Semiological Analysis of 'Princesses Take Power' Ad

Extract

[...] Semiology = system of communication by signs between individuals. I. Analysis according to the technique of Saussure. Ferdinand de Saussure was a 19th-century Swiss linguist, considered the father of structuralism and also the inventor of semiology. From his work emanate several concepts, including the assimilation of language to a language of signs. We will now see how to establish a correlation between the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure and the advertising that we must analyze. Saussure's theory of linguistic sign analysis is based primarily on a signified, the abstract concept, the meaning. [...]

[...] The linguistic support is ensured by the following slogan: "Princesses take power". It requires knowledge of the French language, as well as the underlying interpretations, particularly with the reference to the princess, also an imaginary character subject to masculine dictates. The site's logo is unambiguous, as it presents a woman putting a man in her shopping cart to consume him at her whim and probably without getting rid of him like a common consumer product when she gets tired of him." Finally, the aesthetic symbols are also present, particularly through the posture of the two protagonists, sensual and benevolent, expressing condescension and attention each to the other. [...]

[...] As Saussure theorized, there is therefore no link between the signifier and the signified since the desire here is to affirm in the global reading of the slogan a superiority of women over men. However, if we dwell on each of the terms that make up this sentence, the idea conveyed is very different. The conventional princess, an imaginary heroine, subject to the male sex, has managed to seize power and make it so that contextually she now places herself in a dominant way over man. II. Analysis according to the technique of Barthès. [...]

[...] It's first in love that princesses, in the collective imagination, are subject to male power. Relevant, to positively reinforce the message of power takeover. It's a soft power. Potentially relevant in relation to the notion of power takeover but reducing as it is operated solely through economic power and consumption. Logically caricatural, contradictory to the quality of the photographic image. Relevant to remind the backdrop of princesses and the imaginary world in which they are found. Relevant, it's an advertising campaign for a dating site. [...]

[...] The woman is in the usual position of the siren. The dress evokes an undershirt and the loss of a garment Their skin is the same color. The white logo embedded in the image: a woman is pushing a shopping cart in which a man falls from the sky. The merman, the woman's dress, the old boat, the castle on the hill. The naked bodies going towards each other. The water by its fluidity evokes sensuality. The night and its moon evoke the taboos of secret and hidden love. [...]