📚 Starting a thread to track my reading journey — I’ll keep updating it as long as I’m here on Mastodon.
Right now I’m about to finish Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death (having already read Fear and Trembling, which I’ll reflect on alongside it). I’m also working through Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Barthes’ Mythologies, and an intro to medieval philosophy (Basic Concepts).
I’ll be dropping thoughts, quotes, and reflections here as I go — philosophy, literature, history, whatever’s on my shelf.
“The narration is objective, but actually it rests on the pathetic collusion of white flesh and black skin, of innocence and cruelty, of spirituality and magic, beauty and beast. Civilization of the Soul subjects the barbarism of instinct.” — Roland Barthes, Bichon among the Blacks
Barthes wrote this in 1957 about a children’s comic strip.
Still chillingly relevant: how “neutral” stories smuggle in whole ideologies.
#Barthes #Mythologies #BookReflections #Colonialism #CriticalTheory
Reading Barthes on Bichon among the Blacks got me thinking about Disney. These tropes didn’t disappear after the 1950s — they just got repackaged.
In the 50s we had Jungle Book.
In the 90s, Tarzan.
2000s gave us Princess and the Frog.
2010s–20s: Moana.
Different settings, but the same narrative structure.
Even when the societies aren’t demonized outright, the “Other” is almost always represented through children or teens — supposedly “uncorrupted” by their culture.
Think about Pocahontas: her whole community is literally labeled “savages.” The film redeems her as an individual, but only by positioning her apart from her society.
The throughline: marginalized groups get to exist in Disney films only if they’re made innocent enough, young enough, or pure enough to be digestible for a mainstream (white) audience.
It’s the same old binary Barthes exposed: civilization vs instinct, innocence vs cruelty, beauty vs beast. Just wrapped in songs and CGI.
Today's entry: The “Sympathetic” Worker — and damn, this one hit close to home.
Barthes takes aim at On the Waterfront, a film I once gave 5/5 for its craft, but that’s always left me uneasy. The unions are the villains. The police? Fine. The hero? A guy who betrays the collective.
Barthes doesn’t buy the “leftist” label, and neither do I. This is a film where the union is the mob, and betrayal is redemption. That’s not worker solidarity — it’s Cold War liberalism in blue-collar drag.
Not every film about workers is for them.
#CurrentlyReading #FilmTheory #Barthes #OnTheWaterfront #LaborPolitics
📖 Reading Barthes: “Garbo’s Face”
Today in Mythologies: Roland Barthes breaks down beauty not as essence, but as structure. Greta Garbo = conceptual, a Platonic ideal. Audrey Hepburn = substantial, modern presence. Think Jolie in Beowulf vs. Deschanel in indie cinema.
Beauty isn’t just seen—it’s coded.
#Barthes #Mythologies #RolandBarthes #LitCrit #Philosophy #GretaGarbo #AudreyHepburn #BeautyAsMyth #NowReading #MediaTheory
💬 Barthes Reading Log — Mythologies
Today’s essay: Power and “Cool” — and yeah, it still hits.
Barthes says the gun in crime films isn’t about death anymore — it’s about gesture. The move toward the gun becomes its own kind of language. Not tragedy, but argument. A way to speak power.
That image’s still alive and well. Think Goodfellas. Think Pacino. The gangster doesn’t have to shoot — just reach. The pose does the talking.
Cool stays cool.
#Mythologies #Barthes #ReadingThread #Film #GangsterCinema #PowerAndCool
Just read Barthes' “Wine and Milk.” As a bartender, I loved it. In France, wine is blood—ritual, identity, myth. In the U.S., we’ve cycled: wine as status, milk as strength, now water as virtue. Think hydro homies. Sparkling wine, sparkling water—crisp, clear, pure. Rituals change, but myth stays. Alcohol didn’t just accompany civilization—it may have created it. Imagine fermentation as the first anchor. 🍷🥛💧
🦬 Barthes got it right. Steak isn’t just food — it’s a symbol.
How you order it says everything: blue-rare like bloodied prestige, or well-done like working-class caution. I see it behind the bar every night.
Barthes saw it in France. I see it in America.
Might write a full essay if folks are hungry for more.
#Barthes #Mythologies #Semiotics #FoodSymbolism #BartenderLife #EssayComing #SteakFrites
Just reread Barthes’ Mythologies essay on the Nautilus—and it made me appreciate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen even more (yes, I know the comic is better).
Barthes critiques how the submarine gets rebranded in media as a cozy, domesticated living room—stripping it of danger and mythic power.
But in League, the Nautilus is monstrous, otherworldly, beautiful. Even Moriarty has to steal its blueprints—it’s beyond what empire can produce.
This Nautilus isn’t part of the system. It refuses comfort. It’s awe. It’s a god-ship.
Barthes would’ve hated the film—but I think he’d respect this myth.
#Barthes #Mythologies #FilmCriticism #Nemo #LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen #Myth #Aesthetics #BadMoviesGoodTakes #Postmodernism
Just finished Barthes’ “Depth Advertising” in Mythologies.
He talks about how ads simulate depth — using science-y language and metaphors of penetration or purification to make us feel “informed,” even when we’re not.
Got me thinking about pharma ads: the soothing visuals, the rapid-fire “side effects may include death” disclaimers, the constant reminder to “ask your doctor.”
I spent time recently in a crisis center asking every day, “What is this pill? What does it actually do to me?”
Language gives the illusion of consent, but how many of us really know what we’re taking — or why?
#barthes #mythologies #advertising #pharma #books #reading #books2025
Today’s Barthes essay from Mythologies was “A Few Words from M. Poujade.”
And, y’all—I am breathless.
After a day of stepping into BlueSky political discourse, talking about populism, myth, and class resentment, THIS was the essay waiting for me?
Serendipity feels like too small a word.
Poujade is the “man of the people”—allegedly.
Anti-elite, but not really anti-capitalist.
Mobilizing resentment, not liberation.
Barthes doesn’t just say he’s a fraud. He shows how his myth is built.
Through language.
Through aesthetic.
Through symbols that feel like justice but just prop up power.
And I’d already been saying all this today.
Before reading it.
It’s not that the essay taught me something new—
It confirmed what I already knew.
It’s not coincidence. It’s alignment.
This is what happens when you’re on the path and the mirror starts reflecting back.
You walk the spiral long enough, the texts start echoing your life—not just shaping it.
Meaning is real.
Myth is real.
And sometimes, if you’re lucky, they line up just like this.
You’re not crazy.
You’re on time.
#Barthes #Mythologies #BlueSkyPolitics #MediaLiteracy #Populism #CriticalTheory #Serendipity #PersonalEssay
Wittgenstein's Monster