The 120 days of Masterchef. Notes for a semiotics of devices

Abstract

I will highlight some aspects that unite Sadian constructions and those of the Masterchef format. I will do this using two further speeches. The first is the film “Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom”, which Pier Paolo Pasolini based on Sade's book in 1975. As Roland Barthes pointed out, Pasolini's film at the same time "takes Sade literally" and gives him a strongly political reading, building an analogical link between Sadian power mechanisms and fascism. This move will lead me to narrow my attention to “Les 120 journées de Sodome” (1785), a novel that embodies the characters of the Sadian devices.