The Golden Arches: The gateway to democracy

    

    McDonald’s is an American icon, with those unmistakable golden arches raised to the sky to lure passerbys to stop and enjoy something to eat. While it’s literal meaning is to symbolize McDonalds, its larger meaning is that those two golden arches are the symbol of democracy and the American ideology. Here in the United States, we don’t think much about the significance of McDonalds and how the big mac can have such an influence and be a symbol of our way of life, but it does. One of the first things to be introduced into a communist nation when the American government and that nation's government are at peace and have agreed on trade is the implementation of a McDonald's franchise. Existing in China, Russia, and yes even in Cuba, the golden arches of McDonalds are the symbol of the American ideology and the infiltration of our democratic ways into these communist nations. 

Like, it is hard to believe that a fast food restaurant and their logo can have that deep a meaning and symbol for the rest of the globe. I found it really interesting diving into symbolism and meaning behind logos of corporations and how in our culture we use some of those for different meanings than how they were originally intended. The McDonalds one stood out to me the most because of the global scale that the McDonald's Corporation is on and how often it is the first sign of American influence overseas in other nations. Like the golden arches are so iconic that they are tied to almost a type of American imperialism, but of ideology and values. I think it is very rare to see a corporation like McDonalds be so closely related and identified to a country and its ideology like they are with the United States, forever being a staple in our culture and a beacon of democracy and American ideology all over the world. 

Semiology: The Rose

Sign: Giving a rose

Signifier: Red Rose

Signified: Caring, Giving a gift

Myth: Love, Valentine's Day

Giving flowers can have many connotations. Roses have become synonymous with love. Bette Midler sang a song titled The Rose.

 

Roses can also be a plea for forgiveness, a sign of caring (get well flowers, prom flowers). If you are addicted to The Bachelor series (as I am) giving and accepting the rose means a commitment to continue the relationship (at least another week.) Roses have also become the flower of choice for Valentine's day though they have nothing to do with St Valentine. 

Thinking of symbols this was was a bit of a challenge. It really makes you dissect things you see every day and look into the meaning of why we think of objects the way we do. 

Starbucks

Coffee is something that people worldwide consume. While Dunkin Donuts is a crowd favorite in New England, Starbucks is a crowd favorite worldwide. The Starbucks logo is a familiar coffee symbol. the green and white logo represents a familiar expensive cost/ taste associated coffee brand. Similar to that of the trendy Whole Foods Market shopper, often times customers will ask for a bag from Whole Foods Market with the large logo to signify that they have the money to shop at a high end, expensive grocery store. Many customers go to Starbucks not necessarily because they are fans of the coffee itself, but the image that carrying the Starbucks cup gives them as being trendy. The signifier for Starbucks would be coffee, and the signified can be explained as cool, trendy, and taste that comes along with the purchase of a Starbucks coffee. While the logo symbolizes the company, its also a reminder, or a symbol known in modern day society as “coffee”. When looking at this symbol, many don’t think “Starbucks” necessarily, but the caffeinated beverage they will be purchasing there. Starbucks is looked at quite often as superior to competitor coffee shops. Part of the reason for this, is amongst social media platforms as well as in public, we see celebrities drinking out of the Starbucks cup setting a trend. Similar to products like Apple, it’s more of a name or brand recognition rather than a quality thing. Although Starbucks is considered to be one of the leading coffee names, it’s interesting to see that they don’t seem to have a strong presence in ads or commercials. By becoming available to people throughout the world, rather than just one country, Starbucks is building their branding, the myth that Starbucks is the best of the best coffee. Over the years, the logo hasn’t changed much at all, which helps to keep the name and the brand recognizable throughout many different cultures.

McDonald's Worldwide

This week, I chose the the McDonald’s “M”, known as the golden arches, for my sign. It is signified by two yellow arches in the shape of an “M”. It signifies McDonalds, the fast food restaurant, the drive through, hamburgers, fries, and broken ice cream machines. The myth surrounding McDonald’s is immense. At the surface, it is seen as fast food, fulfillment, happiness, nostalgia, and satisfaction. Deeper, it is seen as a revolution for the way McDonald’s expanded their business all over the world. Due to its universal appearance and consistency in product, the golden arches are an example of the importance of assigning a brand to a specific logo. It creates thoughts that tie directly to the product and symbolize the globalization of the brand. 

I found it most interesting that the symbol has changed through the years. To me (and most of the world) the golden arches will always be recognizable, but there has been many changes, additions, and subtractions to the arches since their unveiling in 1968. I think the evolution of the arches is a little way for the brand to say ‘hey we’re still at the top’. There isn’t a need for change, as McDonald’s is and always will be the leader in global fast food.

 

https://www.wisdells.com/member-media/rest/mcdonalds_01.jpg

The Medical Cross

This week's lesson on semiology and symbols was very enlightening. As similarly as I am learning to take a step back and look at the "why" of enjoying video games or anime, I am now looking at different logos and signs used not only in pop culture but in every day life. I began to think about all the similar images used not just in America, but around the world, such as traffic signals that can be almost universally understood. Yet as I was searching for which one I'd like to examine more closely, I kept coming back to the universal symbol of medical personnel: the medical cross.

