Semiotics Points to Ideology

From Semiotics: A Critical Science, I understood among other things that Semiotics is an informal method for revealing the ideological premises of signs. I'm referring specifically to the bottom of page 78: "We might argue that semiotics is that 'science of ideologies' suggested in revolutionary Russia. . . ." I'm also working, pretty loosely, with this from page 79: "The semiotics concerning us here uses linguistic, mathematical and logical models and joins them to the signifying practices it approaches. This junction is as theoretical as it is scientific, and therefore constitutes a profoundly ideological fact which demystifies the exactitude and 'purity' of the discourse of the so-called 'human' sciences. It [the junction of linguistic, mathematical and logical models + signifying practices] subverts the exact premises of the scientific process. . . ."

So, first, watch this video:




In order to get to the ideological premises of this video, I'll analyze the signifying practices (is this the same thing as a sign? as a series of signs? at what point, or can it be codified to this extent, does a series of signs constitute a new sign? is that determined by the reader?) using a model of analysis whose provenance remains unclear to me. Is it mathematical, linguistic, or logical? To me, the method of analysis seems like informal logic, or perhaps a social semiotics à la Kress. Here goes.

The opening scene suggests a reasonably serious Masterpiece Theater type set-up, with a familiar character from literature in a familiar setting.

The video subverts the terms usually reserved to mock and torment gay men (too dramatic, too effeminate, too bossy) and places them in a new context in which these are valued qualities. In so doing, the author points to the instability of the original meanings of these signs (in this case, the quality of voice, the gestures, and the clothes) by subverting their conventional meanings with new meanings. In this process, the authors exploit the excess, the waste that remains after conventional meanings have been established; there are always invisible meanings (in this case, positive representations of stereotypical conceptions of gay men) hovering around the established meanings. Semiotics, then, recuperates those invisible meanings by subverting the conventional meanings and in so doing destabilizes the conventional meaning.

Randy Rainbow, then, is performing a semiotic analysis of a cultural commonplace, while I am performing a semiotic analysis of his product.