The Commodified 23, or, Michael Jordan as Text

Abstract

Semiotics is employed in an examination of Michael Jordan (the signified) and his uniform number (the signifier). A systematic comparative framework is used to limit the potentially infinite multiplicity of interpretants. Its themes are the way Jordan expresses the modernity-postmodernity division and is, himself an aspect of this cultural characterization. Seven diacritical alternatives are considered: (a) secularism versus immanence; (b) bureaucratization versus decanonization; (c) equality versus diversity; (d) rationality versus intensities; (e) obsession with records versus spectacles; (f) quantification versus fragmentation; and, (g) specialization versus commodification. Treating Jordan as text, as postmodern athlete archetype, leads to a consideration of the commodification of his number, a process in which Jordan himself is transformed into a salable commodity.