Do you want the National Guard inserting your foley catheter?
Signified-- Foley Catheter sign- the explicit signified would be that a soldier, probably male, would do the job of a nurse, implying a lack of certification, qualification, and sensitivity.
signifier- “Sign that says, Do you want the National Guard inserting your foley catheter?” and the women, who are presumably nurses, holding the signs.
The sign (the way the signifier and the signified are correlated and what we grasp from this correlation). The implicit sign is the male fear of castration and male, militaristic crudeness, in other words you have a male, military guy messing with your junk.
Walker Cheating at Marquette Sign
Signified-- Walker failed to complete college because he cheated and had a 2.3 GPA.
Signifier-- Sign that says, “Walker was asked to leave Marquette University for cheating with a 2.3 GPA” held by darker-skinned person and written on a pizza box.
Sign is-- Draws on values of the certain voters that our leaders will not cheat, will finish what they start and finish well. This also draws on the problems many voters had with G.W. Bush, that he too had a low GPA, drawing a connection between Walker and Bush. The correlation of the signified and the signifier too points to the idea of once a cheater, always a cheater and that the cheating would continue from Marquette into the present.
Saint Ronald Reagan Sign
Signified-- Sense of irony and use of sarcastic tone in calling Ronald Reagan a saint, that trickle-down economics has been/ should be discredited, proven to be harmful.
Signifier- Sign that reads “Saint Ronald Reagan/ Thanks for the lies!/ Trickle down my ass!” and the person that is holding the sign is blue collar, typical union guy, with a Navy hat.
Sign is-- This sign connects Walker to Ronald Reagan, that Walker is trying to make himself a national figure, to connect himself to Reagan. This also points out the historicity of the conservative movement, the longevity of the bad feelings, that the anger is deeply felt, for the working man, the average joe.
Hi Deedee (and Avery),
ReplyDeleteVery nice job with the signs and their implications.
Did you snap these shots in person? Or were they pulled from a news source? I was wondering if the context in which they were found could be another point of analysis. (exemplifying the overall tone of their source? part of "fair-and-balanced" coverage of event in general?)
Perhaps these aren't the folks we expect to see at the state Capitol wielding signs. The myth of the (hippie?) protester could be interpreted as shattered by the nurses carrying signs and "Average Joe" in the Navy cap voicing anti-Reagan sentiments (because folks of a certain age are the conservative type, no?)
Thanks for sharing the signs and your thoughts.
I really enjoyed this analysis of protest posters. I, like everyone else, have been obsessively watching news coverage and reading blog posts to keep up-to-date with coverage on the protests, so it's nice to see an analysis like this. It's relevant to our current situation but it sort of takes the sting out of it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I've got a question that is sort of related to Kim's question. I am wondering how our understanding and analysis of these posters is affected by "the myth of the hippie protester" or the "Average Joe in the Navy cap." What I mean is, how does the analysis change based on the context of who is doing the viewing (or who is consuming the media)? Obviously a Tea Party protester who never went to college would have a different reaction to the GPA poster than we do. So who is the intended audience of these posters? Does it matter?
I guess that ended up being a couple questions. Sorry about that.
Ingrid