An Analysis Of Myth Today In Roland Barthes's Mythology

The chapter titled Myth Today in Roland Barthes’ book, “Mythologies”, attempts to analyze the myth within popular culture and the semiological systems through which it operates. Barthes begins by defining myth as a mode of communication in which the way something is said is more important than what is being said. He tries to warn readers of the dangers surrounding myth in that it creates a system where it strips away the meaning of an image or message to turn it into a signifier for another system. There is a double function at play here but also as myth tries to call attention to meaning but impose on it at the same time. Due to this manipulation, myth can never give a full interpretation of an image. I will review this text by examining Barthes’ …show more content…
In Myth Today, Barthes argues that the signifier should not represent the signified and suggests that we accept the different interpretations and concepts that could relate to the signifier. Post Structuralism also acknowledges that there exists a kind of subjectivity when a meaning is being appropriated. The theories of Post Structuralism can be seen especially in the examination of the term, naturalization, which gains precedence throughout the text, as it becomes one of Barthes main critiques of myth. Naturalization occurs when the myth changes the meaning or the signifier and eternalizes it. This freezing in time occurs when myth acts on history and appropriates or distorts it. In the process, it strips away the uniqueness of meaning. Barthes proposes that myth should remain in a semiological system and that it should not be treated as a fact. People lose sight of reality because myth hides itself in the everyday and leads people to see the manipulated relationship between the signifier and …show more content…
The term de-politicization is used to simplify the signifier and signification before they become naturalized by the metalanguage. The bourgeois is also responsible for the appropriation of history to create a myth and making the fiction appear real and normal. In doing so, the meaning loses its individuality and becomes controlled by the sign. The bourgeois had their own intentions that determined how a meaning was interpreted. Barthes acknowledges the need and existence of signs but he speaks against the use of signs that appear natural but are not. Barthes claims that a sign should not represent meaning or message, and instead the signifier becomes the “presence” of the