Poor, poor Joseph, what'cha gonna do? Things look bad for you, hey, what'cha gonna do?

The poster has certainly caused some consternation in the Christian ranks.
Actually, the poster allows me to introduce an interesting topic - well interesting to me anyhooo.

SEMIOTICS

Semiotics is the study of how meaning in constructed through signs and symbols.

Signs and symbols include things like "ordinary language", logos, and pictures. The semiotics of traffic lights are fairly obvious.

Now those who rant and rave about the above poster, don't really appreciate semiotics.

The poster has a number of elements that contribute to its meaning: The words, the pictures, the relationship of the words to the pictures.

But there are other issues as well. The viewer/reader brings his/her own understandings to the interpretation.

Also the poster exists within larger contexts of culture and a range of other texts - the main one being the Bible.

So the first thing that must be said is that interpretations will be many and varied.

And that is precisely why this poster is of value at this time of year. It promotes discussion. It sidelines santa!

However, look at the semiotics of this next image!

How might it be interpreted?

And this last one from Japan.