Roland Barthes, “Operation Margarine,” in Mythologies. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972): 41-42. 

            To instill in the Established Order the complacent portrayal of its drawbacks has nowadays become a paradoxical but incontrovertible means of exalting it.  Here is the pattern of this new-style demonstration: take the established value which you want to restore or develop, and first lavishly display its pettiness, the injustices it produces, the vexations to which it gives rise, and plunge in into its natural imperfection; then, at the last moment, save it in spite of itself, or rather by the heavy curs of its blemishes.  Some examples?  There is no lack of them.

            Take the Army; show without disguise its chiefs as martinets, its discipline as narrow-minded and unfair, and into this stupid tyranny immerse an average human being, fallible but likeable, the archetype of the spectator.  And then, at the last moment, turn over the magical hat, and pull out of it the image of an army, flags flying, triumphant, bewitching, to which, like Sganarelle’s wife, one cannot but be faithful although beaten (From Here to Eternity).

            Take the Army again: lay down as a basic principle the scientific fanaticism of its engineers, and their blindness; show all that is destroyed by such a pitiless rigour: human beings, couples.  And then bring out the flay, save the army in the name of progress, hitch the greatness of the former to the triumph of the latter (Les Cyclones, by Jules Roy).

            Finally, the Church: speak with burning zeal about its self-righteousness, the narrow-mindedness of its bigots, indicate that all this can be murderous, hide none of the weaknesses of the faith.  And then, in extremis, hint that the letter of the law, however unattractive, is a way to salvation for its very victims, and so justify moral austerity by the saintliness of those whom it crushes (The Living Room, by Graham Greene).

            It is a kind of homeopathy: one cures doubts about the Church or the Army by the very ills of the Church and the Army.  One inoculates the public with a contingent evil to prevent or cure an essential one.  To rebel against the inhumanity of the Established Order and its values, according to this way of thinking, is an illness which is common, natural, forgivable; one must not collide with it head-on, but rather exorcise it like a possession: the patient is made to give a representation of his illness, he is made familiar with the very appearance of his revolt, and this revolt disappears all the more surely since, once at a distance and the object of a gaze, the Established Order is no longer anything but a Manichaean compound and therefore inevitable, one which wins on both counts, and is therefore beneficial.  The immanent evil of enslavement is redeemed by the transcendent good of religion, fatherland, the Church, etc.  A little “confessed” evil saves one from acknowledging a lot of hidden evil.

            One can trace in advertising a narrative pattern which clearly shows the working of this new vaccine.  It is found in the publicity of Astra magazine.  The episode always begins with a cry of indignation against margarine:  “A mousse?  Made with margarine?  Unthinkable!”  “ Margarine?  Your uncle will be furious!”  And then one’s eyes are opened, one’s conscience becomes more pliable, and margarine is a delicious food, tasty, digestible, economical, useful in all circumstances.  The moral at the end is well known: “Here you are, rid of a prejudice which cost you dearly!”  It is in the same way that the Established Order relieves you of your progressive prejudices.  The Army, and absolute value?  It is unthinkable:  look at its vexations, its strictness, its always  possible blindness of its chiefs.  The Church, infallible?  Alas, it is very doubtful: look at its bigots, its powerless priests, its murderous conformism.  And then “common sense” makes its reckoning: what is this trifling dross of Order, compared with its advantages?  It is well worth the price of immunization.  What does it matter, after all, if margarine is just fat, when it goes further than butter, and costs less?  What does it matter, after all, if Order is a little brutal or a little blind, when it allows us to live cheaply?  Here we are, in our turn, rid of a prejudice which cost us dearly, too dearly, which cost us too much in scruples, in revolt, in fights, and in solitude. 

 Roland Barthes, “Soap-Powders and Detergents,” from Mythologies, pp.36-38. 

            The first World Detergent Congress (Paris, September 1954) had the effect of authorizing the world to yield to Omo euphoria: not only do detergents have no harmful effect on the skin, but they can even perhaps save miners from silicosis. These products have been in the last few years the object of such massive advertising that they now belong to a region of French daily life which the various types of psycho-analysis would do well to pay some attention to if they wish to keep up to date.  One could then usefully contrast the psycho-analysis of purifying fluids (chlorinated, for example) with that of soap-powders (Lux, Persil) or that of detergents (Omo).  The relations between the evil and the cure, between dirt and a given product, are very different in each case.

            Chlorinated fluids, for instance, have always been experienced as a sort of liquid fire, the action of which must be carefully estimated, otherwise the object itself would be affected, “burnt.”  The implicit legend of this type of product rests on the idea of a violent, abrasive modification of matter: the connotations are of a chemical or mutilating type: the product “kills” the dirt.  Powders, on the contrary, are separating agents: their ideal role is to liberate the object from its circumstantial imperfection: dirt is “forced out” and no longer killed; in the Omo imagery, dirt is a diminutive enemy, stunted and black, which takes to its heels from the fine immaculate linen at the sole threat of judgment from Omo.  Products based on chlorine and ammonia are without doubt the representatives of a kind of absolute fire, a savior but a blind one.  Powders, on the contrary, are selective, they push, keeping public order not making war.  This distinction has ethnographic correlatives: the chemical fluid is an extension of the washerwoman’s movements when she beats the clothes, while powders rather replace those of the housewife pressing and rolling the wash against a sloping board.

            But even in the category of powders, one must in addition oppose against advertisements based on psychology those based on psycho-analysis (I use this work without reference to any specific school).   “Persil Whiteness,” for instance, bases its prestige on the evidence of the result; it calls into play vanity, a social concern with appearances, by offering for comparison two objects, one of which is whiter than the other.  Advertisements for Omo also indicate the effect of the product (and in superlative fashion, incidentally), but they chiefly reveal its mode of action; in doing so, they involve the consumer in a kind of direct experience of the substance, make him the accomplice of a liberation rather than the mere beneficiary of a result; matter here is endowed with value-bearing states.

            Omo uses two of these, which are rather novel in the category of detergents: the deep and the foamy.  To say that Omo cleans in depth (see the Cinéma-Publicité advertisement) is to assume that linen is deep which no one had previously thought, and this unquestionably results in exalting it, by establishing it as an object favorable to those obscure tendencies to enfold and caress which are found in every human body.  As for foam, it is well known that it signifies luxury.  To begin with, it appears to lack any usefulness; then, its abundant, easy, almost infinite proliferation allows one to suppose there is in the substance from which it issues a vigorous germ, a healthy and powerful essence, a great wealth of active elements in a small original volume.  Finally, it gratifies in the consumer a tendency to imagine matter as something airy, with which contact is effected in a mode both light and vertical, which is sought after like that of happiness either in the gustatory category (foie gras, entremets, wines), in that of clothing (muslin, tulle), or that of soaps (film star in her bath).  Foam can even be the sign of a certain spirituality, inasmuch as the spirit has the reputation of being able to make something out of nothing, a large surface of effects out of a small volume of causes (creams have a very different “psycho-analytical” meaning, of a soothing kind: they suppress wrinkles, pain, smarting, etc.).  What matters is the art of having disguised the abrasive function of the detergent under the delicious image of a substance at once deep and airy which can govern the molecular order of the material without damaging it.  A euphoria, incidentally, which must not make us forget that there is one plane on which Persil and Omo are one and the same: the plane of the Anglo-Dutch [multinational corporation] Unilever.