Chapter 49

Debord states that our current society "prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, and the appearance to the essence". He is basically saying that our society wants whatever is fashionable or acceptable at the current time period. I agree with this statement because I think Debord is very true. For example, how many times have musicians or artists used a piece of art or song and changed it around to what is popular in society. There have been many renditions to songs where the original melody or the refrain has been taken from an older song and has been altered to the music we like today. Also, the architecture of different buildings have been changed to different styles that are culturally acceptable. McDonalds is one example of this. In the south, McDonalds has flat screen televisions and comfy lounge chairs and it is almost an elegant restaurant. In small towns, McDonalds can be portrayed as a dump or trashy place to eat. The McDonalds in Chicago has two stories and an escalator. There are McDonalds buildings that differ from the traditional building. This chapter focuses on the society of spectacle. A spectacle is an "immense accumulation" or representation of everything that moved away. It is a "social relation among people mediated by images". A spectacle is the "present model of socially dominant live". It follows the decisions and actions already made. Debord is a Marxist theorist and is from a society where spectacles are dominant. He said the base or mode of production shapes is the superstructure, which refers to the institutions in a society that shape the consciousness of its members. His ideas were very prevalent for his time and many postmodernist theorists related their ideas to his.