Sarahel's Semiotics 4U

not from memory ... the books are all in the other room.

aw

Can you now analyse the 'soccer/hockey mom' phenomenon?

after I have dinner ... someone else do some semiotic analysis while I'm gone, please?

uh, websites give you the illusion of choice but really they restrict the "free association" they imply through click-through designation and rationalise your thought process for you. Most web design is about a surfeit of choice which suggests unlimited options on each page but in reality the progression of one page to the next within a website is quite linear. This prolly has to do with newspeak and the mechanisation of our thought processes or something u kno?

adverts know you know how they're selling the product, and they expect you to be complicit in a narrative where the advert does not stand alone but exists in relation to other adverts; now no longer directly selling its product, the advert strives to be 'the one where x happens' as compared to other adverts for similar items, and depends on them to remain memorable. once the narrative has been digested, the buyer must merely pick a 'favourite bit' like from a movie or a sitcom. this is why to an occasional television watcher like myself, adverts seem increasingly superficial, jarring, and flashy. it is because their visual and conceptual span is not complete; it is a discrete fragment of a hypnotic and ritual whole

Does it depend on the jean? There are many different classes of demin. There are lower end demin, such as you find at Aamerican Eagle, Levi's Forever 21, Gap, and J Crew. Then there's 7's, Ernst Sewn, Jean Shop, Paper. Then there's Marc Jacobs, Gucci, etc... Does this affect the sexist implications found in the design of the jean?

yeah, sexism crosses class boundaries

So designer jeans don't allow for more freedom?

no, they only allow for the the freedom of men to oppress women into carrying babies in their purses (which might get stolen)

Jeans are a different issue - they are not "professional" attire

jeez, girl
more like insomniotics

can you quote some relevant guy debord now plz ;)

62 False choice in spectacular abundance, a choice which lies in the juxtaposition of competing and complimentary spectacles and also in the juxtaposition of roles (signified and carried mainly by things) which are at once exclusive and overlapping, develops into a struggle of vaporous qualities meant to stimulate loyalty to quantitative triviality. This resurrects false archaic oppositions, regionalisms and racism which serve to raise the vulgar hierarchic ranks of consumption to a preposterous ontological superiority. In this way, the endless series trivial confrontations is set up again, from competitive sports to elections ...

Women's pants (sexist or not) are horrible anyway. IMO they just don't look good... but that's just me I guess.

O_O this is turning into the thread where people had to translate song titles into academese, while other posters had to guess the title of song in question... but without the "songs" part.

Dear celebrity, spectacular representation of a living human being, can I get your sister's email why because she look intersting

i <3 this shit tbh

I will address the semiotics of soccer moms after I get some sleep.

That Debord quote ties in perfectly with my line about advertising. Not sure I'd call competitive sports or elections 'false choices' mind.

competitive sports are a perfect example of false choices.

lol so are elections! perhaps that's why he mentioned competitive sports and elections in that paragraph..............

i am shaking my head at lj

it certainly has been posited quite a bit about U.S. elections, to be sure.

something can only be false if you believe in the truth

My only contention with sarahel's points, as one who shops with my gf quite often and has noted the bewildering variety that any 'size' may have wrt to women's clothing, is that, otoh, there is a certain standard and normative 'masculinity' which disparages men who are 'overly' fastidious about their clothing or overly daring. If a man is a size 42, he buys a coat size 42 but does that mean that all manufacturers make them equally? If a man wanted no pockets or non-functional pockets, could he get them easily in business attire? The conservativeneness of men's attire - the lounge suit being essentially THE de rigueur attire of men - dates from the 20's and while it has had fuller or narrower trousers and wider or narrower lapels and X number of buttons or been single or double breasted, it has otherwise little changed in 90 years. Standardization of sizes sounds like a good idea but it leads to a conformity and leveller result that denies rather provides variety and individual choice. At least when my gf goes clothes shopping, she knows that she has to try everything on - every brand's sizes being different and often different within the brand on different items of clothing. For men, the variables are generally inseam, sleeve, collar, chest, and waist. Add to this the varities of feminine curves , i.e., large bust/large hips, large bust/small hips, small bust/large hips, small bust/small hips and all the individual modulations specific to a real as opposed to a template woman and the sizing issue, while admittedly annoying, seems less to me like a horrible conspiracy (though there is definitely size deflation for the purpose of flattery) then a natural result of the nature of the business.

