About Me

Currently a senior at Emmanuel College hoping to have a better understanding in literary theory. Originally from Yarmouth, ME and resides in Boston, MA. Aspires to be a sports journalist in the next 5 years. Plays baseball and basketball for Emmanuel.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Baudrillard

Thank you Ken Rufo for sharing with us your understanding of Baudrillard and his theories. I wanted to take this opportunity in my blog to point out a couple of things that stuck with me while reading the entry. First of all, I found it rather interesting that Baudrillard could not really be categorized under one title. John Armitage looks at his work as a “tired form of post modernism.” Doug Kellner says he should have used his theories to more advance Marxist thought, because these ideas are the only thing worth while out of all of his contributions. From this we can take into account that Baudrillard is a difficult read, and it is hard to place his works under one specific title.

One idea from Baudillard often seen in American culture is the term sign value. Ken Rufo breaks it down very nicely for us in his post, using an example of the brand Tommy Hilfiger. This clothing line is very popular in our culture, which allows their prices to be sky high. Their merchandise is very similar to other brands, but it has that logo that makes it the best. Baudrillard had this notion early when he was more of a Marxists thinker. Sign value breaks more limitations of Marxism, explaining why these certain symbols have an effect on us. It is important to some to own certain types of products to show their style and class status as accepted.

The last concept that really struck me as interesting is the idea of television and media producing a simulation of insight instead of reality. Television has the power to speed up, slow down, pause actions for more dramatic effect. These events seen on film give us the viewers the sense of the emotions we see represented on television. When people are in a movie theater, reality seems far away once they are hooked and involved in what is being shown. Movies are great examples of simulations, because we receive artificial emotions, and translate these emotions to our own reality.

2 comments:

LP said...

Great post! I also found Baudrillard's ideas on television shaping our "reality" very interesting. One thing I wondered was if people's emotions and actions in 'real life' are influenced by television. For example, if we're watching a show like ER and someone is diagnosed with a serious illness and a friend's reaction to this news is to cry...when we hear similar bad news we feel like we are supposed to cry because of the show we watched. I don't know, it's a little weird of me to think but it is very interesting!

pelipuff said...

I thought you're post was interesting, especially when discussing the idea of television shaping our reality. Personally, after reading Baudrillards idea, it made me think of just how much I react to certain events that I see on television, and when facing that situation in real life, concidentally act in the same manner. Is this because of the fact that I have accepted this behavior to be real? Is this how i feel one should react - but was it because of human nature, or was it because of how television shaped reality.
Also it's true that people buy more for the sign value. In todays society brand names often hold more weight about a certain person's social or class standing, than it would if it was an item bought at Walmart.