Semiotics first arose from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure
in the early 20th century, but it really flourished in the work of
French theorists in the decades following World War II. Perhaps one of the most accessible
introductions to the use of semiotics is Roland Barthes’s collection of essays,
Mythologies. In Mythologies,
Barthes attempts to uncover the underlying meaning of a whole series of
cultural signs. For him, everyday
objects like children’s toys or Greta Garbo’s face are representative of
something deeper, hidden underneath the play of surfaces. In his introduction, Barthes explains his
purpose in the following manner:
The starting point of these
reflections was usually a feeling of impatience at the sight of the
“naturalness” with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a
reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined
by history. In short, in the account
given of our contemporary circumstances, I resented seeing Nature and History
confused at every turn, and I wanted to track down, in the decorative display
of what-goes-without-saying, the
ideological abuse, which in my view, is hidden there. (11)
Barthes seems frustrated that ideas and concepts that are
culturally made are being treated as absolutely natural or “true.” Most of how we view the world is in fact
constructed for us, and Barthes is hoping to uncover and tease apart these
culturally made ideas.
But back to Scocca’s article. While it is difficult to fully determine what
he is trying to say, at least part of his argument hinges on the fact that
there are “true” signs and there are “false” signs. Scocca seems upset because characters like
Don Draper don’t exist. He writes, “He
[Don Drapper] is a pattern of lit-up dots moving in front of your eyes for one
hour, on Sundays, during the season run of the Mad Men program, which
mercifully ends this weekend.” (Part of
Scocca’s apoplexy arises from the fact that a lot of people talk about this
show, and he doesn’t like it, except that he admits that he hasn’t watched it,
which means that no one has strapped him into a Clockwork Orange like contraption and forced the show on him). Obviously, Don Drapper isn’t a real
person. Instead, he is a signifier for a
whole host of social and cultural issues: capitalism, the generation gap,
existential malaise, masculine constructs, etc.
But Scocca doesn’t seem to understand one thing: everything that he
writes is also a sign. When Scocca
writes about the 1960s, they do not just immediately manifest themselves before
us. Like the television show Mad Men, he is using a series of signs
(in this instance, words) to stand in for the decade in question. In other words, Tom Scocca’s argument doesn’t
exist. Everything he writes is a pattern
of lit-up dots on our computer screen. (In fact, we might ask Scocca what he thinks of
other terms that come from fiction, like quixotic or Kafkaesque).
But Scocca appears to believe one set of signifiers is
greater than another. He seems to think
there is some “true” 1960s out there that we can grasp in our hands. One signifier is tangible and the other
signifier is not. He writes, “In the
collision between the actual and the simulacrum, the simulacrum is
winning.” But
everything he just wrote and quoted is in fact a simulacrum. Like I stated, Mad Men is also a signifier
for a whole number of things, most often the culture of the 1960s. But a
"history" of that time is also just a signifier. If you open a
historical reading of the 1960s, you don't open the book and enter into the
thing itself. You read an interpretation of that era, which, funny enough, is
exactly what Mad Men is.
You might argue that Scocca is
concerned with the accuracy of Mad Men’s
interpretation of the world—that there is a good deal of evidence about the
decade that we can latch onto in order to determine cultural mores, dress, music,
etc. But this doesn’t seem to be the
case. There will always be competing versions of the 1960s. Even well educated historians will differ on
how best to interpret that decade. A
sign, after all, may be read in multiple ways.
Besides, perceived “accuracy” never enters into Scocca’s argument. Let’s take the quote he uses about the turtle
neck, taken from a New York Times article:
Francesca Granata, an assistant professor of art
and design history at Parsons the New School for Design, traced the garment's
high-fashion roots to the '60s, when, she said, ''Pierre Cardin and YSL
reinvented the men's suit with a turtleneck instead of a buttoned shirt and a
scarf instead of a tie.'' (Think more Paul Kinsey than Don Draper.)
In the above excerpt, the academic being
questioned suggests that the turtle neck symbolized the changing cultural mores
and generation gap of the 1960s. The author then uses Mad Men as a point of
reference, a show that happens to use clothing to symbolize the changing
cultural mores and generation gap of the 1960s. It is unclear why it is okay to
rely on the language of the "expert" and not the television show,
especially since they seem to be saying the exact same thing. One means of
signifying the 60s is more "true" (the academic's words) where the
other means of signifying the 60s is "false" (the images on a
television show), even when signifiers are coming to the same conclusion. For Scocca, any sort of fictional art is a
false signifier, even when it happens to be accurately representing the
world. Scocca is falling into the old
trap that Barthes observed about fifty years ago. He thinks that there is a natural world he
has access to that is not built by an interpretation of various signs.Of course, as someone who is interested in fictional narratives, I have pony in this race. It is an old discussion that goes back at least as far as the novel itself. People seem to think that just because something is a fictional retelling, then it can never tell us something “true” about the world. Just this year, the Pulitzer Prize awarded no prize for narrative fiction, despite having some well regarded books in the running. Many have argued that this is a result of a culture that denies that fictional stories can tell us something true about the world. But while the form is certainly different, the same arguments that take place out in the “real” world also occur in the fictional universe created by authors. When Charles Dickens wrote about work houses and orphanages, he did so after learning about these places through his own experiences and through newspapers (which happen to be made up of a series of signs). He then made arguments about the dehumanizing effects of these places, but he did so through characters, dialogue and narrative.
The true difference between fiction and non-fiction texts is that fictional texts take work. In order to uncover what a novel is trying to say, you must first engage with it, determine what argument lies underneath its entanglement of metaphors. A non-fiction text, by contrast, is didactic. It comes right out and tells you what it wants you to know. This can be useful, but it can also be problematic. A work of non-fiction is always trying to convince us that it is absolutely “real,” when it is always an interpretation of the world. Besides, the difficulty inherent in the novel is also why it is useful. In a world where information is presented to us in small bites, there’s something to be said for the exercise of deciphering a text and engaging with its argument. The world is a complicated place, and fiction never lets us forget how much of a tangled mess we live in.
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