Ace Ventura, Baudrillard

Baudrillard's theory on Simulacra was not the easiest to understand. What it seems like he was saying is that nothing is real or "reality" anymore but at the same time, without having something that is real, you also can't have illusions or imitations because it has nothing real to be based off of. What I have a hard time understanding is when reality ceased to exist. Or if it ever actually existed to begin with I guess. One concept that I think I was able to grasp was "The Divine Irreference of Images" and the differences between pretending and simulating. As a former psychology major, Baudrillard's example of pretending to be sick and simulating illness to the point that you can display actual symptoms reminded me of Munchausen's Syndrome . This is a psychological illness that is able to manifest itself in the physical. This goes beyond "pretending" to be in ill and saying you have a cough so that you can get out of going to school. But this raises the questions, "simulation threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false', the 'real' and the 'imaginery'. Is the simulator sick or not, given that he produces 'true' symptoms?" (454). In the case of Munchausen's syndrome, the person is actually sick with this psychological illness but is not actually ill with whatever sickness they are feigning until they force it upon themselves. Therefore, I think this is where illusion comes into play instead of reality because the symptoms are very much real and there is a real illness at play but it didn't originate from reality. This is where his idea of nostalgia filling in for the full meaning comes into play I think. We see that these symptoms exist and appear to be "real" and causing illness and our nostalgia of what we previously know about this illness fills in the rest of the information for us and causes us to believe that this illness is what is actually at play instead of the psychological illness. I don't know if this actually makes sense to anyone else?? Sorry! This is what I related it to in order to be able to understand the Simulacra theory.