Analysis: Heroes And Villain

1. What Barthes meant by this “myth” that he speaks of, is that we can see this “myth” happening in the photograph “ Heroes and villain”. When looking at this image, you should think who is the hero and who is the villain (Hall 1997:226). One potential message relates to the ethnic group identity, all of the athletes within this image are from a distinct racial group. What you can see in this image, is Ben Johnson ‘winning’ the gold medal yet this is not necessarily what had happened in reality as Ben Johnson himself was found guilty of taking illegal drug to enhance his performance in the race, therefore the gold medal was rightfully rewarded to Carl Lewis.

As for looking at the photograph one can truly say that it holds ‘myth’ as what you see might not always reflect the truth (Hall 1997: 226). Therefore you do not have to be white nor black to be a hero or a villain,
The three crucial encounters that included the 16th century, Firstly there was communication between the European traders and the West African kingdoms, this provided a birthplace of black slaves that continued for three more centuries onwards (Fredrickson, 1987: 93). Secondly when the Europeans colonized Africa, a great struggle came upon the Europeans and the Africans through their power and the control of the colonial territory (McClintock 1995: 89). The third scenario was when migrations started happening within post World War II, the migrations cam from the “Third world” into North America and Europe (Hall, 1997: 89).

8. The theory that has been applied to Culture/Nature differs from black and white. It was said that culture opposed Nature, whilst the black ethnic group assumed that culture coincides with Nature. Within the developed side of Culture/Nature it is believed that the white ethnic group developed the theory of Culture subduing and overcoming Nature, Thus the black ethnic group developed theory was that Culture and Nature were indistinguishable (Frederickson, 1987: