I have to say you did a great job with this post on Baudrillard. He was a little difficult to understand at first, but I was actually able to get what he was trying to say after I re-read it. I think that he was definitely connected with Saussure as far as the repetition and image association went. The conversation we had in class about religion and how to separate ourselves emotionally from that day, or any other aspect of a wedding that we know because that’s what we’ve always been told a wedding is like, was really helpful in seeing Bau in a new light. I felt that Saussure’s connection to him is through the sign + signifier, because we associate words with weddings much like emotions and everything else. Nice job!

How cool that you said:

As I look back on my old blogs I see references to numerous TV shows and movies that helped sum up a point or idea I was trying to explain. South Park, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Die Hard, American Idol, The Matrix, The Hamburglar, etc…Its all the same. Baudrillard would have my head for this.

You might be right, yet how fun that, in the Matrix, Keanu Reeves’ character retrieves contraband from a hollowed-out copy of Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” From what I understand, the Matrix was built on the idea of hyperreality as presented by Baudrillard, and yet Baudrillard believed that the writers’ interpretation was mostly a misunderstanding.

As for your mention of Baudrillard’s disagreement with Saussure and Jameson, I read it differently. I think this theory stretches Saussure’s definition of sign, using the “signified” to indicate that which is not real. Jameson too believed that we were moving toward art that is not real in the same sense that Baudrillard and H&A describe. Art is no longer authentic, but rather a stylized version of that which has previously existed. Recall the Bonaventure Hotel, not a new space with it’s own merit but a stylized and distorted reflection of the city. As for parody, Jameson thought we had moved beyond parody and into pastiche, pastiche meaning a copy of a copy, far removed from the original.

Also, Wiki says under a search for “simulacrum”:

Fredric Jameson uses the example of photorealism to describe simulacra. The painting is a copy of a photograph, not of reality. The photograph itself is a copy of the original. Therefore, the painting is a copy of a copy.

It seems as through these two are not gunning for each other after all.