"A Whole New World: The Matrix and Disney"

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Andy and Larry Wachowski, in The Matrix (1999), and Jean Baudrillard, in Simulacra and Simulation, both challenge the notion of the real. Baudrillard states, “The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control – and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these” (Baudrillard 2). Dominic Strinati, in his discussion of postmodernism and mass media, supports Baudrillard’s concept of the construction of reality. He states that society’s subsumption of mass media is no longer “the media distorting reality, since this implies there is a reality, outside the surface simulation of the media, which can be distorted” (Strinati 206). The Matrix, through postmodernism, can be read as not only an examination and/or an extension of reality, and an implication of the real as solely a simulation, but it can also be viewed as a deconstructed representation of the United States. The Matrix is opposed to The Magic Kingdom of Disney, which illustrates the United States’ culture of simulation.

Dominic Strinati in his book An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, specifically the chapter “Postmodernism, contemporary popular culture and recent theoretical developments” (Strinati 203-238), suggests that postmodernism describes a society that is enthralled by mass media and popular culture. According to Strinati, a reason behind postmodernism is the position of mass media and popular culture in society as “the most important and powerful institution [that] control[s] and shape[s] all other types of social relationships” (Strinati 205). Consequently, the distortion of reality through mass media and popular culture results in both society’s ultimate questioning of the warping of reality through media as well as the asking of whether reality even exists. Strinati takes the “What is real?” question further by proposing that society is simulated through the media as a result of its consumption of the “images and signs, regardless of questions of utility and value” (Strinati 207). The Matrix, as a product of popular culture, questions reality within its own medium and consequently aligns present media-saturated United States, as is exemplified through the Matrix, with the culture of the United States. This is similar to Disney being perceives as a fantastical and microcosmical United States.

Before dissecting The Matrix through postmodernism, or drawing the parallels between The Matrix and Disney, it is significant to understand what the Matrix represents. Primarily, it is a representation of reality through technology, or simulation. The world is not real but a deception in which non-human inhabitants reside. Moreover, these inhabitants are solely there to produce energy for this false world to be able to exist. Thus, the inhabitants are also solely machines, or mechanical extensions, of the Matrix. Significantly, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who is free of the control of the Matrix states that the Matrix’s inhabitants are "so hopelessly dependant on the system that they will fight to protect it." Thus, as a result of the Matrix’s maintainability of the illusion that the Matrix is a real world, the simulation has become reality and the Matrix’s inhabitants have become blind to the Matrix’s deception.

Various forms of reality exist. This arouses the question of the differentiation between “real” reality and fabricated reality that is a result of images and signs. For instance, Strinati exemplifies alternate realities through virtual reality computer graphics that “can allow people to experience various forms of reality at second hand” (Strinati 207). Interestingly, like computer graphics, inhabitants [as the word is understood] in The Matrix do not exist. Instead, existence is made possible through simulation. Thereby, the inhabitants’ reality is not real but, like Morpheus states, the entire world of the Matrix is “a neural-interactive simulation.” Nonetheless, behind the aura of the Matrix a few humans remain from Zion or “the last human city, the only place [that is] left.” Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) comments that it is the Matrix, through its simulation, which “can be more real than [Zion].” This suggests that simulation and deceit is not uncommon and that simulation exists everywhere, even a human city.

The world of the Matrix, in which simulations are more real than reality, is Baudrillard’s hyperreal (Baudrillard 1). Morpheus describes the Matrix as a world “that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to your truth” as well as “the desert of the real,” a term taken from Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (Baudrillard 1). Thereby, The Matrix, or a world exclusively made up of the hyperreal, may be read as humanity’s whole new world due to the world’s seemingly new media simulated existence. Thus, it is a whole new world in the sense that through Baudrillard and Strinati The Matrix is seen as a world that is made from simulations and signs; the real is being challenged and thus it shifts into being the unreal.

The main theme song of Disney’s Aladdin (1992), “Whole New World”, states, “A whole new world / A new fantastic point of view.” Disneyland is often seen as a microcosm of the United States. It encompasses the United States’ preoccupation with consumerism thereby situating consumerism as the cultural norm that the Matrix tries to combat. Clearly, Disney is a representation of the simulacra that The Matrix and Baudrillard deconstruct. Baudrillard states. “Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra” (Baudrillard 12). Moreover, according to him what attracts crowds to the Magic Kingdom is the “religious . . . pleasure of the real America” (Baudrillard 12). He also states that Disneyland, through its depictions of the past present and future, as is made apparent through “the Pirates, the Frontier [and] the Future World,” “ensures success” (Baudrillard 12). The goal of this mental manipulation is to give Disneyland’s visitors hope for America’s bright and thriving future. Hence, as is illustrated through the lyrics of Aladdin’s “A Whole New World,” it is a world in which “Every moment gets better.”

