on ELLEN SEITER's
“Semiotics, Structuralism, and Television”
nineteen eighty-seven, 4/2009
I raised the ‘signs’ conversation in writing on [Manthia] Diawara’s piece about identification. More than merely identifying with the characters, the context that that character exists in, the context the program exists in and, drawing from E. Ann Kaplan, how all those elements are constructed must be taken into consideration. Contextualizing the entire unit and the signs represented in the unit—whatever that unit will be—seems directly related to the matter of identification and resistant spectatorship.
Ellen Seiter sums up the ideas of Saussure and Peirce by saying that they “recognized that some signs have no ‘real’ object to which they refer: abstractions (truth, freedom) or products of the imagination (mermaids, unicorns). More important, they wished to argue that all signs are cultural constructs that have taken on meaning through repeated, learned, collective use” (p 34).
Roland Barthes, she says, believed verbal language closes down the number of possible meanings the image might have. She quotes Barthes as saying, “It is not very accurate to talk of a civilization of the image—we are still, and more than ever, a civilization of writing, writing and speech continuing to be the full term of the informational structure. (…) [T]he text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance” (p. 44).
So if the sign is a collective configuration, and if I employ the five channels of communication that Seiter will modify for application to television, the verbal is indeed informing what denotations I should embrace in receiving the sign of, say, ‘Black female character’ located on ‘XYZ primetime comedy.’ But given the greater context or paradigm of primetime comedies (with Black female characters…), my ‘collectively-informed’ reading of a Black female character is, likely, going to be constructed by very similar “speakers” of the text (McDonald’s interludes), or very similar syntagms (back-to-back ‘urban’ comedies on TV schedule or, over a period of seasons: cancellations - re-airings - unannounced appearances on different nights, etc).
In other words, I have a feeling, via a convenient sampling (2006, The CW, Sunday nights: Everybody Hates Chris > All of Us > Girlfriends > The Game > (America’s Next Top Model) and the sponsors of this programming, plus Mara Brock Akil, Kelsey Grammar, and Debbie Allen) that all the same things are informing the Black female character that I am ‘unconsciously’ attracted to on the television. The first signification—skin color—is what will probably draw me, because the second signification, “Black woman/woman of color” is what is denoted to me. The connotation will probably include a sense of her rarity on the television screen.
But, if I knew/cared to examine who “speaks” the text –whether at the level of production, commerce, or current events/public advocacy—I think I’m bound to find patterns that reflect why this image is marketable for those creating her—and what’s more—why I’m hard-pressed to find too much variation among these Black women, in terms of class, mostly, and why I know they won’t last long. (Only The Game is left.)
Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t watch (I definitely did). Of course, in my viewing, my ‘gaze’ may still be an oppositional one—I’ll interpret the signs on my own personal-communal collective terms, since the ‘reality’ is a dearth of representation behind the screen as well as on the screen—where the so-called ‘collective’ builds the signs for highest maximum return. However, this kind of engagement with the signs I ‘should’ be identifying with is, arguably, characteristic of a ‘niche’ television viewing audience.
Later in the essay, Seiter recasts Emile Benveniste’s remarks about ‘discourse’ saying, this is the “medium” through which we come to know television. Seiter says that, “In its current usage, discourse carries the stronger implication of speech governed by social, material, and historical forces, which disallow certain things from being said or even thought while forcing us to say certain other things” (p. 67).
Seiter notes that discourse “is not ‘free speech.’” She cites how censure played out in the children’s viewing of Fangface. She cites Hodge and Tripp as saying, “Verbal language is also the main mediator of meaning. It is the form in which meanings gain public and social form, and through discussion are affected by the meaning of others” (p. 62).
This suggests that while Barthes may have a point where his ‘civilization of writing’ is concerned, there are still a very select few (globally) who are positioned in such a way to be about the business of dictating the ‘informational structure.’ As long as film and television are such corruptible, colonizing and dangerously popular worldwide exports via the image (constructed and informed by such a small minority) how can the discourse of television not function as censorship in and of itself? I knowingly paint with a broad brush, but television and film as a medium of (global) social ‘discourse’—and as a capitalist construct—keeps so-called minority and niche audiences out of the community that informs sign creation.
