What are the main points in Jean Baudrilland's: Simulacra and simulations: Disneyland?

Baudrillard’s big theme is the replacement of reality with
a hyperreality, the replacement of reality by virtual, or the replacement of the real by
signs. Conventional thought is that nature precedes culture. Gravity, ecology, laws of
physics, trees, etc. exist and culture is built upon them. Concrete is built upon grass.
Things exist and then we invent words (signs) to stand for those things. Baudrillard is
saying that things used to be this way, but the world is becoming increasingly the
opposite. He says, that in our attempts to recreate the past we have “paved over” so to
speak, we just invent more signs and therefore exponentially increase the degree of
virtual and signs of reality that once was. He goes so far to say that signs ‘murder,’
because they have killed (replaced) nature.

A simulacrum is
a kind of counterfeit sign. Like a counterfeit bill, a simulacrum represents a value,
but it really has no value because it is a fake. In other words, simulacra represent the
absence of what they are supposed to represent. (Simula-tion). Case in point, reality
t.v. shows have just as many writers as other shows.

He
blames capitalist consumerism and western thought. He claims that natural needs have
been buried by cultural trends which tell us what we want; and we relate to the world
through these signs (advertising, media, culture in general). For example, sexual desire
is not as natural as it used to be. As we are bombarded with certain cultural
representations of sex, we are ‘always already’ informed by this cultural (hyperreal)
creation of sex. The same argument could be made for any need/desire. His bottom line is
that, now, capitalist production creates demand (for profit). We, consumers, no longer
produce demand for products based upon our own natural needs. Thus, our ‘needs’ are
chosen for us by corporations and as we relate to the world via media, we automatically
acquiesce.

Western thought, science, is based upon
explanation and naming (signs). He claims that explanation has replaced the real thing.
Having reduced reality to signs, we have killed it; and reframed all otherness (other
cultures) in a Western discourse; so, it is biased – even further removed from reality,
since culture is subjective. We get simulated Middle
Eastern-ness.

So, reality has been replaced with simulacra;
counterfeit signs which refer to the absence and loss of the Real. On Disneyland, he
writes, “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest
is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer
real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation.” So, Disneyland and other
escapist places like it are purposeful illusions (childlike;
and nostalgic so as to appeal to children and adults).
Disneyland is an illusion that perpetuates the larger illusion that outside Disneyworld
is the adult, real world. But, keep in mind that outside Disneyworld, immediately, is
Los Angeles; “one giant script.” The world is a script, simulacra, signs which no longer
refer to reality. They precede reality, desires and needs by producing the demand via
advertising, media and cultural discourse; all in the name of profit instead of natural
need.