Commodified Identities: The Myth of Italian Food in the United States

Abstract

This study approaches the phenomenon of ethnic food—in particular, Italian food—from a semiotic perspective, keeping in mind the notion of food as communication. The restaurant chain Fazoli’s is used to exemplify some of the communicative strategies employed to promote the association of a company and its products with Italy. These communicative strategies serve the ultimate goal of commodifying the Italian ethnic identity and promoting its symbolic consumption. Through a semiotic analysis, the article identifies a core group of seven themes that constitute the basic structure of the myth of Italian food in the United States. The analysis highlights an unobtrusive use of stereotypes, a mass phenomenon of identity construction, and the depletion of a cultural capital. At the same time, it is recognized that the myth has some positive aspects—namely, the celebration of personal relations (romance and family) and the enjoyment of a more expressive and slow-paced lifestyle.

Keywords

Italian food Italian restaurants Italian identity identity construction semiotics postmodernism Barthes’s theory of myth Barthes’s theory of signs consumer culture commodity-sign visual communication stereotypes

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