Has True Romance Disappeared in Consumer Society ? A Morinian and Baudrillardian Reflection of the Acute Crisis of Simulation
iela Koleva , and Andrew Root highlight the schism between manufactured cinematic images and reality . Arguing that the Hollywood star system itself is nothing but a gigantic semiotic hologram from which all substance has been intentionally excised , Dixon and Koleva declare , “ the [ ... ] hyperreal real world of celebrity�it exists nowhere other than in mass-mediated images and the events staged around and through such images ” ( n . p .). Juxtaposing “ the ugliness of real celebrity lives and their real bodies ” to the contrived signs of beauty that they continually display , Dixon and Koleva reveal , “ We won ’ t see Paris and Nicole in the bathroom of a nightclub shooting up drugs ( in ‘ real life ,’ Nicole is said to be an addict ), or barfing up their dinners to keep their Size 3 bodies ” ( n . p .; n . p .). Dixon and Koleva ’ s frank analysis of the deleterious effects of cinematic hyperreality upon young women is in line with the concerns expressed by Hildesheimer and Gur-Arie in their previously mentioned study . From a medical perspective , experts agree that the skeletal image of beauty scoffed at by Dixon and Koleva is no laughing matter at all .
From a romantic angle , Andrew Root explains that the emaciated look vividly depicted by Baudrillard in The Consumer Society is a serious issue rendering the timeless quest for love even more daunting as well . Many women correctly think that potential mates will evaluate them according to an unachievable , artificial conception of beauty . As Root emphasizes , “ So now mean judge real women by the sign , by the simulation , and want the simulation more than the real , measuring beauty not by the real , but by the simulation ” ( 240 ). Unless they are able to mold their bodies into the ideal cinematic shape , women realize that their romantic options are limited . Given that men have been trained to seek satisfaction for their amorous desires through signs of female attractiveness , it is a rather shallow dating pool for women who do not corre-
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