For my Reaction essay on the article Simulcra and Simulations I am going to analyze Baudrillard's section of his article about hyperreal and imagery using Disney Land and real America. The problems I have with this part in his article is his definition of real America is Los Angeles. Los Angeles and real America should never be put in the same sentence with each other. When I think of real America, I think of Odessa, TX, Bayfield, CO, Stillwater, OK. I think of smaller towns that don't have the luxury of things that L.A. and Disney Land have. I am also going to discuss Baudrillards opinion of Disney Land being a place of escape for reality and not fantasy. The last thing I will be doing is analyzing Baudrillard's conveying America's profile through Disney Land.
In the section Hyperreal and Imagery he discusses social microcosm as the reason people come to Disney Land, not as a getaway but more for reality. "Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm..." (Baudrillard 4). I disagree with this, I believe the imaginary aspect is precisely what draws the crowds from all over the U.S. I believe his thinking ties in with him believing Los Angeles is real America, I could understand the point of view of his if all towns were like Los Angeles but, their not.
People from smaller towns do not get to experience the fantasy world of pirates, princesses, goblins and only get to see them on television or movies. To be able to go to Disney Land is a once in a life time experience and I believe the fantasy aspect plays a huge part in getting people to come.
"The objective profile of the United States, then, may be traced throughout Disneyland, even down to the morphology of individuals and the crowd" (Baudrillard 4). I have no idea what he was trying to convey here but I don't see how you can say that the profile of the U.S. can be traced throughout Disney Land. Disney Land is completely fiction, they even have Disney Dollars, the currency is non existent. The characters are also made up of fiction and half are animals, maybe Baudrillard was talking about how it was run. Walt Disney's corporation being similar to all the other big cities and how they run things with propoganda? Baudrillard's examples leave a lot of questions for me.
The entire article was very hard to follow and did not make a whole lot of sense to me. The only sections I could remotely follow were the Hyperreal and Imagery and the Watergate reference sections. His logic could simply be over my head but, I have tried to analyze it over and over and none of it makes much sense to me. It seems to be a bunch of opinionated ramblings with different examples that do not work well. Overall I think his article was difficult to follow and pretty senseless.
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