Page 153 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL STUDIES

Barthes gives an often-quoted example of the work of signification and myth
that refers to the cover of the French magazine Paris-Match. This features a young
black soldier in French military uniform saluting the tricolour with his eyes cast
130 upward towards the French flag. On a denotative level this can be read as ‘a black
soldier salutes the French flag’. However, the repertoire of cultural codes available
to Barthes and his contemporaries (which included French colonial history and
their military involvement in Algeria) allowed him to interpret the image in a more
mythological way. That is, the connotations of the image suggest the loyalty of
black French subjects to the French flag in a way that undermines criticism of
French imperial activity.
Links Code, ideology, semiotics, signs, structuralism