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2012 Sibel Erbayraktar DISGUISED MEANINGS (Mythologies, Roland Barthes) Roland Barthes maintains clearly that no language use can be separated from structures of ideology and power. Barthes recognised that the signified can operate on two levels of signification. On the primary level of signification the most commonly accepted signifieds for a bear can be big body, hairs, claws but on the secondary level of signification there can be other signifieds that we come to culturally accept so 'bear' might be a 'rude man' or ' an ugly man'. The main intention of his work in Mythologies is to take apart the performing of certain deceptive or tricky myths. Myth is accepted as a second-order semiotic system. It takes an already constituted sign and turns it into a signifier. In other words, the materials of the mythical speech such as language, photography, painting, rituals, posters, and objects gain a signifying function as soon as they are put into a myth. It is understood that myths should be dealt with great care because they are creating an illusional way of looking at the real world. They are the strongest weapons to conceal the reality in things. Barthes used special terminology to describe the dynamics in myths and the advertisement that make use of these myths. Anchorage is a text (such as a caption) that provides the link between the image and its context; the text that provides relevance to the reader. The term was introduced by Barthes (1977). It can be argued that once you've seen a complete advertisement, you will get a certain kind of meaning for the image within the overall context that the advertisement provides. It may seem as though the image was "created for" that particular advertisement. Nevertheless, after looking at it carefully and thinking for a while, you will realize that, to a certain extent, any image can have any meaning (the arbitrariness of the sign). The text of an advertisement is essentially the extra information that guides the reader to a particular interpretation of the whole, and thereby a particular interpretation of the image. To clarify the functioning of myths we can look at perfume advertisements in general. Perfume is actually a nice scent that is supposed to cover repellent body odor. It has a very long history and almost every nation used one form of it or another. Originally they are a

means of providing nice scent which is directly associated with cleanliness. However, all recent perfume advertisement Channel, Calvin Klein etc attributes femininity or masculinity to this supposedly neutral refreshing chemical. By using one or the other you suddenly become more feminine or more masculine. Try to remember all the men in perfume advertisements, they are all extremely handsome, muscular and athletic people who immediately attract the attention of the viewer and give the message that if you want to be perceived as these men, you should also use the same product. Especially Calvin Klein used such a man in one of its latest advertisements. The situation is not different for women. For instance, Armani uses a very beautiful women for its IDOLE series and the woman was talking to a man, asking ''Are the any other women like me?'' the dialogue guides us to a specific meaning of the perfume which is associated with being an idol woman who is desired by every man. In fact, in these perfume advertisements mythical signs look as if they have been created on the spot, for the viewer. They look as if they were simply there to perform their role in the myth. The history that causes or creates them is rendered invisible because historically perfume is not only a way to express how sexy you are or how masculine you are. However, they are reduced into a single meaning because the companies want to sell the product and they are well aware of the fact that if a man or woman identifies himself with the product the profit from the product is guaranteed.