Django Unchained — In stealing Candie’s cigarillo holder, did Django steal Candie’s soul?
The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.
The object of study in semiotics is not the signs but rather a general theory of signification; the goal of each “audit” is to build a model demonstrating how meaning is produced and received within a category or cultural territory. Signs on their own, therefore, only become truly revelatory and useful once we’ve sorted them into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.
“SMOKY SOUL” NORM: The mode of smoking can reveal a character’s authentic “soul.”
“SMOKY SOUL” FORMS: Cigars often a symbol of the upper-class “fat cat” preying on the weak. Cigarillos often a symbol of a bad-ass, a gangster — perhaps devilish, puffing smoke. Pipes often a symbol of civilization, the settled-down character, a father figure. But also a symbol of eccentricity and authority.
From a 2024 study of American West codes — as surfaced from movies, TV shows, and videogames. Semiovox collaborated with Ramona Lyons.