Roland Barthes' Mythologies | Literary Theory | Part 1

Welcome to the first in a series of videos on  Roland Barthes' "Mythologies," which is a text  

from 1957. This particular text is a frequently  studied work in terms of literary theory, cultural  

studies, English -- different disciplines like  that. It's not a really difficult text in terms  

of literary theory, but it has its challenges, and  I thought it might be nice to do a series on it.  

Now the text has come out in different editions.  I'm looking particularly at the 1972 English  

translation. It doesn't have all the essays that  Barthes wrote, and later editions include some  

extra essays as well. But it has enough examples  to to get you started and to really get into the  

theory. So, the book consists of two sections. The  first section is really just examples ... and in  

this video I'm just going to talk about the very  first example, which is wrestling. We have this  

corny sort of image here, which is fitting  because wrestling is all about corniness,  

as we will find out. In subsequent videos I'll do  at least a few more examples, and we'll see how  

many we actually cover. If you want to see lots,  you can let me know in the comments, but the main  

thing is that as we go through the examples we  start to get a hint of the theory overall, so that  

when we get to the second part, which is really  kind of Barthes taking a step back and thinking  

about what all of this means, we will be well  prepared to understand where he's coming from and  

what he's doing overall. We can already introduce  [the book and the theory] a little bit because  

he's really talking about semiotics. Semiotics is  the study of signs and he's going back especially  

to a previous thinker, Ferdinand de Saussure,  who wrote a lot about sign systems and how we  

should understand them.What's unique about Roland  Barthes is that he applies these signs not just to  

language but [to] the culture, and that's the big  breakthrough here, that he's trying to say, well,  

we can not only look at how language functions but  we can look at how something in culture (something  

like wrestling) can act like a sign system, and we  need to interpret that particular sign system. So  

in the introduction to the 1970 edition he says,  "I had just read Saussure." He says this in the  

preface, and he's very conscious of the fact that  he's so influenced by this particular thinker.  

Now in terms of his big picture, right at the  start here even before we get to the theoretical  

part we can see that what he's trying to do  is he's trying to see how myth functions in  

relation to what he calls history and nature. So  if we think of history ... we have all kinds of  

events that happen. You know, the 1968 Paris  Student Revolt, let's say. That's one event.  

He actually refers to that in the preface. Lots of  different events happen. Wrestling can be an event  

too. And what tends to happen is that these events  are turned into myth somehow. We create a myth  

out of these events. And then over time this myth  starts to take up the whole field. In other words,  

it seems like it's the only reality out there.  It's as if everybody has to believe in it,  

and that makes this myth seem natural. So this is  going to get a bit messy here, but this ... myth  

all of a sudden seems very natural, because it's  the only thing that we can think of. We can even  

call it universal. It's as if it's the only  perspective out there. Now for Roland Barthes  

it's especially a certain social class that  creates these myths. That's the bourgeoisie.  

So the bourgeois myth is what rules supreme and  by "bourgeois" he means kind of traditional,  

conventional society in this period -- everything  that a leftist like Barthes doesn't like,  

as you can imagine. He basically says that  this myth is typically read or interpreted  

or presented to us through a sort of bourgeois  lens. So if we kind of draw some spectacles here,  

it's as if we are looking through the same glasses  all the time. And it's the job of the critic,  

which in this case would be Barthes . . . so if we  draw him over here, okay, so there he is ... and  

he's kind of looking at all of this, it's his  job to demystify the situation ... to kind of  

take the mythical element away and expose things  as they really are. And as he's talking about  

striptease in one of his chapters, that kind  of taking away of the clothing, I suppose that  

that applies also to what he himself is doing.  One of the questions would be whether any of  

this this kind of revealing of what's really  there has its own sexy quality you could say.  

Now Barthes is aware that as he is looking at  the myth, it's possible that he himself creates  

new myths. Do we ever really escape this notion of  myth? That raises the question, well, what is his  

mythology? Does he have his own mythology? Does he  have his own sign system that we from our vantage  

point then need to understand? In fact, that's  why we can also draw ourselves. This would be  

the reader of Barthes ... looking at Barthes. We  come with our own spectacles, and as you can start  

to see, this really complicates the picture.  But Barthes does raise this in his preface,  

this problem of what is his own mythology. Is he  totally neutral? Can you ever escape myth? These  

are some of the questions that he is asking  right from the start. So let's have a look  

at wrestling then. We'll just sample one chapter  here just to get us into the text a little bit. As  

I mentioned if you want to have lots of examples  covered that's totally fine. You can let me know.  

