Richard Brody, blogging for The New Yorker, recently huffed about Barthes' "strangely simplistic accusations of what Marx called 'false consciousness.'" But Marx never used the term "false consciousness," and Barthes' critique is directed precisely against a simplistic vulgar-Marxist critique of ideology. This definition, coupled as it is with a Marxian analysis of class consciousness, can still lead American critics to fits of apoplexy. "Everything can be a myth, provided it is conveyed by a discourse." The title is intended in a literal but specific sense: "myth is a type of speech … a system of communication … a message … a mode of signification, a form." A newly published complete edition includes them all.
The familiar translation by Annette Lavers cut 25 of the 53 "mythologies" proper - brief essays and sketches Barthes originally published in various monthly magazines - including some of the best (on ufology, the Paris flood of 1955 and French politics). For some reason it's taken 56 years for the complete "Mythologies" to be translated into English. "Mythologies" was his third book, published in 1957. Not that Barthes was the first semiotician, of course, but his brilliant application of semiological methods to mass-cultural signifiers - advertisements, politics, sports, popular music, consumer goods, news media, film - has inflected cultural and media studies ever since. Click here to learn about joining Printers Row. This piece first ran in Printers Row Journal, delivered to Printers Row members with the Sunday Chicago Tribune and by digital edition via email.
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