1. Beyond Barthes: The simulacrum (Baudrillard)
Barthes: structuralist studies of “modernity”
Beyond Barthes: post-structuralist studies of “post-modernity”
Jean Baudrillard:
Reality no longer masked, but dead
Simulacrum (simulacre): At the moment that something dies, it is revived as a signifier

2. Jean Baudrillard “This would be the successive phases of the image:
it is the reflection of a basic reality.
it masks and perverts a basic reality.
it masks the absence of a basic reality.”
“ [In the last stage the image] bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.”
Now show photos of West Toronto "simulacra."

3. The image of the teeth:
Reflection of a basic reality:
A premodern advertising style

4. Masking and perverting a basic reality
A modern advertising style
Newport ad - happy smokers
Archie, Betty, Veronica?
Suburban life is good

5. Masking the absence of a basic reality
A postmodern advertising style
Kate Thompson. A portrait of thought? (Cf. Barthes on American actors sweating in Julius Caesar.
The moral dilemma of baring body and soul to the public gaze.