{"id":172,"date":"2017-01-24T14:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=172"},"modified":"2017-01-30T21:14:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T21:14:53","slug":"simulacra-in-be-right-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/01\/24\/simulacra-in-be-right-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Simulacra in \u201cBe Right Back\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Black Mirror: Season 2 Episode 1 “Be Right Back,” (2013). \u00a024 Jan. 2017 via Science of the Time<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In thinking about the various questions raised by \u201cBe Right Back,\u201d I find my thoughts returning to a single issue, namely one concerning the reality of representation or artifice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem first arises when Ash fixates on a childhood picture of himself and ignores Martha to post an ironic photo of the photo on social media. After much prodding, he puts down his phone and explains the history of the picture. With this particular representation of a representation, the term \u201csimulacrum\u201d comes to mind–a word that denotes an image or representation of someone or something, but often implies that representation to be a copy of a copy(or, at least, a copy of something not original, according to the work of French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard). Similar types of simulacra appear throughout the episode, ranging from the fake smile in the aforementioned photo to the imitation-Ash himself (itself?). <\/span><\/p>\n

If we return to the conversation about the photo, we can see that Martha initially reacts positively to it, calling it \u201csweet\u201d rather than darkly \u201cfunny.\u201d Ash thinks otherwise, and even goes on to call it \u201cfake,\u201d while Martha implies that the photo\u2019s authenticity didn\u2019t matter, as his mother (who enjoyed keeping it around) had no idea it was \u201cfake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With this kind of subject matter, I often conflate \u201creal\u201d with \u201ctrue\u201d and \u201cfake\u201d with \u201cuntrue.\u201d But when a simulacrum bears no relationship with the original (as it is a representation of a representation) and makes little effort to do so, it can take on its own form of truth as it does in \u201cBe Right Back.\u201d At that point, the terms \u201creal\u201d and \u201cfake\u201d no longer seem to apply. \u00a0Baudrillard argues for the use of a different term to describe these simulacra–“hyperreal.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The simulacra in \u201cBe Right Back\u201d all take on this aspect of hyperreallity, becoming temporarily more real than the real thing. The \u201cfake\u201d photo discussed above brought \u201creal\u201d comfort and happiness to Ash\u2019s mom for a time. Likewise, the \u201cfake\u201d Ash did the same for Martha, even helping her move on from her all-consuming grief.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In thinking about the various questions raised by \u201cBe Right Back,\u201d I find my thoughts returning to a single issue, namely one concerning the reality of representation or artifice. The problem first arises when Ash fixates on a childhood picture of himself and ignores Martha to post an ironic photo of the photo on social … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Simulacra in \u201cBe Right Back\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}