A Baudrillardian exploration of hyper reality and simulation in steven Spielberg’s ready player one (2018) and spike Jonze’s her (2013)
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Date
2019
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
This study aims at investigating Baudrillard’s concept of hyper reality and simulation in the contemporary age of social media apocalypse, with reference of Steven Spielberg’s, Ready Player One (2018) and Spike Jonze film Her (2013). For comprehension, simulacra is the copy of a copy that can stand on its own and is far removed from the original. It is the perfect model of the real that supersedes the reality. When reality is replaced by fabricated images, one gets into the realm of hyper reality. This study unfolds the truth about the obsessive use of Simulacra in the world today. It investigates how virtual reality has led one through the threshold into the hyper reality. This study aims to portray how the lack of distinction between simulation and reality results in nihilism, identity crises and melancholia. The undertaken endeavor examines the progression of Baudrillard’s four orders of simulacra in Ready Player One (2019), and it investigates fragmentation of meanings and reality of virtual relationships in Her (2013). It also explores how our search of utopia led us to lose sight of reality. This thesis examines the question of technological dread asked in these films and that life, not rooted in reality, is not the life worth living.