Words and pictures

No better photos captured the political tension and denounced the injustice in Brazil of fifty years ago than the historical black-and-white series made by the photojournalist Evandro Teixeira: “1968: A Passeata dos Cem Mil” [translation: The March of the 100 Thousand).

The Portuguese text on the banner seen on the picture raised by some of the protesters says: “Down with the dictatorship – people on power”, became one of the most used slogans for decades during the military government phase of Brazil in the fights against the oppression.

Considering Barthes’s concept, it constitutes a parasitic message on the image.

“… the text constitutes a parasitic message designed to connote the [photographic] image, to ‘quicken’ it with one or more second-order signifieds. In other words, and this is an important historical reversal, the image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image.” (BARTHES, 1977: 25)

BARTHES, R. 1977. Image – Music – Text. London: Fontana.