The Johnny Show?

In the reading Jean Baudrillard tackles the fundamental issue of reality and fantasy.  When reading The Precession of Simulcara the section that I was most fascinated and intrigued by was the hyperreal and imaginary section. The first thing that caught my eye in this section was the mention of Disneyland, one of my favorite places to visit. But what was interesting was when Baudrillard examined how the imaginary world of Disneyland is seen as imaginary to us in order for us to believe that the world we actually live in is real. According to Baudrillard "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and simulation (Baudrillard 25).

My original thought when reading this was that he was crazy, day to day life is very real. The actions and decisions we make daily are very real, with very real consequences. The everyday world we inhabit is the truest representation of real as there is right? Well, Baudrillard may have a point, what if the interactions and the daily decisions we make arent actually made by us? Well Jim Carrey found out when he played Truman in The Truman Show.

The Truman show is a movie starring Jim Carrey as Truman. The movie is about a television show called the truman show, which is basically a show all about this gentleman's life. Everyone in the world loves this show, but Truman does not know it is actually a show, he thinks it is his real life. He has no idea the show exists and believes that everythimng that happens to him is soley based on chance or his own decision. When in actuality they are all out of his control and his entire life is controlled by the producers of the show. Isn't this what Baudrillard is saying about us? In a way may we all be falling victim to the same fate as Truman? We believe our life is real but what if the things we are told are make believe are only make believe so we would believe that our own life is real. But really our own life is also some sort of a distorted fantasy or fictional world. Truman eventually finds out his life is a total fraud, will we?