[lbo-talk] Twitter: >40% pointless babble

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Aug 15 02:57:24 PDT 2009


On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Joseph Catron wrote:


>> To use a classical example cited by Roland Barthes - a picture of a
>> black soldier saluting the French flag on the front cover of a French
>> magazine - the picture itself signifies two different levels of meaning
>> - the literal (i.e. person with specific characteristics in a specific
>> situation0 and "mythological" as Barthes calls it (i.e. the French
>> empire and its connotations, either good or bad.)
>
> I may not know much, but I do recall that the picture was of a young
> schoolboy, and not of a "soldier" in any sense that most of us might
> recognize.

Barthes describes it exactly as Wojtek says. (See _Mythologies_, the English translation by Annette Lavers, p. 116 and ff.) Are you saying the issue of Paris-Match he's referring to (he doesn't cite an issue number, he said he was handed him at the barber's) didn't have on it what he said was on it?

Michael



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