An Analysis of Signifier and Signified - Essay Example

Academia - Research January Pragmatic Barbie: An Analysis of Signifier and Signified Watching advertising for Barbie dolls is an exercise in signal and sign watching: it is not enough to watch the television ads once. Fascination engages the viewer even if not female and under 14, the target market for the dolls. It is a fascination with clever juxtaposition of plastic, color and shape, but it is not the bare essentials or raw materials that will concern this discussion, but the way they are loaded with complex meaning, and how it is asserted over prospective purchasers and consumers at large (Barthes, 1968). One does not even have to purchase a Barbie doll to be effected by the significance of the powerful marketing strategy that has flooded the world with this ubiquitous toy. One can avoid the advertising, the movies, and all the accompanying merchandise, but one cannot avoid the potent baggage that comes with these products: the baggage of influence and exploitation (not always negative) that gradually makes channels - or cancels them - through contemporary culture (Hall, 1980). It is everywhere, and it is so much part of the way commercial culture has infiltrated daily life that, like the wind, it is invisible, but its effects bends things right over. The cultural connotation (Barthes, ibid) that Barbie carries around the world is that the quintessential American woman is tall, slim, beautiful, and always meticulously groomed. She is symmetrical, smooth and always ready to please. In this sense, it is not easy to determine which came first: Barbie, or the domestic ads of the 1950s, where aproned wives were shown, perfectly groomed, awaiting their husbands with a delicious home-cooked meal in a perfect house. They telegraph the same signals, and convey an identical message: nothing less than perfection is acceptable, a message that strikes a sense of inadequacy still echoing through society (Nevid, 2007). Men’s expectations, women’s fulfillment of them, how children are raised and what messages groups and individuals send each other evolve around received perceptions, but more importantly around words used to signify them: in de Saussure’s meaning, how ‘humans synthesize physical stimuli into words’ (Sanders, 2004). Since advertising found its way into animated messages, words and meanings that television ads convey are part and parcel of modern society’s currency of meaning (Hall 1981). ‘I’m a Barbie Girl, In a Barbie World.’ (Barbie Culture 2009). What is most significant about the Barbie effect is not that two of her effigies are sold every second, but what families everywhere are taking on as impressions and turning into custom and usage. It is not her unrealistic vital statistics, but what ‘image’ notions she has laid over society. Notions of a young woman’s independence, beauty, roles, beliefs, aptitudes and appearance take seed when she is in junior high. The question is, to what extent those notions are formed by nurturing adults and to what proportion they are instilled by the media. How Barbified are women today? Even Mattel, the doll’s makers, are sharply aware of the controversy her influence has: their website carries a comment, ‘She’s a doll, people!’(Mattel, 2009) Only four words that condense a response to a resounding debate stretching over decades. One wonders what Chomsky or Foucault would have made of the term Barbification. It is a real term: a search for it brings up a number of results, an indication that cultural ideology affects not only fashion, trends or sales, but also language. And when language is effected, the consequence reaches far and wide (Nevid, 2007). And deep: Barbie is an American icon recognized, for better or worse, throughout the world, whose cultures and languages reflect the phenomenon (Barbie Culture, 2009). But it is not the aim of this paper to delve too deeply into a linguistic analysis of the Barbie advertising. This investigation works towards grasping the cultural significance and the societal impact such advertising has, and whether or not it is permanent, or at least, durable over time. It is possible, when looking at a Barbie ad, to see visual clues and try to replicate them in society. One sees matching colors for clothes and accessories; sweet permanent smiles; unrealistic dimensions and symmetry; an over-abundance of hair; innumerable combinations of clothes and shoes; a bewildering array of accessories and add-ons; the attendance of compliant and suitably handsome male dolls; and identifiable status symbols that become envied, enviable and very desirable. These must-haves made of plastic have their equivalents in real life. From wanting a pair of lilac boots for Barbie, a child goes on to desire a pink car for Barbie, and onward to coveting boots and a car of whatever color for herself. The education and grooming of a market starts early. Little consumers grow into big consumers, with the operative word here being big. Attitudes, customs and usage are what the signs and signals are all about: ‘how the spectator or the consumer is drawn into and implicated by certain practices of representation’ (Hall, 1997). It is a well-known fact that advertising has the ability to turn certain products into fetish-objects. Barbie has become a phenomenon of that nature: she dominates not only the doll market, but is personified in many of the fashion world’s models. A representational connotation is made flesh (Hall, 1981). One of the world’s most enduringly popular toys, what messages does Barbie send girls and boys? And what are parents succumbing to when they allow access to such message-laden items with all their accompanying adverts and merchandising? How are the notions and ideologies incorporated into their lives? Barthes considers that Western culture is laden with ultimate standards and a desire for constancy. In this regard, Barbie has lived up to his hypothesis (Barthes, 1968): she sets a standard for the ideal in appearance, fashion, grooming and possession of the latest must-haves. She has changed very little since the 1950s. The ideology of sameness and conformity is there. One can predict what Barbie will be wearing next, and that one must buy every single item in the series. Barthes also attaches importance to myths and myth-making. Barbie is a very strong confirmation that the myths of domestic perfection, lofty childhood aspirations, ideal young love, attainable wealth, and ownership of all desirable objects exist. They all exist and one can have them. Or must have them. A representational convention becomes a yearning (Hall, 1981). The existence of Barbie makes more realistically sized dolls conspicuous by their absence. The old-fashioned doll has all but disappeared from toy departments. Her silhouette is an empty space where disappointment resides. The way the public sees the Barbie representation of all that is possible is the way it bundles the options available in one advert and projects it onto their own lives. This way of seeing is fraught with dangers. Incorporating such representations into the lives of children is even more laden with risk (Hall, 1997). They are raised to feel that they can be anything they want to be, and have lilac boots and a pink car, metaphorically speaking. Historically, dismay and disillusionment is inevitable when expectations are built in this way, especially for women (Wolf, 2002). A representation connotation perpetuated and embedded in culture. The Barbie producers, including advertisers, think they understand the power of their product, but their reading of it is superficial at best. The most gratifying side of the phenomenon is that it has created a discourse on all that is taking place in consumerism, modern expectations and myths, and the way signals are given and read. * Sources Cited Barthes, R., (1968) Elements of Semiology, Hill and Wang: New York Barbie Culture (2009) < http://www.slideshare.net/shanxc/barbie-culture> Accessed 01/07/2010 Hall, S. (1981) Notes on Deconstructing the Popular In Peoples History and Socialist Theory, London: Routledge ---- (Ed.) (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices Sage Publications Nevid, J.S., (2007) Psychology: Concepts and applications Houghton Mifflin Mattel Website (2009) Accessed 01/07/2010 Sanders, C., ed.(2004). The Cambridge Companion to Saussure. Cambridge University Press Wolf, N., (2002) The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women Harper Perennial Read More