justification for this disquieting behavior. Explaining that he refuses to have a companion that
does not correspond to his high standards of beauty, Butters asserts, “Well, Kim Kardashian is
skinny and she just had a baby.” In an effort to teach Butters and others a lesson about the perils
of artificial simulations of femininity that have no basis in reality, Wendy manipulates one of
Lisa’s pictures using the software program Photoshop. The computer-generated image that
Wendy fabricates in a matter of minutes hardly bares any resemblance at all to the original
photograph. Although the message that Wendy is attempting to convey is rather transparent, her
plan backfires. The alluring image of Lisa substitutes itself entirely for the real Lisa who in
essence ceases to exist outside of the realm of simulacra. Lisa inexplicably becomes an
overnight celebrity at her school and a sex symbol that all of the other girls desperately strive to
emulate.
III.
Contextualization of the Baudrillardian Theory of Hyper-Reality
The main premise of “The Hobbit” is that many people have a difficult time discerning the
difference between concrete reality and its symbolic representation in the modern world. This
idea mirrors the theory of hyper-reality developed by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard in
numerous canonical works. Constantly immersed in a carefully manufactured hyper-real space
in front of one digital screen or another, Baudrillard wonders, “What is real? […] have we
mistaken the image for the real thing?” (Root 237). Underscoring the importance of the central
concept of hyper-reality throughout Baudrillard’s diverse œuvre, Martin Weiss notes, “Jean
Baudrillard illustrates the increasing indistinguishability between ‘reality’ and what he calls
‘simulation’” (n.p.). For the characters of the aforementioned South Park episode with the
exception of Wendy, seductive images of what it means to live a glamorous life of opulence,
allegedly rendered possible by a myriad of useful inventions endlessly lauded by the corporate,
mainstream media, appear to be on the verge of replacing reality itself. “The Hobbit” is an
example of the phenomenon of hyper-reality that Baudrillard laments in texts such as La Société
de consommation, Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe, Le système des objets,
Séduction, and Amérique.
According to Baudrillard, hyper-reality is so pervasive that it now concretizes nearly every
facet of our quotidian existence. As Richard Smith highlights, “signification has replaced reality
to such an extent that the world is no more than a giant simulacrum or simulation where signs
refer only to other signs within a closed system. This is a world of semiotic models where there
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