Morally Gray

Gray: the color that predominates the poster for the Soprano’s final episodes calls to mind overcast streets and hazy morals. According to Roland Barthes’ essay on The Rhetoric of the Image, that first, predominant impression is one of denotation. Denotation, the last of the three things he claims analyzed photographs provide: “a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and a noncoded iconic message.” Universally, all can observe the drab coloration, the violence of the red lettering, the serious (perhaps even menacing) expression of the man in the dark suite, the choppy waters, and – nearly universally recognized – far-off statue of liberty. In his essay, Barthes claimed “if the image contains signs, we can be sure that in advertising these signs are fully formed, with a view to optimum reading: the advertising image is frank, or at least emphatic.” Since the Soprano's poster is an ad, viewers can be sure that the composition means something. Therefore, we move to the connotative value of the image, or, the social meanings we can gather by analyzing the signs of the picture. Here is where the initial grayness of the picture can come to mean a grayness of morality/purpose. The statue of liberty – which represents America, justice, immigration and freedom – is distant, giving the sensation that perhaps law is also distance in this colorless world. The other aspect of Ellis Island can tie into the man in the foreground as well; his features suggest an Italian past and immigration. The black suite can be read to mean he has done well for himself. Combining his implied past, clothes and culture brings viewers to the stereotype of mobsterness. Connotatively, then, the picture seems to produce a vibe of lawlessness, crime, foreigner intrusion, and uncertain morals. These, however, remain uncertain, and it is the text that allows the viewer to anchor this multiplicity of options.

Barthes argues that the dominant function of the picture’s linguistic message is anchorage, since “all images are polysemous; they imply, underlying their signifies, a ‘floating chain’ of signified, the reader is able to choose some and ignore others. …Polysemy poses a question of meaning…”. Here he is saying that since there are so many ways to interpret signs, text is needed to let us know what specifically the signs want you to believe. For example, one meaning of the statue of liberty is tourism. However, the harsh, black and red text doesn’t seem to play to the idea of happy consumerism, so the code for tourism is discounted. The actual message of the text “The Final Episodes – April 8, 9pm. Made in America” serves as an anchor as well. The choice of the more sinister “final” as opposed to the buoyant “finale” adds an element of potential violence. “Made in America” parodies the omnipresent “made in china” found stamped on most American toys and consumer items. It implies a unique American experience, but it also acknowledges that we are in America – which is something that most American shows wouldn’t need to do. The presence of the easily recognizable statue should be enough to tell audiences that the location is New York, one of the most identifiable U.S. cities, so by repeating the location in the text, the overcompensation makes us additionally aware of the unmentioned foreignness. These then are Italian-Americans. They are in the U.S. now, but they weren’t always. The bloody red of this last font calls to mind gunshot wounds piercing an otherwise dark setting. The linguistic message of the picture brings all the elements together, uniting what promises to be a drama of morals and laws with action and the exoticism of recent immigrants.