The Precession of Italian Upholstery

In light of our recent dive into postmodern thought and with Professor showing us perhaps models of post modern thought in context: (pictures of Disneyland, scenes from American Psycho), I thought it only fitting to introduce another piece of pop culture as pervasive evidence of our post modern decline. In relation to Baudrillard’s ‘simulacra’ and the repercussions of them within our lives, the scene from American Beauty which I have embedded highlights the disconnected behavior all of postmodern people’s are guilty of. The two main characters, man and wife are in the midst of a dying spark of romance in their withering marriage. As they rekindle the flame, inching closer to that old passion which brought them together long ago, the wife, Carolynn, ruins the moment for fear that her husband will spill his beer on the couch. This instance, already neurotic in its infancy to begin with, is the perfect precession of the simulacra that Marx warned of and that Baudrillard blasphemed. “Signs have now taken a priority over the things they have signified,” (1557) to Carolynn it isn’t just a couch as her husband puts it. And to the rest of our postmodern society caught in the strangle of simulacra it certainly isn’t either. It represents a certain class, a certain taste. It is shrouded in Italian upholstery, Carolynn argues. It is seen in its four thousand dollar price tag, “instead everything is capital,” (1559).  This postmodern poisonous mirage has detached us from anything real and dilutes our lives as Carolynn’s, making it increasingly harder to find pure joy; a pure joy where we can take happiness out of something as tangible and organic as a little afternoon delight and set aside our apocalyptic fears of a ruined fabric. 


Works Cited
Leitch, Vincent B. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2^nd ed. New York:

     W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.