Just What is a Simulacrum?

This is sort of an explanatory follow up to my 11/04/06 post.

The simulacrum is a postmodern appropriation of a Latin term that just meant "image" or "likeness" (as in "similar") and has come to mean a few different things (you can find a wiki on it) ; the sense in which I'm using it here is sort of the sci-fi/fantasy sense of a copy indistinguishable yet distinct from its model. The other sense is that of the copy being modeled on an image or copy, and becoming the truth of the retreating historical origin ; it is like in Walk the Line, as one might argue, how the life of Cash is mapped onto a standard biopic narrative of struggle > sudden success > drugs, sex, marital problems > final reconciliation and balance. The conventional story itself seems so common or true that we'd almost be upset if the film didn't "end right."

The tribute band is a kind of simulacrum - an attempt at making a convincing copy of an historical model. It's a strange phenomenon, really. Why would one want to spend so much time in imitation of someone else? As a "tribute," they say, an homage to an important person or group in one's life. But, in most theories of creativity, be they rhetorical or poetic, it strikes me that most people consider it a tribute to imitate the virtues of one's model but to strive always to improve upon them. Quintillian, for example (you were hoping I'd mention Quintillian), says that "everything that is the resemblance of something else, must necessarily be inferior to that of which it is a copy, as the shadow to the substance..." Plato (how could I mention Quintillian and not Plato) even qualifies the power of the arts altogether on the grounds that they are copies of copies (a painting of a horse is a copy of a real horse, which is a kind of copy of the ideal Horse). What is it to copy a copy of a copy?

I don't think I'm actually so concerned about actual historical fact (what "really" happened, what it was "really like") as I'm concerned for our present taste. Not believing in any truth beyond what you can "create" can lead to sloppy or lazy art, or to empty art. The first kind is where you're just subjected to the old cliches, usually wrapped in self-conscious irony, in hopes of both making you feel a prefab reaction and of making sure you and they know it's prefab. The empty kind demonstrates more effort, but has nothing ultimately to offer, except perhaps a "twist" that's supposed to make you go, "Oh, I didn't see that coming."

Take Pan's Labyrinth (yes I'm going to talk about the end!), for example. The whole film is rather dark and desperate, and there's even a part where the little girl, Ofelia, tells her unborn baby brother that "things aren't so nice out here." The film proceeds through a series of tortures and dangers - some "real," others ambiguous - to its violent conclusion. The girl's redemption is supposed to be in the fact that she succeeds in her fairy tale quest, but you're never sure if it was real or not ; in fact, you have reason to believe it rather wasn't. So, we're supposed to be satisfied that the girl dies happy? Even the film cannot only offer this conclusion, but places Ofelia's story next to a real story about rebel holdouts against the fascists, which story follows a more standard kill-the-bad guy plot as a way of satisfying your vengeance.

What is the message here? What can we conclude? We make our own realities? Well, sure, and then we nearly kill our little brothers and are killed by our stepfathers. That's not how I would make my own reality, personally. You're left with a feeling that the world sucks so it's nice when you can imagine something better, but really the way to make it better is violently (kill the bad guy).