Baudrillard's take on Disneyland

I'll admit, reading Jean Baudrillard's "Simulations," was challenging for me. I brought the stack of his writing to work with me, where I sat behind a desk for 3 hours and (tried to) read through it. 2 hours and 15 pages later, I sighed and pushed it aside, my mind was too overwhelmed and exhausted already.  I did get something out of it, however, and I know I'm not the only one from my class who is posting on the topic of Disneyland for this weekend's reading assignment.

Upon viewing this picture, one automatically thinks things like "fun," "children," "youth," or "it's time for a vacation." I know I did. As a typical kid, I grew up taking spring break trips with my parents down to Florida, where we visited my grandparents and yes, spent a few days at the beloved Disneyworld. I remember having the time of my life, swimming in the pools, flying on the Dumbo ride again and again, and always being dead tired from all the action by dinnertime, if not sooner.

Because I have a connection to Disney World, I was taken a bit aback when I read Baudrillard's "Hyperreal and Imaginary" section of "Simulations." Although he discusses Disneyland and not Disney World, they essentially mean the same thing in context. Baudrillard associates Disneyland with a make-believe, or simulated, world, which exists so we can believe that our world that we live in is indeed real, in a sense. Without going further, I do agree with this notion.

It's when I kept reading that brought about mixed feelings for Baudrillard's ideas in his writing on simulations. He claims that even our previously thought "real" world, specifically in Los Angeles and America in general, is similar to Disneyland in that it is "hyperreal and simulation."

Now I'm not entirely sure what he means by this, but I'm not totally on board with him and his thoughts that life in America is just simulation. Taking into account that Baudrillard is indeed French, I can understand his reasoning to a certain extent. Sure, we have L.A and Hollywood culture that seems to put a shallow label on the country as a whole, but that's not necessarily the truth.

America was once thought of as a place to go to chase down your dreams and live the "American" life, filled with business potential, baseball and apple pie. Although it's hard to see sometimes, it is still present in our culture. There are few exceptions, but most people work hard every day to make advances in every area of work here. I mentioned the word "dreams," just above. Baudrillard may associate that negatively with places like Disneyland. However, America isn't Disneyland. The difference? We can make dreams a reality if we really, truly work to our full potential.

Again, I'm not sure if I quite understood Baudrillard's main point in his Disneyland analogy, but this is what it made me think of at the time.