Blog 4: The Sopranos

There are many quotes from Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image” that could be applied to the ad for the last episode of The Sopranos, but there are three quotes that I find specifically interesting and that apply quite well to the ad.
     One of the quotes is, as Barthes describes in his essay, that we have 3 messages the photo gives us: a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and a non-coded iconic message. He goes on to say that “The linguistic message can be readily separated from the other two, but since the latter share the same (iconic) substance, to what extent have we the right to separate them?” (272). This quote applies directly to this picture because even if someone knows nothing about the show. The viewer can guess that this show (or at least the episode or season) is very America because the statue of liberty in the background is an American icon, which is the “coded iconic message”, for America. The words “Made In America” that also appear in the ad is the linguistic message, but as Barthes describes in his quote, aren’t necessary if you have either the coded and/or non-coded iconic message, which the statue of liberty takes care of. If it just said “Made In America” and it had the Eiffel tower in the background, that wouldn’t mean anything. But you could just have the statue of liberty since it’s an American icon and that would be fine. So you can take away the words, the linguist message, and keep the statue of liberty (the coded message) but not the other way around.  
      One thing that’s interesting about the ad, is that it doesn’t even say what show it is. Nowhere in the ad does it say “The Sopranos” so for someone who has never seen the Sopranos, they probably won’t know what it’s the final episode of. This actually counters a quote from Barthes that says “At the level of the literal message, the text replies – in a more or less direct, more or less partial manner – to the question: what is it? The text helps to identify purely and simply the elements of the scene and the scene itself; it is a matter of a denoted description of the image” (274). There are words in the ad, but even with those words, the viewer could still wonder, what is it, what is this ad for? If someone doesn’t know what The Sopranos are, or even if some one knows of the show, but has not seen an episode, they still may not know what the ad is for because it doesn’t have the words “the Sopranos”. This quote from “Rhetoric of the Image” shows a way in which the ad does not hold up to Barthes standards of word usage.  
      The final quote that I find very interesting that applies to this ad, and all advertisements as Barthes describes is that “… the distinction between the literal message and the symbolic message is operational; we never encounter (at least in advertising) a literal image in a pure state” (276). He’s saying that no advertisement has a literal meaning because everyone can interpret it differently and has his or her own thoughts as to what the symbolic messages behind the images are. Some one could interpret that because the statue of liberty (coded iconic message for America) is behind him, that he is leaving America rather then going to it, where as someone else might think that’s false because of the words “Made in America” (which are part of the linguistic message) are present. Another person might feel like the birds to the right of the man are symbolic for something, where as another viewer might see no symbolic meaning. The fact that this ad could be seen in countless different ways, applies to Barthes quote, like he says all ads should.  
      These are examples of only three quotes from ““Rhetoric of the Image” that apply to the ad, but there are tones more that could apply to the advertisement as well.