I raised the ‘signs’ conversation in writing on [Manthia] Diawara’s piece about identification. More than merely identifying with the characters, the context that that character exists in, the context the program exists in and, drawing from E. Ann Kaplan, how all those elements are constructed must be taken into consideration. Contextualizing the entire unit and the signs represented in the unit—whatever that unit will be—seems directly related to the matter of identification and resistant spectatorship.
Ellen Seiter sums up the ideas of Saussure and Peirce by saying that they “recognized that some signs have no ‘real’ object to which they refer: abstractions (truth, freedom) or products of the imagination (mermaids, unicorns). More important, they wished to argue that all signs are cultural constructs that have taken on meaning through repeated, learned, collective use” (p 34).
Roland Barthes, she says, believed verbal language closes down the number of possible meanings the image might have. She quotes Barthes as saying, “It is not very accurate to talk of a civilization of the image—we are still, and more than ever, a civilization of writing, writing and speech continuing to be the full term of the informational structure. (…) [T]he text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image causing him to avoid some and receive others; by means of an often subtle dispatching it remote-controls him towards a meaning chosen in advance” (p. 44).
So if the sign is a collective configuration, and if I employ the five channels of communication that Seiter will modify for application to television, the verbal is indeed informing what denotations I should embrace in receiving the sign of, say, ‘Black female character’ located on ‘XYZ primetime comedy.’ But given the greater context or paradigm of primetime comedies (with Black female characters…), my ‘collectively-informed’ reading of a Black female character is, likely, going to be constructed by very similar “speakers” of the text (McDonald’s interludes), or very similar syntagms (back-to-back ‘urban’ comedies on TV schedule or, over a period of seasons: cancellations - re-airings - unannounced appearances on different nights, etc).
In other words, I have a feeling, via a convenient sampling (2006, The CW, Sunday nights: Everybody Hates Chris > All of Us > Girlfriends > The Game > (America’s Next Top Model) and the sponsors of this programming, plus Mara Brock Akil, Kelsey Grammar, and Debbie Allen) that all the same things are informing the Black female character that I am ‘unconsciously’ attracted to on the television. The first signification—skin color—is what will probably draw me, because the second signification, “Black woman/woman of color” is what is denoted to me. The connotation will probably include a sense of her rarity on the television screen.
But, if I knew/cared to examine who “speaks” the text –whether at the level of production, commerce, or current events/public advocacy—I think I’m bound to find patterns that reflect why this image is marketable for those creating her—and what’s more—why I’m hard-pressed to find too much variation among these Black women, in terms of class, mostly, and why I know they won’t last long. (Only The Game is left.)
Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t watch (I definitely did). Of course, in my viewing, my ‘gaze’ may still be an oppositional one—I’ll interpret the signs on my own personal-communal collective terms, since the ‘reality’ is a dearth of representation behind the screen as well as on the screen—where the so-called ‘collective’ builds the signs for highest maximum return. However, this kind of engagement with the signs I ‘should’ be identifying with is, arguably, characteristic of a ‘niche’ television viewing audience.
Later in the essay, Seiter recasts Emile Benveniste’s remarks about ‘discourse’ saying, this is the “medium” through which we come to know television. Seiter says that, “In its current usage, discourse carries the stronger implication of speech governed by social, material, and historical forces, which disallow certain things from being said or even thought while forcing us to say certain other things” (p. 67).
Seiter notes that discourse “is not ‘free speech.’” She cites how censure played out in the children’s viewing of Fangface. She cites Hodge and Tripp as saying, “Verbal language is also the main mediator of meaning. It is the form in which meanings gain public and social form, and through discussion are affected by the meaning of others” (p. 62).
This suggests that while Barthes may have a point where his ‘civilization of writing’ is concerned, there are still a very select few (globally) who are positioned in such a way to be about the business of dictating the ‘informational structure.’ As long as film and television are such corruptible, colonizing and dangerously popular worldwide exports via the image (constructed and informed by such a small minority) how can the discourse of television not function as censorship in and of itself? I knowingly paint with a broad brush, but television and film as a medium of (global) social ‘discourse’—and as a capitalist construct—keeps so-called minority and niche audiences out of the community that informs sign creation.
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