Ролан Барттың «Мифологиясы» (1957)

1957 book on semiotics by Roland Barthes

Mythologies is a 1957 book by Roland Barthes. It is a collection of essays first published from 1954 to 1956 in the French literary review Les Lettres nouvelles, examining the tendency of contemporary social value systems to create modern myths. Barthes also looks at the semiology of the process of myth creation, updating Ferdinand de Saussure's system of sign analysis by adding a second level where signs are elevated to the level of myth.

Mythologies is split into two: Mythologies and Myth Today, the first section consisting of a collection of essays on selected modern myths and the second further and general analysis of the concept. The first section of Mythologies describes a selection of modern cultural phenomena, chosen for their status as modern myths and for the added meaning that has been conferred upon them. Each short chapter analyses one such myth, ranging from Einstein's Brain to Soap Powders and Detergents. They were originally written as a series of bi monthly essays for the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles. In a typical example, Barthes describes the image that has been built up around red wine and how it has been adopted as a French national drink, how it is seen as a social equaliser and the drink of the proletariat, partly because it is seen as blood like (as in Holy Communion) and points out that very little attention is paid to red wine's harmful effects to health, but that it is instead viewed as life giving and refreshing — 'in cold weather, it is associated with all the myths of becoming warm, and at the height of summer, with all the images of shade, with all things cool and sparkling.' In another chapter, Barthes explores the myth of professional wrestling. He describes how, unlike in the sport of boxing, the aim of theatrical stunt fighting is not to discover who will win or 'a demonstration of excellence', it is a staged spectacle acting out society's basic concepts of good and evil, of 'Suffering, Defeat and Justice'. The actors pretending to be wrestlers, like characters in a pantomime, portray grossly exaggerated stereotypes of human weakness: the traitor, the conceited, the 'effeminate teddy boy'. The audience expects to watch them suffer and be punished for their own transgressions of wrestling's rules in a theatrical version of society's ideology of justice.

In the second half of the book Barthes addresses the question of "What is a myth, today?" with the analysis of ideas such as: myth as a type of speech, and myth as a type of politics. Following on from the first section, Barthes justifies and explains his choices and analysis. He calls upon the concepts of semiology developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, who described the connections between an object (the signified) and its linguistic representation (such as a word, the signifier) and how the two are connected. Working with this structure Barthes continues to show his idea of a myth as a further sign, with its roots in language, but to which something has been added. So with a word (or other linguistic unit) the meaning (apprehended content) and the sound come together to make a sign. To make a myth, the sign itself is used as a signifier, and a new meaning is added, which is the signified. But according to Barthes, this is not added arbitrarily. Although we are not necessarily aware of it, modern myths are created with a reason. As in the example of the red wine, mythologies are formed to perpetuate an idea of society that adheres to the current ideologies of the ruling class and its media. Barthes demonstrates this theory with the example of a front cover from Paris Match edition no. 326, of July 1955, showing a young black soldier in French uniform saluting. The signifier, a saluting soldier, cannot offer us further factual information of the young man's life. But it has been chosen by the magazine to symbolise more than the young man; the picture, in combination with the signifieds of Frenchness, militariness, and relative ethnic difference, gives us a message about France and its citizens. The picture does not explicitly demonstrate 'that France is a great empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag,' etc., but the combination of the signifier and signified perpetuates the myth of imperial devotion, success and thus, a property of 'significance' for the picture.

Barthes refers to the tendency of socially constructed notions, narratives, and assumptions to become "naturalised" in the process, that is, taken unquestioningly as given within a particular culture. Barthes finishes Mythologies by looking at how and why myths are built up by the bourgeoisie in its various manifestations. He returns to this theme in later works including The Fashion System. There are analogies between Mythologies (1957) and Marshal McLuhan's The Mechanical Bride (1951), in which also a series of exhibits of popular mass culture (like advertisements and newspaper or magazines articles) are critically analyzed.