Barthes Takes a Trip to Epcot Centre
In his essay “Myth Today,” Roland Barthes defines myth as a type of speech, a system of communication, and in particular as a message.1 Barthes elaborates on this point to further explain that myth cannot be an object, but that it is associated with form, and how we receive the messages associated with signs via signification. Expanding upon Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist anthropology, Barthes developed an approach to pop culture analysis through his theory that myth is a second-order semiological system—a semiological chain in which a sign in the primary system becomes a “mere signifier” in the secondary system.2 John Storey notes that Barthes utilizes Saussure’s schema of “singnifier/signified = sign” and adds a second level of signification.3 The result is a tridimensional pattern that emerges consisting of the signifier, the signified, and the sign.
Looking at an image of the Canadian Pavilion at Walt Disney’s Epcot Centre, we can apply Barthes’ methodology to identify the signs that are present along with ideological assumptions that are conjured in association with a display intended to depict Canada’s essence. Taken from a low angle, the photograph accentuates the foreground and deemphasizes the colonial structure off in the distance. By using this particular angle to frame the shot, the photographer has placed the “Northwest Mercantile” outpost as most significant, followed by an array of west coast indigenous art, and finally—off in the distance—the Chateau Laurier is seen poking out from beyond a backdrop of trees. Sectioned off by a staircase, the Chateau Laurier becomes isolated and is quietly removed from the attention focused upon the frontier style building of “Northwest Mercantile.”
Three signs are used to create the caricature of Canada seen in the Epcot pavilion: they are the “Northwest Mercantile” outpost; the west coast indigenous art; and the Chateau Laurier. The first two carry an aura of rustic primitiveness that is used to signify an experience of the northwestern frontier, and the third portrays a firmly established colonial presence with the iconic French-Gothic Chateauesque CNR luxury hotel that compliments Canada’s Parliament buildings in the nation’s capital, Ottawa. Barthes notes that: “myth hides nothing: its function is to distort, not to make disappear.”4 A long legacy of colonial atrocities that arose from conflict between Europeans and Canada’s indigenous peoples is brushed aside in favour of celebrating the primitive heritage of the country’s “first nations” through the “Disneyfication” of their art. I can even imagine life-sized costumed characters dressed as the Seven Dwarfs dancing merrily out of “Northwest Mercantile” with their pick-axes in tow in such comical fashion as may be inferred from the image of the pavilion.
While Northwest Mercantile and the west coast indigenous art are part of a historically accurate frontier narrative derived from late 19th century gold rush experiences within British Columbia, ideologically they are associated with the tourism of Canada by way of train signified by the inclusion of an iconoclastic CN luxury hotel—the Chateau Laurier. Ultimately this image serves up accurate history that is distorted by the feel-good myth of a Disney-styled post card. In this way the myth of the great outdoors or the rustic primitive associated with Canada continue to endure.