Sarahel's Semiotics 4U

haven't read it. but I do recommend David Graeber's The Utopia of Rules

I’ll check it out! I’ve read Debt and Direct Action - I think I tended to enjoy the anecdotes and ephemera within them more than the overall project, but I did enjoy them.

the anecdotes are good -- I feel like that's where he excels as a writer in this vein

22nd Street tiger painting is gone

that's it, Mission is over

HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!!!!!

Also this is the perfect thread for that info.

special request 4 semiotic breakdown of veronica, betty and cheryl blossom particularly vis-a-vis cheryl blossom's interruption/addition to riverdale continuity

― Mordy, Wednesday, December 14, 2016 5:44 PM (one year ago

In the TV show? I watched it only a few months ago! Riverdale and Gotham are kinda my inexplicable faves rn

i really meant in the comix - cheryl blossom was foregrounded in the world of the show but in the comix iirc she was always an interpolation. "now introducing cheryl!" or like an image of cheryl driving into town in a corvette and veronica and betty put out by archie crushing on her. narratively i think this is obv an opportunity to unite veronica + betty against an outside force but these figures do seem archetypical to me like it's not a coincidence that the brunette + blonde's quest for the all american boy is hijacked by a red head but i'm not 100% sure why i know it's contained within the semiotics of hair color, gender norms + american small town mythos among other things but i can't extract it.

I never read the comix ... so all I have to go on is the tv show. Having her be revealed as queer was a shift, and kinda felt like a tension release in a way? I kinda don't know how I feel about it. I guess one thing that connects Riverdale & Gotham (outside of being based on comics) tv shows, is the way that they incorporate the retro and the contemporary. Like, these shows are "period" and also not, but they try to make it appear cohesive ... idk.

Gotham's even "weirder" in that it incorporates (or tries to) elements from multiple time periods, as opposed to Riverdale which is just 50s + contemporary

riverdale feels like a subversion of the comix - like a lynchian undressing of idyllic small town american high school life. by contrast sabrina despite being also a much more mature + at times disturbing version of its source material feels like it preserves the essential conflicts of the original work. it's just like a much darker take on the torn between two worlds narrative and wanting to be a normal teenager etc. on the show do betty + veronica ever fight over archie? i only watched the first few episodes and the show seemed to be studiously avoiding putting them in competition over his affection.

they don't really fight over archie. show begins with betty having a thing for archie, but she later gets over it and dates jughead. betty and jughead, and veronica and archie who are also a couple, break up for a short time, and archie and betty kiss during this time. but theres not really any "fighting" and both respective couples get back together

it definitely does the Lynch thing, sometimes so much so that I'm rolling my eyes. It's fun tho. I like Gotham better. It actually is interesting in terms of commentary on mental health issues

also re Riverdale, there's the extra-textual thing of Archie's parents being played by Molly Ringwald and Dylan from 90210

i keep getting ads for this company. this is one of the ads -- from a Marx-informed perspective -- this whole ad campaign is ... damn ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho4LUg9avZA