DUMPLINGS!

xp - men aren't all shaped the same, either. I see where you're coming from, though. A guy with a significant gut has fewer stylistic options of camouflaging, flattering said protuberance, than a woman does.

in my experience, all men's clothes are designed with disguising gut protuberance as top priority

but it isn't as if men can wear a-line dresses ... well, they could but ...

http://www.comic-mint.com/media/client/homer-mumu-bedroom-E1728_sml.jpg

Men's pants are sized consistently based on measurements,

ALL I HAVE TO SAY AT LOL ALREADY DIDN'T READ REST OF THREAD

GO MEASURE ANY GENDER'S PAIR OF PANTS THAT AREN'T MADE IN FRANCE, ITALY OR JAPAN AND SEE HOW THEY COMPARE TO THE LABELED SIZE, THIS ISSUE IS NOT UNIQUE TO WOMENSWEAR

but...semiotics...

yes, but the sizes refer to actual measurements, one can say, "These are supposed to be 34 inch waist pants, I have measured my waist and it is 34 inches, these pants do not fit, thus these pants are wrong."

shrink-to-fit, ding dongs

No mass-manufactured item will ever fit perfectly on anyone but that lucky person who is 'average' in every variable measurement and even then, if it's poorly done, it will still look shitty. I just mean that in the complicated process of draping two-dimensional plane around a three-dimensional body, there are added challenges, even if you factor out societal and gender expectations, when clothing women.

I generally have to get all my suits tailored to some degree or another and there are certain brands which are simply not cut for me.

my legs are too long for me

before i got a paunch it was very hard for me - a tall and, at the time, slim male - to find trousers that fit. 28" waist 34" inside leg is difficult.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vBiL4nSwNBU/SEl5Rxceg9I/AAAAAAAAADQ/hkiQIATg27A/s320/hostess_ding_dongs_300w.jpg

or

http://www.candyfavorites.com/pi/hostess-ho-hos.jpg

names are onomatopoeic representations of sound effects

The Man Who Was Shorter Than Himself

There was a man two inches shorter than himself
Who always kept getting stuck in the sidewalk;
And when the curious townsmen came
To yank his arms and crush his hat,
He'd spit in the eye of the lean,
and steal the wallets off the fat.

I guess what I'm saying, is don't trust the size marked, it varies from brand to brand and even sometimes within and you have to see how it fits.

I also wonder at your pocket/purse dynamic. I think it may be the other way around. At present, woomen have purses so why have ungainly bulges and folds in their clothing when they mostly won't put anything in there so as not to ruin the line? You could wonder why there is still a vestigial style for faux pockets, perhaps, or why women want to look sexy, but I can understand why, if they're going to carry a purs, they don't want real pockets. Otoh, I have seen quite a few summer dresses w/functional pockets this year.

this isn't really semiotics 4u anymore btw, this is like every ILS thread ever

yes, but the sizes refer to actual measurements, one can say, "These are supposed to be 34 inch waist pants, I have measured my waist and it is 34 inches, these pants do not fit, thus these pants are wrong."

― free jazz and mumia (sarahel),

AROUND 25 YEARS AGO, CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS BEGAN "VANITY SIZING". THIS IS WHY I SAY GO MEASURE A GARMENT AND COMPARE TO THE LABEL SIZE. I DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS JUST FOR FUN. LOL

THIS IS THE FIRST I'VE HEARD ABOUT VANITY SIZING TBH

Here is an interesting series of articles about how fit models work in the womens' clothing industry, which lends some support to sarahel's theories re: women's pants:
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/10/size-chart-woes/
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/17/size-chart-woes-part-ii/
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/18/size-chart-woes-part-iii-revenge-of-the-stitch/

I just have a problem with purses ... I'd end up forgetting them on public transport or in the corner at a club or something ... it's something else to keep tabs on when you're in a public place. I prefer to keep everything in pockets -- fortunately, most of the year I can wear a jacket or sweatshirt and keep things in there, but when it gets hot (like it was the past two days), it's too warm for a jacket or sweatshirt, and the pants pockets problem rears its head.

friend of mine who interned for some semi-up and coming designer last summer claimed that the guy (who only wore cargo shorts) didn't really like the idea of "fat ppl" wearing his clothes and used a fit model who was definitely too small and the clothes were all about six sizes (european) than they claimed they were. Also they just measure one person who is a real person and usually a quite skinny model whose proportions are not v. representative fyi and then add two inches to the measurements to go up each size

i don't like them either, they're a real hindrance and i hate hindrances. but i like carrying everything i own with me like a bag lady so life is hard w/o some type of bag xp

xp ha! Your story reminds me of ikea furniture -- it always seems to me that whoever designs it doesn't want people with large quantities of stuff using it. Maybe it's just the shelves ...

A lot of designers don't like the idea of fat people wearing their clothes, which is a bummer, because as a fat lady with discretionary income, I would really like to spend it on some clothes that don't look like they have been puked on by a bedazzler. Also, yes, just grading a pattern up uniformly around is pretty common, so that a size 18W blouse, for example, is cut for a giant rectangular person (and some women are shaped like giant rectangles, so this is good for them) instead someone with boobs and a waist and hips, etc. This is really a whole separate discussion than sarahel's semiotic pants, though. xp

You can tell when a manufacturer does that uniform grading thing if their larger sized shirts have like giant arm and neck holes.

When I think about people “doing semiotics at Brown” I still get a tingle down my spine

— Naomi Fry (@frynaomifry) June 22, 2018

What does a Sarahel think of ‘The Uprising’ by Berardi? Reading it in the pub atm.

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