Module 8 Example: The Sign of the Fist(Bump)

Prompt 
After watching this week's video on semiology and signs, let's take a look at signs within popular culture.  You should identify and explore a particular sign from within popular culture.  Within your post, you should do the following:

1. Identify (and include an image of) a particular symbol in popular culture.  This can be literal sign such as a logo of a company, a symbol or icon within a particular show or series (e.g. Superman's "S" or Batman's "bat" icon--though now that I've mentioned those two, you'll have to find another).  Be sure to explain where it is from (e.g. from a novel, movie, show, etc).
2. Explain within the symbol, what is the following:
1. Signification (the whole meaning)
2. Signifier (form)  
3. Signified (meaning/concept)
4. Myth (the bigger ideas that the sign introduces)
3. In doing this exercise, explain what you found interesting and new.

This will be a trickier post than previous and students should really make sure the spend sufficient time with the video to make sure they understand what it is asking. 

Relevant tags:  Semiology, signs, symbols

EXAMPLE

Source

This week, I want to talk about fist-bumps.  This form of greeting has taken hold of our culture over the last ten years and it's in interesting form of greeting, much changed from the traditional handshake.  In fact, it became part of our cultural dialogue in 2008 when President Obama fist-bumped Michelle Obama and FOX News decided it was a "terrorist fist jab,"  which encouraged the New Yorker to post the accompanying image here. 

It's clear that more is going n than a simple gesture between two humans, no?  So for this post, I'm delving into the symbolism of the fist-pump. 

So let's start!  The signification here is that it is called a "fist bump".  We use that as shorthand for what we are talking about.  The signifier--that is, the form that it takes is the meeting of the fists--the "bump" as it were.  As for what is signified--the meaning behind it all--is that it is a friendly greeting among two people who know each other.

However, the myth of this symbol is more intriguing at least for me.  The fist-bump connotes something different.  While the history of the handshake is rooted in the tradition of revealing that you are unarmed and building trust by making one's self vulnerable by approaching and coming into contact with someone, the fistbump tells a different story.  It is a closed hand meeting another closed hand in an act of symbolic violence (literally, meeting fist with fist).  In this interaction, it indicates less trust and compassion and more distance between people.  One does not open their hand to meet another but closes it and strikes this other person.  Given that its history is tied to sports, it is also indicative of an often hyper-masculine arena where signs of weakness are frowned upon.  Therefore, to meet even teammates with open hands hints at weakness.  Given this origin and its growing prevalence of the last 40 years while women have increasing asserted their rights and equality, it makes me wonder if in some ways, the fist-bump is a further attempt at maintain dominance in an increasingly diverse culture.