Baudrillard states, “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real” (Baudrillard 12). Similarly, it is the Matrix that makes Zion seemingly real. However, despite Zion being real and the Matrix simulated, through the film’s ambivalent tone, doubts of the reality of Zion are also aroused. Through this the viewer is directed to ask, “How is one world more real that the other if the inhabitants of the Matrix are not aware that they are living in complete simulation?” Moreover, this poses the question that perhaps the humans from Zion are also living a lie and are simply not aware of their own simulations. Ultimately, akin to the Wachowskis’ question of reality, Baudrillard sarcastically comments that the real that surrounds Disneyland is also the unreal, or an illusion, as well. He states, “All of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation” (Baudrillard 12).

Baudrillard describes Disneyland as “a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate the fiction of the real” (Baudrillard 13). The influence of the machine of Disneyland is so compelling that in the United States Disneyland can be read as a pilgrimage site when one considers that tourists visit Disneyland for its uplifting and beautiful qualities, which is similar to why one may visit a religious site. In the theme park, the fiction in the visitors’ memories constructs itself as the real away from reality. The blending of myth and ideology in Disney can be seen as a model of control through its power of attracting tourists to re-live a fantasy of reality that simply never was. For instance, through Disneyland the myth of the American Frontier, or the narrative of civilization versus savagery, may be relived. Henceforth. The Disney culture has created a reality that is recreated in the theme park through simulations and thus its visitors are exploited through the reiteration and feeding of myths. S trinati states, “If popular culture signs and media images are taking over in defining our sense of reality for us” then “it becomes more difficult to maintain a meaningful distinction” between the fact and fiction (Strinati 207). The reality of Disney is that it sells ideologies and myths but it also innocently presents them as facts with the goal of passive acceptance from the visitor or viewer. This is exemplified through not only Disneyland’s sale of the Frontier Myth through the terrain of the park, but also through the commercialization of good American family fun as is apparent through the kitsch that Disneyland sells to its visitors. It is interesting to consider that just as mostly everyone who visits Disneyland leaves with a Mickey Mouse toy mostly everyone who visits the Vatican leaves with a rosary. Thus, both, although different, are forms of religious sites that function upon their traditions.

“Postmodernism rejects the claim of any theory to absolute knowledge, or the demand of any social practice to universal validity” (Strinati 209). As Strinati continues, postmodernism produces a “designed ideology” (Strinati 206). In both The Matrix and Disneyland this is done through control. Disneyland controls through its sales of ideologies and thus those who consume Disney produce the energy for Disney to even exist. This, of course, may be aligned with the inhabitants of the Matrix who solely exist to produce energy for the Matrix. In both systems the real is produced through the consumption of simulation. Moreover, significantly, both Disney’s consumers just as the inhabitants of the Matrix are dependant on the system albeit being blind to the systems’ deceptions.

The Matrix maintains control within its society through the means of surveillance. Significantly, the inhabitants of the Matrix are always seen, however, they are unable to see. This is similar to the consumers of Disney who are often blind to the ideologies that Disney sells through its products and attractions. In both cases, through the act of being watched or watching, order is maintained and hence being in order is reiterated. Like the Matrix deconstructs blind consumerism, Disney, on the other hand, is aligned with the act of perpetual blind buying.

In “The diverse, iconoclastic, referential and collage-like character of postmodern popular culture” (Strinati 209), or the Matrix, the notion of identity is blurred. As Strinati writes, “The interpretation of identity has become a key issue in the debates raised by postmodern theory” (Strinati 219). The Matrix’ inhabitants are machines to keep the Matrix going and maintaining the illusion in which they are trapped. This is similar to the power of entrapment through myth that is produced through the machine of Disney. In both cases a fiction that signifies reality is lived.

Disney is made possible through simulation whereas The Matrix deconstructs the power that simulation has over society. Simulation blurs the real with the unreal to the point that a distinction between the two becomes indistinguishable. Nonetheless, while the “real” theme park of Disneyland and tangible Disney media is easily consumed despite the media being fictional it is the rival media of The Matrix that indirectly challenges the fiction of Disney.

[edit] References

Aladdin. Dirs. John Clements and John Musker, 1992.

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Strinati, Dominic. “Postmodernism, contemporary popular culture and recent theoretical developments.” An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 2005. (203-238).

The Matrix. Dirs. Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999.