One thing I found very interesting was Baudrillard’s comparison between Disneyland and Watergate. Baudrillard makes this comparison on page 462 saying, “Watergate. The same scenario as in Disneyland (effect of the imaginary concealing that reality no more exists outside that inside the limits of the artificial perimeter): here the scandal effect hiding that there is no difference between the facts ad their denunciation …” I think I clearly understood what Baudrillard was saying about Disneyland but was a little bit more confused about what she was saying about Watergate. I see how it can be viewed that by having theme parks outside of LA such as Disneyland society then is able to categorize the theme parks as “imaginary” since and the city where people actually live their lives as “real.” I thought this was a very interesting way of thinking about this. Just because people live in LA does it make it real? It surely strays far from the model capitalist city where commodities are produced in the forms of goods and sold based on the cost of the labor power and cost of raw materials used to produce them. In LA it can be argued that art is the main commodity that drives their economy. There is no scientific or mathematical way to figure out how much one’s talent is worth or the value of a film. This causes LA to stray from capitalism and what some may think to be “real.”
Bringing this back to the original quote, how does this correlate to Watergate? It is my understanding that Baudrillard is arguing that The Washington Post used Watergate to try and prove they were socially and politically moral. By reporting inside information they had against the president to the rest of America they wanted American’s to believe that they were truly looking out for the rest of society. Baudrillard went on to say that this was not necessarily true but they were trying to use this one news story to prove their integrity. By them saying that Watergate was a scandal they wanted readers to believe that they would always tell the truth and in the future they would be able to cover up scandals and no one would realize just as LA can use Disneyland to give visitors an idea or what is real and what is imaginary. I believe, and I think Baudrillard would agree, that as long as there is capitalism the media and the government will be controlled those who have the financial power to control them.
Baudrillard goes on to say that, “Capital was never linked by a contract to the society that it dominates.” She is saying that leftists keep blaming capitalism for causing immoral issues in society but that capitalism just emerged out of necessity and rules did not immerge with it at the beginning. After just finishing studying Marx’s theory on capitalism in Dr. Royce’s Sociological Theory class I have been thinking a lot about capitalism and it’s relation to society. Baudrillard talks a lot about capital but I’m not sure I am clear on her view. At some points I saw her as a Marxist but sometimes not. Hopefully after class I will have a clearer view of her standpoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment