Truman In A Capitalist World

#Hyperreality
'Grand narratives', according to Lyotard and Baudrillard were the dominant ideas that people claim as truth, they believed these grand narratives should be deconstructed, and so should the idea of reality.

Hyperreality is the situation when the simulation of reality seems more real than the reality itself. “We can say that hyperreality relies on a form than content”- Jean Baudrillard. It is "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality". He believed that it not only modifies the definition of the original object, but sometimes make an entire thing, which doesn’t exist in real life.

Two concepts have been given by Jean Baudrillard to understand the concept of Hyperreality, they are Simulation and Simulacrum. The former is characterised by our inability to distinguish between what is real from what is not, “It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.” He suggests that it does not take place in our physical realm. It happens within ourselves and makes us high on the feeling that we normally experience while encountering reality. The latter, Simulacrum can be a characterised as an amalgamation of reality and representation, is not a copy of something but is an entirely different thing all together. He gives the example of Disney Land and how it has both the representation of something real and an atmosphere to engage with it. Baudrillard created four steps through which we can analyse reproduction- Basic reflection of reality; Perversion of reality; Pretence of reality; and then simulacrum, which is dissimilar to reality entirely.

The Truman show is a science fiction film, directed by Peter Weir. The plot is, Truman, a man who thinks that he has been living a normal life, starts doubting the veracity of this particular fact, but due to unavailability of the contrary evidence, he continues his life under it. The other film that shows closest resemblance to the work of Baudrillard is Wachowski Brothers’ classic The Matrix, it seems like an allegory of the work of Jean Baudrillard. The movie even refers to it by showing in an early scene Neo to have some secrete stash stored in the book Simulation and Simulacra.

The films deal with many themes, one that stood out is the theme of Hyperreality.

Both movies try to show us how easy it is, to be under an influence of a grand and the veil it covers you, which unable you to see the narrative itself or at least not to question it. In Truman Show, Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol make us feel through Truman the presence of a grand narrative.

#Significance
It is widely believed that in a not so distance future we will be drowned in cosmic ocean of Hyperreality and will often won't care about the differences between what is real and what is not. This period is not in a very distant future, but now. Hyperreality can be interpret essentially as a critique of Capitalism by revealing the unintended consequences of Consumerism. Instead of consumers being in control of everything, it the capitalists who are in true control, consumers have become a part and product of the Capitalistic society itself, and the corporate society uses the media to forge the truth (hyperreality).

We define ourselves by things we possess, in our society, we idealise figures (simulacrum), the possible purpose scholars draw for this idealisation is to make us into an essential working tool in the machine that is Capitalism.

This post-modern concept not unlike other such concepts, it exerts effort to make us more aware about the meta narratives under which we are living. While watching a movie the purpose it to make it into an immersive experience, however in the cases of movies that deals with concept of reality, the viewer is conveyed earlier as to the fact that the movie is not real, by looking a movie from a meta view, it redeems its purpose.

#References
“Of Simulation and Simulacra: Baudrillard in The Matrix”, available at https://www.matrixfans.net/symbolism-philosophy-and-allegory/of-simulation-and-simulacra-baudrillard-in-the-matrix/

Butler C (2002) Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford.

John T, Terashima N (2005) Paradigm for the third millennium.
Hyperreality.