In America, the cross is usually synonymous with The Red Cross organization and as such is almost always displayed as red on a white background. In Europe, it is more commonly a green cross on a white background, or vise-versa, which denotes more of a pharmacy than a doctor.

Red Medical Cross logo, stylized. (image source)

The symbol itself in red and white eerily reminds people of the white cleanliness of hospitals, the sheets, gauze, uniforms, etc, but the red? Is it blood? You would think such a color would put people off, but I believe it has much more to do with the country it originated: Switzerland. In looking into the history of the symbol and the Red Cross organization, I immediately thought of combat medics. The symbol was derived from the Swiss flag after a tourist witnessed the horror and destruction while traveling abroad to Italy during the Italian unification wars.

Flag of Switzerland over the Swiss Alps. (image source)

This citizen returned home with much commentary, soon writing a memoir book of seeing almost 50,000 wounded soldiers simply left on the battlefield. His ideas evolved into a conference that formed the basis for all combat medics in the armed forces of the world, and also the basis for the Geneva Convention and it's laws about the rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners of war. Subsequently, the flag of the country that inspired such a global structure was imitated in the symbol of the organization of medics.

Combat medics of the Red Cross are clearly marked with white armbands and symbols on their helmets to denote that they are non-combatant personnel and need not be targeted by either side as they are only there to help the wounded. They assist with conflicts and disasters as an impartial third party.

World War 2 re-enactment. (source)

Even without all this history being told, if you were in a foreign place or were approached by a foreign person, and needed medical assistance, it would be very easy to use this symbol to communicate what was needed.

Historical background source: https://www.peimag.com/why-is-the-medical-symbol-for-first-aid-a-red-cross/

Gears of War's Logo

Image Source

Gears of War released in 2006 for Microsoft's Xbox 360. The soldiers in the game are referred to as "Gears", and they work for the Coalition of Ordered Governments, or C.O.G (Get it? Gears, COG? Heh.). This small amount of information is actually all we really need to make sense of their logo, a blood red skull inside of a gear.

The logo in question
Image Source

First thing's first, here's the breakdown of the logo.

Sign: Gears of War Logo

Signifier: Blood-red colored gear and skull
Signified: Gears of War series
Myth: War and death

We obviously know the sign is for the series Gears of War because it is paired with the title in the image above and on the cover art for the series. It's seen on all four of the games (Gears of War, 2, 3, and Judgment) covers, and will also be included in the upcoming Gears of War 4.

Breaking the logo down now, we can look at the signifiers. What makes this logo relevant to the game series? We know from the title and the basic premise of the game that the soldiers are the gears that make the C.O.G. operate, hence their name, and why it's present in the logo. Then we look at the word "War". War implies death, and blood. Since blood is red, we can pretty easily figure out why they colored the logo red; they want to imply that the game is bloody, and there will be violence and death. Inside of the gear, we see a skull, which we know as the symbol for death, because when a person dies and their body breaks down, left behind at the top of their skeleton is the skull (the symbolic properties of the skull could be a blog post all on its own).

By applying these three elements together in the logo, we know what the game is about before we even play it. There will be blood, and there will be death. Since this is the key element of the gameplay in the series, the logo is now synonymous with the series itself, and becomes the game's signifier.

PEACE

This week I am going to discuss the Peace Sign. The Original peace sign pictured on the left consists of a circle, a vertical line, and two downward sloping lines. This peace sign was something seen on clothing, necklaces, notebooks, and nail art in my elementary/ middle school years. Now more often we use the two fingers (index and middle) pictured on the right as the "Peace Sign." The finger peace sign became more prevalent when it was seen in the popularly known iPhone keyboard option called the Emoji. We now use the term peace as a form of a greeting. When leaving from your friends, or acquaintances often times people will hold up the peace sign with their fingers as a form of goodbye. Not only has it been seen as a greeting sign, but it is also seen in pictures for some odd reason as a pose. The cool thing to do was hold up a peace sign during a photo with a group of your friends. Many known people have been seen using this symbol like Richard Nixon, Winston Churchill, and Yasser Arafat. The peace sign was founded by a man named Gerald Herbert Holtom. Gerald Herbert Holtom worked with the Direct Action Committee (DAC) against nuclear war in 1958. The BBC quotes Gerald on what the peace sign symbolizes,  "I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad.” The sign became the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. An interesting meaning of the symbol is its ties with Satanism. A bigger idea that the sign introduce is some people believe the sign began as a symbol of satanic benediction during rituals.  The V peace sign with your index and middle finger symbolizes the meaning for the Hebrew letter for V, which is ‘Nail.’ Nail is one of the secret titles of Satan within the brotherhood of Satanism.

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.