Based on my final year dissertation at University
Modernism can be seen to be the enlightenment of the new world, and a strive towards universal reason and self-realization of the human race. This way of thinking soon gave possibility knowing that man-kind could create a new and better society, which was a sense of freedom as it paved the way for a reality which could be created by the mind and people’s fantasies, ideas and dreams could become real.
Modernism has created this representative, future like quality which people responded to and to go back to the traditional way of life was also a danger of being obsolete. It was an environment created to resemble ‘real life’; it seemed to be starting to form a simulated version of reality.
French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard constructed broad ideas of human society with the understanding that people are constantly searching for a meaning and understanding of the world. He stressed that “Postmodernism is a self constrained social condition”. He developed his theories and based them on the idea that the world, our reality is nothing more than a representation of the real. He suggested that we have become so blind as to see what reality truly is and in order to identify it we must escape from this prison and simulation if we want to ever uncover the truth and the real world.
The Matrix, which Baudrillard sees as the current reality society endures, is merely a system of simulations of the real and authentic. It is something society chooses to believe and understand because it has been successful in providing a perception of reality through control, manipulation, our emotions and the information we get as children.
Andy and Lana Wachowski’s film The Matrix (1999), was taken from Jean Baudrillard’s theory of Simulacra and Simulation. The idea is portrayed through a man (Neo) waking up from the Matrix and coming to terms with the real world and seeing the world around him become so embodied by this materialistic life.
It can be indicated that a scene in the film which really identifies with a postmodernist society shows a woman wearing a red dress. This in essence represents temptation and a need which people give into in everyday life. She walks past the main character Neo on a crowded street, he looks at her but does not give into her. If Neo had given into this temptation he would have been killed by the agents. When looking at it from an everyday standpoint, the idea would be him giving into a consumerist society which imprisons the mind by looking at the world from a naive perception.
It reflects what Baudrillard said in his book Simulacra and Simulation about the idea of the Matrix and falsity of signs and images, “it is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them” It is a symbolic interpretation of a society being dependent on materialism and technology, by giving up their freedom which contradicts what modernism was supposed to enforce. Modernism has created a society which is less preoccupied with the importance of social issues, history and our civilisation.
However, what The Matrix film proposes with ‘the desert of the real’ can be argued to be a misrepresentation of what Baudrillard suggests, as in the film it is proposed that the real world exists outside of the Matrix. For Baudrillard this is inaccurate as the real no longer exists and what is presented is only the simulation. The Matrix film is merely a fabrication of what the Matrix defines.
In reference to Zygmunt Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity he writes “representation and what is represented, simulations and truth, image and reality. All these things are hopelessly mixed up.” Thus a postmodernist world can therefore articulate that of a ‘consensus reality’, which supports the question of ‘what is real’, and is either what actually exists or what can be agreed to exist. It challenges the notion of ‘true reality’ and is reflected in everyday media. Like the Matrix in the film, it is seen to be fabricated, an illusion fed to a population which is captivated by it. Whence the birth of Hyperreality where “truth has not been destroyed, it has been made irrelevant.”
The next time you watch The Matrix think to yourself, are there any similarities you can see between our reality and the reality portrayed in the film?
That Brunette Girl 
As much as Baudrillard confuses me, he definitely makes an interesting read. Loving your posts
I agree, some of his work still confuses me even after I’ve studied him for a few years but he definitely opens the mind and gets you thinking.
What are the odds, read this earlier today now watching the matrix on TV. It really does take on a deeper meaning.
I am watching it too. I’m glad you took the time to read it, and there are many ideas in the film and book which I will explain more within new posts as well as analyse similar theories. Hope you can have a look at them to.
Let me know what you identify within the film about this subject.
Well I used to think that it was cool how the film was based in a computer programme. I thought it was a cool way to explain the special effects and seemingly super human abilities of the main characters. Now I believe its a nod to the way we are programmed into accepting things (we wouldn’t normally tollerate) as normal/the truth.
That is exactly the way I saw it, as I think most people that watch it do. They focus on the special effects and and the fact it is mostly based in a computer programme but don’t look beyond that to see that there are many representations of our society and the way we are controlled and manipulated into a certain way of life. In the book the film is based on, It was suggested there are two realities ours and the matrix. Jean Baudrillard later contracted him self to say there is only one reality, which is the matrix and there is no origin of ‘real world’ left. Yet the film sees two realities.
I see two realities. Not saying that I exist in/understand/see the real as until recently the simulacra is all I have known. However even the vague understanding I have of it dictates that there at least 2 realities What are your thoughts?.
I completely agree with your views. As i have read a lot about this topic and the more i understand about it i believe there are two different realities. A reality that we possibly won’t get to discover but non the less exists outside of our perception. Just like Plato’s Allegory of the cave, we see a reality that we have been brought up to believe and see and therefore is the only reality we understand. However, outside of the cave (our reality) there is a reality that exists but if we keep allowing ourself to be manipulated and controlled there is no way of uncovering any form of truth outside the one we live in. What would your thoughts be? and have you read any of Plato’s work?