Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010 Ronald Barthes Margarine’s and Cinema’s Myths Vesa Matteo Piludu University of Helsinki

Margarine: your uncle will be furious! Astra’s commercial Margarine? Unthinkable! “Your uncle will be furious!” The commercial show a prejudice Then the eyes are opened and margarine is a delicious food … And cheap It goes further than butter, and cost less Alchemical transformation of values Barthes: Metaphor of political propaganda What does it matter if the political and economical order is a little brutal? It allows us to live cheaply!

Margarine Commercials 70s Mother Nature Chiffon Margarine Commercial Taste like butter!

70s Mr. Bubble Commercial (see the previous lecture on detergents’ myths)

Romans in films Many clichés All the Ancient Romans are presented with fringes Symbol of virtue, conquest, self righteousness, simplicity Evidence of the being a good Roman Many Anglo-Saxons actors are ridiculous in their Ancient Roman looks For Barthes, only Marlon Brando is Latin in off to be credible Another clichés: the Roman’s face sweat constantly, being full of Vaseline It’s a strange symbol for moral feeling: the Roman are beings tormented by virtues or violent things Banality: to sweat is to think Degraded spectacle of the sweating of thoughts Only Caesar isn’t sweating: it’s becaouse he is the object of the crime, he doesn’t know about it, so he doesn’t think and sweat

Julius Caesar 1953 Julius Caesar 1953 Theatrical Trailer Brando monologue as MarcAntonius Julius Caesar's assassination in Joseph Mankiewicz' 1953 film version of Shakespeare's play.

Greta Barbo The Divine The iconographical image of female beuty "Camille" (Greta Garbo, 1936) Theatrical trailer for 1936's "Camille", starring Greta Garbo as Marguerite Gautier, Robert Taylor as Armand Duval and Lionel Barrymore as Monsieur Duval. Directed by George Cukor and based on the 1852 novel "The Lady of the Camellias", by Alexandre Dumas.

Chaplin and Modern Times Problem in socialist films or drama: the worker is fulfilled with sense of destiny, obviously he is a revolutionary In Modern Times, Chaplin offer a more realist image of the worker that is still blind: interested only in basic needs, he is a man who’s hungry He is totally alienated, at the hands of his masters-employers and police The artificial worker’s life is well expressed by the food dispensing machine Showing the blindness of the worker, Chaplin is able to show also the blindness of the public The anarchy of Chaplin seems the most efficient form of revolution in art No socialist work succeeded in expressing the condition of the worker so well In Brecht there is the representation of the workers’ conscious fight for their right, but the texts are poor of aesthetic force

Modern Times Modern Times: Feeding Machine eliminating lunch time (Chaplin) Charlie Chaplin - Modern times part 1/9