journal 1

review link

 The image I chose is from my website, featuring a new ratings system at the end of my reviews, featuring a small drawing next to a “_/10”. This is sort of me taking the piss out of typical review scores found in larger game reviews from gaming sites /youtubers, instead of displaying a number score at the end using an image to further encapsulate my feelings toward a game in a way that felt truer than a number. I was inspired in part by old Nintendo Power ratings which similarly rated games using these little  doctor’s office “how do you feel”  type of faces, as well as a youtuber who shall go unnamed, who rated things using comparisons out of ten (I remember he gave sonic adventure 2 a “bowl of lucky charms out of ten” due to some parts of the game being “like the marshmallow parts” and some being “the regular cereal part”), which I always really said more about a game than numbers or stars.  I say “taking the piss out of” partly because people tend to bring their own interpretations to those numbers which I find fascinating, whether a 7/10 is devastating or pretty good, is all based on the reviewer’s tendencies and viewers cultural upbringing.
This takes us to Barthes and the literal/ denoted and symbolic/ connoted, the image here is literally symbolic, the initial message, as mentioned above, is a parody of typical review scores, that most people will likely recognize signifiers of. But worth noting that it’s related to and taken from a line in the text, is comparable to the ideas of anchorage (especially in relation to text or diegesis like in comics).

“The denominative function corresponds exactly to an anchorage of all the possible (denoted) meanings of the object by recourse to a nomenclature… helps me to choose the correct level of perception, permits me to focus not simply my gaze but also my understanding.”

“Anchorage is a control, bearing a responsibility – in the face of the projective power of pictures”

“Here text (most often a snatch of dialogue) and image stand in a complementary relationship; the words, in the same way as the images, are fragments of a more general syntagm and the unity of the message is realized at a higher level”

It is innately tied to a text that connects and carries the rhetoric through itself, a sad clown is representational of traditionally, themes of contradiction, the clown, an entertainer is seen contrasting his cheerful outfit with a depressing look,  we can therefore infer the intended message here, so while it is initially an absurd parody, the idea that something can be scored as a sad clown, it does also accurately reflect the emotions the review is trying to give.