Roland Barthes: Myths

Their function is to naturalize the cultural - in other words, to make dominant cultural and historical values, attitudes and beliefs seem entirely 'natural', 'normal', self-evident, timeless obvious 'common-sense' - and thus objective and 'true' reflections of 'the way things are'

- Taken from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

I am going to try an apply the concept of myth to this advertisement.

Language system: Signifier - The picture of the shoe.

Signified - The picture of the shoe is made to look as if it's falling from a great height at a very high speed.

Sign - The image is instantly associated with a falling meteor

Myth: Signified - This shoe is falling to, say, earth. Nothing can stop it (It's already been made, and it's very quick - which is in itself a selling point)

Signification - Unlike an ordinary meteor, this shoe has a destination; shops, which ultimately means the consumer's feet.