Pink Floyd and Signifer/Signified

Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss professor of linguistics, was the primary contributor in laying down the foundation for the signifier/signified theory and the relationship between signs. French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, have further contributed to this theory of deconstructing language in their studies of the genesis of signs and the structure of language itself. However, what is the most interesting part, I think, about signifier and signified is not trying to understand where it comes from, but its dependence on social and cultural aspects. It is completely tied in with both the development and the following of practices and norms, because if as Derrida makes clear in Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, there are multiple meanings to every sign, many of which aren't completely universal.

So, how do we know that when we are referring to a particular object or idea, that the person we are speaking to understands exactly what we are referencing? Something like that comes with familiarity from within our own culture and generation. If I speak to an American, chances are they aren't going to understand some signifying words that I am referencing. But when I am speaking to a Bahamian - for example, when giving directions I'd say, "you know, over by thingum them," - they understand that I am referring not just to one particular individual (which is odd enough, basically calling someone a thing), but often they know exactly who I am talking about, from existing references directing them in the conversation. Another examples is the use of the word "trolley". When I use that word in the Bahamas, the signified that I am thinking of is the object I collect my groceries in at the food store. But when I mention it in the Minnesota, they will think I am referring to something like a rail in San Francisco. The problem is that I don't know what meaning to take it for, if I hear it, until I take into account who I am speaking to. Derrida is obviously right - signifiers have an unlimited chain of references. But, we can limit their meanings, and thus understand what is being said, if we place ourselves in the culture or time period context that it is being used in.

Nazi Hammers

Sometimes that is not enough though. Knowing what context the signifier is being placed in will not always tell you the meaning - further analysis is necessary. Such an example is present in work done by the famous band Pink Floyd. Their movie The Wall shows how signified/signifier is flawed by providing signifiers that do not match it's signified in any sense, until we have properly analyzed the case.

In a clip from their music video, Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 above, there are a set of hammers which are marching in unified form. Under closer inspection, when we watch the video, we notice than the hammers are marching in the same structure and formation as the Nazis in their very real marches during World War II. However, when someone sees a hammer, they don't think of Nazis (at least... I should think they wouldn't) - the reference doesn't match. So, what do we do?

The rest of the video shows us that the teachers become the hammers at one point. They "hammer" these students into becoming exactly the same, into this unity and lack of individuality, so that they are "just another brick in the wall". That's when the hammers multiply, and they become this neo-Nazi symbol. They march like Nazis and represent this uniformity in society at that point and time, which demonstrates the same lack of individualism that each Nazi (and in this case, citizen) was supposed to have, because in that lack of identity, we follow whatever a leader is telling us in search for direction. Further, the group uses the hammer as a logo in the same way that the Nazis used the swastika. Perhaps what Pink Floyd is getting at when there are not soldiers marching, but actually hammers marching, that the people have lost so much of their individuality, that they are now just logos without any distinguishing factors. Something that should have no meaning in relevance to dictatorship at all, has become Pink Floyd's version of a neo-nazi symbol. Just as the letter A in the Scarlet Letter did not fulfill its purpose, other signs have a way of fulfilling a different meaning as well.