Simulation and Consumption in The World

In his film The World, Jia Zhang-ke constructs a sphere that is free of global borders while simultaneously showing how its workers are restricted within the realm. I will show how the characters’ movement around the simulated environment in The World engages with their role as consumer citizens. According to Sarah Banet-Weiser, people are constructed as citizens based on their role as consumers in a commercial context. Their power in American society is based on their consumption choices (Banet-Weiser, 137). Political and citizenship rights stem from a citizen's ability to participate in the consumer culture. The amusement park where the film takes place is a simulation of Beijing's World Park, but beyond that it is a simulation of various countries across the globe. French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, suggests that simulation creates an experience that represents many of the same signs of the real, making it difficult to distinguish from the original (Sturken & Cartwright, 308). In the film, the World Park allows visitors to experience simulations of places around the world thus presenting a substitute for actually traveling to those countries. The park includes replicas of iconic destinations around the world such as the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, and the New York skyline. The park encourages visitors to “see the world without ever leaving Beijing” (The World). Visitors to the park are only experiencing representations of these real places and, as Baudrillard suggests, have lost sight of the real. The actual destinations are out of reach for many of the visitors and workers at the park.

Throughout the film, the characters engage with a simulated environment that represents a global setting. This demonstrates the populatio...

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...d. They are consumer citizens who engage with commodified versions of international cultures. Banet-Weiser’s concept of the consumer citizen dictates that purchasing power equates to political and cultural power. Zhang-ke’s film reveals that the workers who perpetuate these commodities themselves lack economic power. The poor workers spread ideas of a global market and the flow of international ideas while ironically being unable to experience the reality of the world that they help simulate.

Works Cited

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. Authentic (TM): Politics and Ambivalence in a Brand Culture. New York: New York UP, 2012. Print.

Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford ; New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.

The World. Dir. Jia Zhang-ke. Perf. Tao Zhao and Taisheng Chen. Zeitgeist Films, 2004. E-reserves.