Semiology deals with the combination of signs to create a meaning. These signs come together to create a myth that often times form the ideology of our culture. In this image you can see many signs as to where or who Jordan is at this point in the film. A sign is "the basic unit of language." (Rose, 113) The sign is made up of two different parts, the signified and the signifier. "The signified is a concept or an object." The signifier comes in to complete the signified and to create a sign. The signifier is "a sound or an image that is attached to a signified." (Rose, 113) In this image when Jordan was learning how to survive in the stockbroking world as described by a mentor, his facial expression becomes a sign. In the unfocused part of this image, you see people sitting at tables in very nice suits raising glasses in a cheerful way. The room is lit by the sunlight from the open windows. It is possible to make out some buildings outside. These people in nice suits coming together create a sign of business. It gives the audience a feeling of an environment of people who participate in lucrative endeavors. The sun light and view over the city creates a feeling of an expensive restaurant, probably close enough for stockbrokers from Wall Street to walk to on their lunch break during a busy day. Here, Jordan is in a suit, blending in with the people in his surroundings. But his face creates a sign that separates him from the rest of the room. We see his face, which is signified, but his facial expressions becomes the signifier. He seems as if he is distressed by the information that he is being told. At this point, his mentor, who serves as the image, is telling him how to survive in this business, and what he was being told seemed foreign to him. He was shocked to hear that he should masturbate at least twice a day and use cocaine to survive. Although the way his mentor is acting is very odd,( humming an unknown tune and pounding his chest with his fist) everyone around them seems to see it as normal. Jordan, in this scene, looks behind him to see if other people's attention is being drawn to them, but that wasn't the case. This scene shows Jordan's innocence at this time and foreshadows his possible future if he continues down this unorthodox path. The changes on his face as he listens to, watches, and then joins his mentor in chest pounding, illustrate the increasing Comfortability with what was once foreign. The fantasy is beginning.
 The transition from twenty five year old Jordan to the Jordan in this scene is very dramatic. The power has shifted. Jordan was once thrown off by his mentors ways, but now his old mentor could easily idolize Jordan, as he has magnified the mentor's original guidance by a thousand. As you can see in this image, Jordan is venturing through a hotel room that looks as if a group of animals stampeded through it after his bachelor party. We see three of the main characters in this scene and three women who are exposed. Jordan walks through all of these people, destroyed furniture and drugs to look out the window. He is the naked along with the rest of the people in the shot. We can assume that he has engaged in the sexual acts along with the rest of the people in the room since everyone is naked and a lot of embracing is happening. He looks to be observing all that was done and taking it all in. Two women who we can assume are prostitutes through the signs of their shows like undergarments lay on the floor,, while two of Jordan's men are sandwiching a prostitute on the couch. The lingerie serves as a sign that the prostitutes are expensive. The man on the left is asleep with only his sunglasses and his boots on, while holding the head of his friend who is on the right side of the prostitute. The friend on the right side of the prostitute is asleep, gripping the arm of his friend whose arms are wrapped around his head and upper body. The two friends could have possibly both engaged in a sexual act with this woman. The sunglasses can mean they started early in the day and partied all night. Jordan seems to pay no attention to this mess that is created, nor the odd positioning of the nude sleeping bodies. This scene also portrays fetishistic scopophilia."This is when the female figure is represented simply as a beautiful object." (Rose, 161) These women are here purely for visual pleasure. They are scattered around the room and on the floor as if they are objects. The prostitutes have no role/purpose in this film besides pleasing the men in power. From viewing this image, you can tell that Jordan has been completely altered from his younger self. He is no longer the twenty-five year old who is checking to see if the people in the restaurant find what his mentor is doing is out of the ordinary. He has evolved and now his morals have completely shifted. This scene creates an ideology that makes everything that is going on okay. This scene represents a myth that is seemingly commonly accepted in this era and environment. "Myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters the message." (Barthes, 1973: 117) This scene makes up the myth that a bachelor party is meant to have tons of prostitutes, multiple types of drug use, and an orgy comprised of your closest friends and the top end prostitutes you hire. It makes it seem as if losing all conditioning of how to behave in a place you don't own is normal. Jordan is informed that the use of hookers and cocaine is necessary to survive in this business and he has accepted that, and has now become addicted, both to power, represented in this scene by the lavish hotel room and the prostitutes whom he has bought, and to drugs. The window serves as a metaphor for the mirror stage, as he stands alone before it in the midst of the fall out. He can see through the window, but also sees a reflection of the room. He can identify with his reflection, but is also connecting all of the people and the room with reality. This scene could very easily be fantasized by a male audience member. "At the most basic level, fantasy can be defined as literature which contains elements that do not or cannot exist in reality." (Fitzgerald, 3) This scene can easily position the viewers to want or fantasize about it. Scenes like this and the airplane orgy that happens on the airplane previous to this scene are most likely impossible now, although are based on the realities of this era. |