For the literature review section of my essay, I’ll need to reference a specific piece of literature, and so I need to find a book relating to hyperreality. I can’t go into any libraries right now, so I’ll look through the UAL online library resource to find something helpful, read through it roughly and pick out some good quotes to analyse and agree/disagree with, as well as practicing a critical literature review paragraph.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/reader.action?docID=1963432&query=hyperreality

I found this book called ‘cinema of simulation; hyperreal Hollywood in the long 1990s ‘, written by Randy Laist and published by Bloomsbury in 2015. The book mentions Baudrillard & hyper realisation in cinema, so I think it’ll serve as a good piece of literature to reference for me, and I’ll be able to link ideas in it back to my essay.

Reminder for myself of the literature review criteria;

1. 1200 words
2. clearly demonstrates how the research material supports your investigation
3. address specific questions in relation to ideas proposed

Before my writing practice, I’ll pick out a few interesting parts of the book and brainstorm, coming up with points based on them and linking them to my idea.

There’s a part of the book that I find interesting; the author speaks about the movie ‘The Truman show’, which is well known as a piece of work that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. In the movie, a character named Truman is unknowingly the main star of a TV series; the world he lives in is false and everyone he knows is an actor, and his life is being broadcasted to millions worldwide. I think you could draw parallels between this premise and the life of an idol in japan; similarly to the way that Truman doesn’t truly belong in his constructed utopia, Idols don’t fully belong to the image of perfection and availability tied to them by their companies. Both utopias are constructed to satisfy consumers; watchers of the successful truman show enjoy it because ______, while idol fans enjoy their parasocial relationships with the performers as, as mentioned in my last essay, it serves as a solution to the desire for a close relationship without the emotional investment required for a real one, creating a demand for fantasy and hyperreality.

You could go further and link these things to Kondo and Hatsune Miku; Miku is the manufactured Utopia-like figure, and her existence serves as a solution for Kondo’s predicament; he’s afraid of women due to past experiences and therefore isn’t interested in pursuing them romantically, but naturally he still longs for a real connection. Miku allows him to have a relationship without confronting his fears or investing his emotions and potentially being hurt again, and this process is an important requirement in constructing a successful fantasy; we need to be satisfied as consumers without having to invest too much of our own lives into the fantasy, the investment is somewhat one sided (from miku to kondo, from truman to viewers).

The end of the truman show is particularly interesting as it connects to why something as abstract as miku exists in the first place; throughout the movie, Truman does things out of character, which interests the viewers unexpectedly, and he eventually breaks out. However, there are two times where everyone stops caring about truman; when the show is put on hold due to unexpected actions from the titualr character, and at the end where he finally escapes, and everyone asks ‘what else is on TV?’ this serves as a peer into the life cycle of an idol; people stay interested while the idols are mantaining the hyperrealistic fantasy relationship between themselves and the viewers, and fans follow the idols and keep up this relationship for the next couple years, but when the idol gets older and leaves the industry (Idols in japan usually graduate when they get older, and are replaced with new younger idols), they often don’t find much success later in their careers; people move on to the next batch of idols so that they can stay immersed and entertained. Similarly, people started looking for the next big show once Truman freed himself, showing little interest in him now that he was actually a free man; his hyperreality had been broken through realistic intervention. Kids also lose interest in Santa after learning he’s not real; reality behind fantasies often serves as what ends them. Miku, however, doesn’t have this realistic element to her; she’s like if Truman was purely a character in the show and never had any desires to live his real life. She’s not a real person and so she’ll never leave fans or change, points that Kondo says keep him interested in her; it could be argued that Miku is the perfect hyperreality figure. Consumers need a product to stay the same and never allow reality to interfere in order to stay invested, and Miku is able to do this as she doesn’t have a life beyond what we see of her, like Truman or other idols did. People move on to the next thing whenever an actor/celebrity breaks the hyper realistic relationship they hold with the consumer, but Miku will never do this, allowing you to stay immersed in her infinite existence.

I have all of these points, but I need some quotes to reference from the source material, and so I’ll look for some.

• ‘Significantly, the movie ends with Truman poised on the threshold of exiting the dome, but it does not follow him outside, as if to imply that Truman’s very existence is coterminous with the dome, and that leaving the dome is an act of virtual suicide that causes him literally to cease to exist in any modality whatsoever.’– Parallels can be drawn between Japanese idols after ‘graduation’ or a scandal and Truman leaving the dome; hyperrealities break when the subject of the fantasy starts to desire and act in more realistic ways. That is why virtual idols are a successful alternative; in the way that children believe in Santa Claus, or people are able to immerse in the idea that the actors are really their characters at Disneyland, the key to an immersive fantasy is to never have reality interfere, allowing people to project their own ideas and hopes onto said fantasy figure. Hatsune Miku doesn’t exist beyond a fan’s interpretation of her; What makes her a perfect fantasy figure is that reality will never interfere to break the illusion. Marrying her is solving one of reality’s issues, an inability to connect with women or a potential partner, by allowing for no room for rejection; in other words less emotional investment.
• This point could be taken further by looking at relationships between Truman and the audience of his show; they’re able to watch and enjoy it because they aren’t having to fully empathize with Truman or care about him outside of the show. This could be a point against hyperreality; it cannot serve as a permanent solution to life’s issues as it numbs our natural emotions.