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 ‘second-

order 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 so-
called 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 second-

order 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

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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-to-

goodness 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
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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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