Thanks for the exposition. You might be interested to know that I arrived here via the Wikipedia entry for Simulacra and Simulation (endnote 16), which references this post. I think your critique is valid in broad strokes but possibly too superficial and somewhat untroubled in its finer details. That is to say, I can understand why Baudr…
Thanks for the exposition. You might be interested to know that I arrived here via the Wikipedia entry for Simulacra and Simulation (endnote 16), which references this post. I think your critique is valid in broad strokes but possibly too superficial and somewhat untroubled in its finer details. That is to say, I can understand why Baudrillard would reject The Matrix, particularly based on some of the interviews you cite.
The quote from the interviewer that you reference is, I believe, a strong justification for Baudrillard’s rejection. The film can be seen as hypocritical because it purports to denounce the very techno-hyperreality that it simultaneously indulges in—through its fetishization of leather outfits, sunglasses, guns, choreographed fight sequences, and other cyberpunk aesthetics.
Another issue Baudrillard’s criticism raises is that the film never fully establishes—nor is it entirely clear about—the distinction between reality and unreality. Neo is "the One," which suggests that he has an inherent grasp of what is real and what is an illusion. Meanwhile, the Judas character—whose name escapes me—eats a steak and openly acknowledges that it is "not real," yet he still enjoys it. In fact, his betrayal of his comrades is driven by his preference for the world of illusion, which he considers superior to the harshness of the "real" world.
Furthermore, how do we know that what the Architect tells Neo is not a deliberate lie designed to demoralize him and the rebellion? In any case, despite the film’s attempts to blur the nature of reality, it remains clear who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are. While reality may be ambiguous, morality remains starkly black and white.
What Baudrillard may be gesturing toward in Simulacra and Simulation is something far less clear and far more unsettling than the world depicted in The Matrix. According to the Wikipedia entry (I don’t have the actual book with me), Baudrillard outlines four stages of simulation. One could argue that The Matrix films fit somewhere between Stage 2—the Platonic treatment of reality as an imperfect copy of the ideal—and Stage 3, where reality itself recedes into what Baudrillard describes as the "order of sorcery," in which all meaning is artificially conjured to reference an increasingly hermetic and self-referential "truth."
What is missing from The Matrix is Baudrillard’s fourth stage—pure simulacrum, in which there is no reality whatsoever. In this stage, even the suggestion that a 'real world' exists outside of the simulated one is dismissed as naive. Here, "signs merely reflect other signs," untethered from any underlying reality.
In short, Baudrillard’s exploration of simulation is far more profound than what The Matrix presents, and that, in itself, should not be particularly surprising.
Thanks for the exposition. You might be interested to know that I arrived here via the Wikipedia entry for Simulacra and Simulation (endnote 16), which references this post. I think your critique is valid in broad strokes but possibly too superficial and somewhat untroubled in its finer details. That is to say, I can understand why Baudrillard would reject The Matrix, particularly based on some of the interviews you cite.
The quote from the interviewer that you reference is, I believe, a strong justification for Baudrillard’s rejection. The film can be seen as hypocritical because it purports to denounce the very techno-hyperreality that it simultaneously indulges in—through its fetishization of leather outfits, sunglasses, guns, choreographed fight sequences, and other cyberpunk aesthetics.
Another issue Baudrillard’s criticism raises is that the film never fully establishes—nor is it entirely clear about—the distinction between reality and unreality. Neo is "the One," which suggests that he has an inherent grasp of what is real and what is an illusion. Meanwhile, the Judas character—whose name escapes me—eats a steak and openly acknowledges that it is "not real," yet he still enjoys it. In fact, his betrayal of his comrades is driven by his preference for the world of illusion, which he considers superior to the harshness of the "real" world.
Furthermore, how do we know that what the Architect tells Neo is not a deliberate lie designed to demoralize him and the rebellion? In any case, despite the film’s attempts to blur the nature of reality, it remains clear who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are. While reality may be ambiguous, morality remains starkly black and white.
What Baudrillard may be gesturing toward in Simulacra and Simulation is something far less clear and far more unsettling than the world depicted in The Matrix. According to the Wikipedia entry (I don’t have the actual book with me), Baudrillard outlines four stages of simulation. One could argue that The Matrix films fit somewhere between Stage 2—the Platonic treatment of reality as an imperfect copy of the ideal—and Stage 3, where reality itself recedes into what Baudrillard describes as the "order of sorcery," in which all meaning is artificially conjured to reference an increasingly hermetic and self-referential "truth."
What is missing from The Matrix is Baudrillard’s fourth stage—pure simulacrum, in which there is no reality whatsoever. In this stage, even the suggestion that a 'real world' exists outside of the simulated one is dismissed as naive. Here, "signs merely reflect other signs," untethered from any underlying reality.
In short, Baudrillard’s exploration of simulation is far more profound than what The Matrix presents, and that, in itself, should not be particularly surprising.