necessary for a carefully balanced dish and on the other as though the concentrate in the tin were equivalent to the natural produce surrounding it’ (Barthes, 1977). Finally we have the resemblance of the image to a ‘still life’ painting, which presents a particular aesthetic connotation.

We can immediately apply, almost verbatim, Barthes Panzani analysis to a contemporary advertisement for Dolmio (left). We have again the linguistic message which denotes the name of the product and connotes ‘Italianicity’, and

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this is echoed again in the image with the use of red, yellow and green. In the Dolmio image we have two schoolchildren, albeit that they are puppets (poppets?), nonetheless they are presented as healthy looking, healthily argumentative (high-spirited), properly dressed in neat school uniform, and properly masculine and feminine, thus different. They are children and we can smile at their harmless and natural sibling rivalry (also supported by the linguistic message), indulge their differences and still feed them ‘proper food’ with the minimum of fuss.

The need to equate packaged food with natural, wholesome food is a theme which appears in many food advertisements, and can be seen in both of the McCain ads (below).

In the first ad, for McCain Home Fries, are linguistic messages with both a relaying function – ‘We carefully select only the finest potatoes to make Home Fries our best tasting oven chips’ – and an anchoring function – ‘It’s all good’. Equally, the name ‘Home Fries’ has a connotative function, relating these packaged oven chips with home cooking. The image of the potatoes, in their natural state and contained in a burlap sack, connotes a healthy, honest-togoodness quality of potatoes which, it is implied, is equally present in the cooked oven chips, with the coarse tablecloth of the second image echoing the burlap Ruth Phillips 20007592

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sack of the first, and the simple composition of the meal on a clean white plate connoting honest-to-goodness home cooking.

In the second ad, for McCain Potato Wedges, the connotation is arrived at via a different route, but with the same result. Here we have an image of good, clean earthy potatoes metamorphosing, with the addition of tomatoes, garlic and herbs, into Potato Wedges. Again, the connotation, supported by the linguistic anchoring – ‘Potatoes simply seasoned. It’s all good’ – is that this packaged, processed product is as natural and healthy as potatoes. Given the current obsession with healthy eating, food scares and the equation of fruit and vegetables with health and goodness, it is hardly surprising that a company which wishes to sell us packaged food will need to promote this with connotations of its original natural goodness.

If we move on to skincare though, it seems the opposite is true and it is perfectly acceptable to apply chemical lotions to our skin, so long as they are scientific. In the following ads, we see how ‘natural’ (ie: the age of our skin) is not good and must be mastered by science.

In the Garnier ad

(right) the linguistic message, anchors the image and tells us that ‘teenage skin’ is undesirable. The image, of a young lady’s reflection in a mirror drawing a kind of eraser across the reflection to wipe away her teenage skin, resembles a magic

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wand effect which will restore perfection and connotes science as the new magic.

In the Olay ad (left) the linguistic message implores women to ‘Fight what ages you most’, acting as both relay and anchor. The contradiction between this message and the Olay tag line – ‘Love the skin you’re in’ – goes almost unnoticed and, taken with the Garnier ad above, serves to connote the impossible situation where there is never a ‘right’ age and we must, as Garnier states ‘Take care’. The image in this second ad has a connotation of technology and modernity in the way the picture become pixelated at the edges and in the clean, clinical colours and lighting used, serving to remind us that only science can assist us in this fight against nature.

Whilst these are quite straight-forward advertisements to analyse in this way, Forceville (1996:72-3) argues that Barthes approach needs modifying today as it does not account for the ambiguous and enigmatic style often used deliberately in advertisements in order to capture and hold our more sophisticated ability to read pictures today. As an example of this, he turns to Cook’s analysis of a series of Smirnoff advertisements. Cook (1992:163) demonstrates that the ambiguity of the written text can only be interpreted with reference to the image,

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and Forceville (1996:73) argues that this is common in modern advertising and is contrary to Barthes assertion that the primary function of the linguistic message is to anchor - that is, to aid the interpretation - of the image. Tanaka (1994:2-4) also criticises Barthes on the same grounds. Citing the Silk Cut advertisments such as those shown below, he points out the lack of any linguistic reference to the product and states that ‘the appreciation of such advertisements involves more than decoding their linguistic and iconic messages’ (1994:4)

While Forceville, Cook and Tanaka may all have a point with regard to the modern sophistication of audiences, and the lengths to which advertisers are forced to go in light of this, it does not negate the use of Barthes’ techniques and indeed Barthes himself, in the preface to the 1970 edition of Mythologies, states that ‘the two attitudes which determined the origin of the book could no longer today be maintained unchanged’ (1993:9). Barthes’ legacy is a theoretical framework for the analysis of advertisements which, it has been shown, is just as valid today as it was in 1950’s France. While advertisements may, in some cases, have become more ambiguous, this only serves to hide their ideology a little deeper and so the demand for a close analysis should be greater than ever.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Barthes, R (1993) Mythologies [translation Lavers, A (1972)] London: Vintage Barthes, R (1977) ‘Rhetoric of the image’ [excerpt] in Barthes, R (1977) Image – Music – Text [online] Available at http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/barthes-ri.html Accessed 16/03/07 Brooker, W (1998) Cultural Studies London: Hodder Headline Chandler, D (2002) Semiotics: The Basics London: Routledge Cobley, P & Jansz, L (2004) Introducing Semiotics Royston: Icon Books Cook, G (1992) The Discourse of Advertising London: Routledge Forceville, C (1996) Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising London: Routledge Hawkes, T (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics London: Routledge Masterman, L (ed) (1986) Television Mythologies: Stars, Shows and Signs 2nd edition London: Comedia Rylance, R (1994) Roland Barthes Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf Sturrock, J (ed) (1979) Structuralism and Since: From Levi Strauss to Derrida Oxford: Oxford University Press Tanaka, K (1994) Advertising Language: A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan London: Routledge Tudor, A (1999) Decoding Culture: Theory and Method in Cultural Studies London: Sage

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