Posted on 11/12/2015 7:30:05 AM PST by Borges
Born 100 years ago today, Roland Barthes is still uncannily with us. The French critic, a pioneer of the study of symbols and signs, could read anything as a text, from novels, to wrestling, to the striptease. Without necessarily knowing his name, we use Barthesâs methods every day to understand the world around us.
In Mythologies (1957), he skewered the consumer culture that churns out not only products but myths, shoving them at us as if they were real: the harsh detergent that instead evokes gentleness, luxury, and even âa certain spiritualityâ by conjuring images of âthe deep and the foamyâ; or the elaborate roast dinner advertised mostly to readers who canât afford to cook it, photographed from a high angle to appear âat once near and inaccessibleâ, covered with a âgenteelâ glaze to disguise âthe brutality of meatâ, whose âconsumption can perfectly well be accomplished simply by lookingâ.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
No need to read any further.
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