American Mythologies (Hardcover)

~ Marshall Blonsky (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wielding semiotic theory like a scalpel, Blonsky removes the European filter from the study of signs and slyly decodes America's multitudinous myths. He deciphers the name ok? Pepsi ("signifying nothing at all"), the Marlboro Man, Vanna White ("a version of Venus"), John Gotti, pornography and McDonald's. His dense, convoluted first-person narrative winds from the underground hell of New York City's subways to the glitzy ethereal realm of Hollywood game shows. Along the way he interviews Ted Koppel ("A television priest . . . principled and self-effacing"), Helmut Newton, Pat Robertson, Umberto Eco and Merv Griffin. Blonsky, who teaches semiotics at Manhattan's New School for Social Research, discusses horror with Stephen King in Maine, fashion with Giorgio Armani in Milan and American culture with Yevgeny Yevtushenko near Moscow. His contextual readings generate more sparks than light. Illustrated.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Powerful myths make sense of people's lives. Blonsky's myths involve speed, sex, and possession--manifestations of "energy," "the new name for God." According to Blonsky, people with enough energy are supposed to find themselves (the modern salvation). Television projects us into these myths through performers like Vanna White, who become everything to everybody by seeming to be both perfect and nothing in themselves, and figures like Ted Koppel who, equally hostile to everyone, can be the vehicles of all dislikes. Blonsky joins the mythmakers in a series of interviews--themselves speedy and blurred--that tell us more about him than about his subjects. A semiotician who has taught at several colleges, Blonsky gave up books to confront reality in TV studios, porn shows, ad agencies, and lectures by Umberto Eco. But he avoids Iowa pig farms, Harvard classrooms, and Quaker meetings, where his myths might have come unstuck. White teases him by suggesting that his myths are more enjoyed than believed, and readers will probably agree.
- Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1st Edition. edition (July 16, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195050622
• ISBN-13: 978-0195050622
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,908,739 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Rorty is Sporty, but Blonsky is the Bombsky, June 10, 2003

By	Michael Bowen "cobb_at_mdcbowen_dot_org" (Redondo Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Happy millionaires, floating above money. Tastemakers and models where the substance of sign are widgets produced from the mysteries of Eurocentric sytle. Even anti-stye is currency spoken at the proper moment. Castles in the sky held up by anti-gravity - the collective will of the subordinate and subordinated who dare not look the other way. Whether it is the act of looking away or looking as in appearing the Other way, those in thrall refuse to ignore the central process, their ennobling whitewash without which they become the non-audience, those left outside the theater of the West.

Marshall Blonsky, in American Mythologies, examines the symbolic discourse between the performers and the performed upon as if to examine the state of the ceiling in the house whose walls have already collapsed. Yet it remains a valid work because while we all stand in the cold ruins, the ceiling remains frozen in mid-air suspended like our disbelief, while from its reflections we measure our steps. As intellectual excavator and personal ruminator par excellence, Blonsky will become the McLuhan of the 21st Century.

5.0 out of 5 stars mi primera introduccion a la semiotica, June 13, 2000

By	Luis Méndez (Republica Dominicana) - See all my reviews

Con este libro, el cual no entendi hasta mucho mas tarde como con algunas grandes obras, tuve mi primer gran encuentro con la semiotica, el estudio de los simbolos, y fue tambien la primera vez que lei a umberto eco. me gusto mucho su descripcion de una silla y de sus diferentes significados dependiendo de muchos factores. este libro trata de analizar la cultura norteamericana, la simbologia, el pop art, usando la semiotica y lo hace de una manera magistral aunque a veces no es muy clara.

excelente lectura. LUIS MENDEZ [e-mail]