Baudrillard's Points in The Matrix

Within the online reading written by Baudrillard about simulation and simulacra, there are extremely complex ideas and descriptions. Simulacra is an image that represents someone or something, and the “perfect simulacra [is] forever radiant” and could “conceal” or “distort” the truth. While the simulacra hides the truth, a simulation is only “hyperreal,” and “is no longer anything but operational.” The simulacra has to do with how the mind can view reality; however, a simulation is strictly mechanical and has no imagination attached to it; it needs “memory banks and models of control” in order to function.

The ideas of simulation and simulacra are deeply apparent in the film, The Matrix.

The Matrix is the simulation that Artificial Intelligence has created for mankind in order to subdue each person enough to harvest them as batteries to sustain their “lives.” In the movie, one of the characters, Neo, finally figures out the code in which the Matrix is programmed. Due to the fact that the Matrix is a simulation and not simulacra, the Matrix purely codes, in other words, a mechanical computer.

However, it should become apparent to the viewer of the Matrix that the movie itself is simulacra. The film covers up the truth about the world with a fantasy for people to watch about the “Real World” and become absorbed into, which is exactly what good simulacra does. It is slightly ironic that the film which exposes simulation and simulacra is actually using the same methods that it is exposing to the public.

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Most people would not think about this after they had left the theater or turned off the television, but those people are the ones who would be trapped in the Matrix and refuse to see reality.

People in the let century continue to live in a world of simulation and simulacra. Not only do people walk away after watching a movie like the Matrix and continue to fall for the simulacra that is taking place right in front of their eyes (literally), but they also have their heads buried into their phones and laptops practically every moment of every day. Facebook is a is both a simulation and simulacra. Facebook is designed to let people see into their friend‘s lives via pictures, videos, and status updates. This creates a false allusion that the user is actually connecting to their friends on a personal level, even though they are not face to face as the name Facebook might suggest.

The example about Facebook does not even begin to cover the topic about virtual reality games that are online. These games can directly resemble the Matrix. Nothing within the game is real, none of it is reality, and yet, people spend real money all the time for virtual items because they have been sucked into the simulation, which then turned into that person’s simulacra. The point in which Baudrillard exposed in his writings are very much applicable to the events within the movie and the movie itself. Not only does the Matrix illustrate these ideas about simulation and simulacra, but it also points a finger at the real world in which humans live and the state of the world. Due to the presence of simulation and sirnulacra, humans can become trapped in a technological age and begin to fall into the trap of simulacra.