"You'll Be in My Heart": A Semiotic Analysis of the Representation of Parent-Child Attachment in Popular Culture (Study on Songs from Tarzan Movie)

Abstract

Music in animated films plays an important role as a narrative tool to convey cultural messages and build emotional connections between characters. The song "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins in Tarzan (1999) is a clear example of how music can deepen the emotional bond between the main character, Tarzan, and his adoptive mother, Kala. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach with Roland Barthes' semiotic analysis-including three levels of meaning: denotation, connotation, and myth-combined with John Bowlby's attachment theory to explore psychological aspects related to affection and security. The main data consisted of transcripts of song lyrics and visual scenes from the movie, while supporting data were obtained from recent literature, such as the studies of Tanzil & Andriano (2024) and Cheung, Leung & Huang (2021) that highlighted the representation of parent-child relationships in Disney popular culture. This study focuses on how song lyrics and visual elements shape emotional attachment narratives within a popular culture framework. The findings show that the song functions as an effective cultural text in articulating an inclusive family ideology, while demonstrating how popular media can be a means of learning emotional values that cross generational and cultural boundaries.