So what is wrestling? Well, the first thing  we can say about it is that it's a spectacle.  

It's not a sport, he says. It's very dramatic, but  the outcome is not as important as the process.  

It's much more like a play. We enjoy the action,  we follow it, we watch it, but we don't worry too  

much about who wins, in part because the whole  context is somewhat artificial and possibly fixed  

anyways. The next thing that's important is that  he talks here about what kind of sign this is. He  

says that in wrestling signs are always clear. So  as you read each chapter, before you get to the  

theoretical part, I would encourage you to kind  of try to figure out what is the theory about  

signs in this chapter? Don't get sucked into  just a topic, whether it's margarine, or cars,  

or steak, and stuff like that. Try to figure  out what is he actually saying about the way  

in which signs are operating here. When it comes  to wrestling, he says there is a kind of "pure and  

full signification." In other words, every sign is  super obvious in what it means. He writes at one  

point, "The gesture of the vanquished wrestler (so  the wrestler who's on on the mat, you might say,  

who's being beaten) signifying to the world of  defeat, which far from disguising he emphasizes  

and holds like a pause in music, corresponds to  the mask of antiquity meant to signify the tragic  

mode of the spectacle." In ancient times, they  would have these masks on to signify if they were  

laughing or crying. It was very obvious. In the  same way here, the signs are super super. You're  

not going to be mistaken about what a particular  move in wrestling or a particular pose represents.  

We also see that we have these very clear types  of characters. His example here is of Thauvin,  

the disgusting man, the bastard, who is  cruel and unpredictable. We kind of hate him,  

but we also understand his sense of justice  and the way he's trying to survive in a certain  

kind of world. It's a complicated picture  here, but it's nevertheless a type. And if  

you've watched a little bit of wrestling,  you can probably see other types as well,  

like the pretty boy. And there's lots of other  ones. But the main point here is that these  

types of characters are very easy to read. You  know what you're dealing with. We can also say  

that there are very clear narrative patterns.  ... The stories are predictable. And yet we  

enjoy watching them anyways. So, commonly we have  "Suffering, Defeat, and Justice." The suffering  

has this classical sense of spectacle, which also  creates a sort of heroism, because even if you are  

a wrestler who's defeated, there's still heroism  in that to some extent. The justice part I think  

is really quite fascinating here because this is  not your traditional justice. One of the things  

that you'll recognize as you go through the book  is that Roland Barthes, being quite the leftist,  

hates traditional institutions, which of course  means that he's also going to hate or distrust  

the traditional justice system. Maybe that's  where he kind of admires wrestling a little bit,  

because very rarely is a fight ever truly fair.  We're dealing with a kind of extrajudicial way of  

understanding the world, which has its own its  own kind of logic, and its own kind of appeal.  

Another thing that's that's predictable  is that we have very symbolic moves ...  

when it comes to wrestling. He talks  about the hold, the forearm smash,  

and other moves. These things are predictable  and they have their symbolism, their meaning.  

If we sum all of this up, what we can say is that  on the one hand we have a great deal of formalism.  

All of these things follow a predictable form  and a pattern. But there is still something  

genuine in wrestling as well. If you read  between the lines in the chapter you see that  

Barthes is trying to get at that the wrestling  is this weird paradox, where on the one hand  

it's conventional, it's artificial, it's fake.  But you get the sense that it's not entirely  

bourgeois in the way that other things.  There's still the sense of rebellion and  

unruliness and chaos, which I think Bart  seems to secretly admire a little bit.  

So here right away in the book you start to  get this tension somewhat, where we think,  

well, is this bourgeois? Is it not? Does  Roland Barthes like it? And as you go on,  

right away [in] the next chapter he starts talking  about representation of Roman-ness in Hollywood.  

There he talks about signs that are artificial  but are not genuine. So what makes a sign seem  

more genuine and something that we can admire and  what makes something artificial and hypocritical?  

Is there a standard for that? How do we apply  that to signs? That's a question that I'm not sure  

Barthes always raises or even answers, because  that gets to the heart of who he is. What does  

he think is hypocritical? That's really one of  the issues that this book struggles with. Okay,  

so hopefully that gives you a good sense of  the first chapter, [and] the introduction,  

and we'll go on with our series and talk some  more about other examples and the theory.