Simulacra and Simulations

After reading the article Simulacra and Simulations I was very pissed off. I thought to myself, what is the point of this, what the hell is the author trying to explain, and was the author on drugs when he wrote this.

Baudrillard’s idea that the real is no longer real it is hyper real makes no sense to me. I read the paragraph over and over again, but still got nothing out of it. In fact, I couldn’t find any logic in any of Baudrillard’s ideas. At the end of one paragraph Baudrillard writes, “Dreams already our” (2). This in no way relates to anything that he was stating in the paragraph.

Baudrillard idea that Disneyland is presented as imaginary to make the public believe that the rest of the world is real is completely stupid. Disneyland is a real place, just because Disneyland uses ideas from the imagination doesn’t mean that it is unreal. Baudrillard continues to explain that Los Angeles just like Disneyland is not real because, of the presence of the movie industry. This idea is ridiculous I don’t know if Baudrillard had ever been to Los Angeles, but the movie industry is not the only thing there. They’re poor people, businessman, junkies, and every other type of person imaginable. So therefore the presence of normal people along with the movie industry makes Los Angeles real.

Baudrillard idea that Watergate wasn’t a scandal, just as every other idea in the article made no sense. I couldn’t find one piece of logic in this idea. Baudrillard believes that Watergate would only be considered a scandal if it was part of a superstructure. Well for one America is a superstructure, our government is a superstructure. So therefore, Watergate did happen because we are part of a superstructure. In the next paragraph Baudrillard goes on to discuss that the panic and distrust created by Watergate is because of capital. Well I wonder if Baudrillard meant capitalism (because he discusses the government) if so, Watergate would still be considered a scandal if we lived in a socialist, Marxist, or even communist society.

After reading the article I had pretty much no understanding of it. I felt that it was a waste of time and pointless to try and figure out the meaning of it. However, I thought that there must be an important purpose behind it, just as there is behind most academic writings. So I decided to look up some information about the author, and the book that the article is from. I found out that Baudrillard was a French philosopher, and that his book along with this article was translated from French. Well this explains all the grammatical errors in the article. Also it may be one of the reasons why I could find no logic in the article. As a French student I have realized that it is completely impossible to give every French word and American equal. Therefore, this explains why I was unable to understand the article.