Barthes and Baudrillard

• Roland Barthes

– Sometimes journalist, sometimes writer, sometimes academic – known primarily for thinking against the grain

• In many of his writings, he likes to focus on small or unusual details to make much larger points (as he did in his book Mythologies)

– Often this point was what was taken as common sense or trivial actually revealed the bourgeois structuring of society in their favor

• Jean Baudrillard

– Actually studied under Barthes and Bourdieu

– Initially a critic of political economy (because of its treatment of consumption as superstructural/ unimportant), he eventually becomes a major theorist of postmodernism (with Simulation and Simulacra being his most influential work).

Questions

1. If wrestling is not a sport, what is it (pg. 15)? Is whatever this “it” is, is “it” a modern invention?

2. What type of gestures does wrestling offer (pg. 16)? Why must every move be endowed with “absolute clarity”?

3. How does the body/dress of the wrestler portray their character? (pg. 17)

4. What does the public want instead of passion? (pg. 18)

5. Would a “concealed action that was actually cruel” have a place in wrestling? (pg. 19)

6. What “purely moral concept” is wrestling meant to portray? (pg. 21)

7. How would a wrestling aficionado greet the prospect of a “fair” fight, where both parties play by the “rules” and respect each other? (pg. 23)

8. What is the “bastard” character and why is it central to wrestling (pg. 24)

9. What does wrestling's appeal have to do with “being raised above the constituent ambiguity of everyday situations”?

10. Does Barthes think this has wider implications, or did he just want to write about wrestling?

11. According to Baudrillard, what is hyper-reality (169-170)? Why does it collapse the distinction between representation and referent? What type of system has it been replaced by (pg. 170)

12. What is the difference between someone who “feigns” an illness and “simulates” an illness?

13. What is the difference between “representation” and “simulation”? (pg. 173)

14. What does nostalgia do? (pg. 174)

15. How does Baudrillard analyze Disney?: