3 qoutes - Po Mo (15 Million Merits Essay ideas)

Introduction: 15 Million Merits is an ideal media text which demonstrates three different theory ideas, such ideas from Googan, Baudrillard and Kane.

Googan: ‘Society of the spectacle’ – Each individual is constantly living in a media saturated lifestyle which is presented as depressing and bleak, where everyone lives in a small cell type room spending their entire day cycling to nowhere in order to gain merits in which they use to buy their essentials to live such as food and toothpaste. The only escape from this lifestyle was to buy an 15 Million Merit entry ticket to an Entertainment show similar the X-Factor. The escape from this exploitation is to enter the show as a contestant where they can prove to a set of judges that they are worthy of a better life style (a celebrity). Bing’s way in which he did this was through ranting about the system and trying to get the audience and judges in charge to sympathise with him to change the system instead he is brought into the what seems to be the ‘better lifestyle’. Once becoming a celebrity you seem to no longer be your own person as you are spectacles in ‘average people’ in society created by the Media.


-Debord

Baudrillard: ‘Simulacra and Hyper-reality’ – The ideas that were living in a media saturated world with more and more information being fed to us in society but it is gaining less and less meaning. This can be related to 15 Million Merits as the storyline is based on individuals who live a virtual life in a cell where they are controlling their persona via an Avatar. The Avatar expresses their individual in a better light and appears to live a better life ‘Fake fodder is the only thing that works anymore’.  Those living in the cell are not happy and they lack very little social interaction with one another, their actions and socialisation is mainly displayed through the Avatar. This is evident when Bing has brought an entry ticket for the female character who thanks Bing by sending him a virtual kiss.

Kane: The idea of ‘The Panoptic Transition’ - This recites Foucault’s ideas about the Panopticon prison and how those living in that situation have no social interaction or enjoyment in what they are doing. The clothes worn symbolise the dull lives they lead and you can signify this to prison life. This episode particularly reflects the idea of voyeurism as an act or power and control where only escape is the entertainment show. Hot Shot (the entertainment show) is a cruel and humiliating for the individuals who enter on to it, as there are three judges in particular who have the power and control to accept an individual to get out of the ‘bleak and depressing’ lifestyle. This gives the opportunity for someone of the ordinary to get a taste of the life of being on TV.  Being in this situation the watcher becomes the watched.

Conclusion: All three theorists have different ideas that regard to us in society, however on the bigger scale the ideas demonstrated can combine with each other so they hold similar views as it proves how we are born in to consumerism by buying and working and being exploited, yet we are mainly only interested in the lives of the better lifestyle similar to a celebrity regardless of how it is done.