1 Media is the New Reality Over the past decade media and technology have taken over the

world. Everybody must remain connected to their Blackberrys and iPhones at all times and services like twitter and facebook bombard inboxes with constant status updates. People text and email rather than make phone calls or talk to each other in person. Movies and television shows also dominate the web and our time. Web sites like hulu and Netflix now allow users to watch television and movies from anywhere on multiple devices. All of these outlets of media, entertainment, and technology contribute to a generation that is losing touch with reality. In the movie Inception directed by Christopher Nolan, the director criticizes modern society and their ability to question what really defines reality. The premise of the film is that there are multiple dream levels that people can fall into that provide the dreamer with new realities. From the beginning of the movie the viewer assumes what they are watching is reality and actually happening as part of the plot, however as the story goes on reality begins to get muddled. While Cobb is trying to determine the secrets Saito is trying to hide, Saito is told by Mals projection that Saito is in a dream. From that moment the viewer begins to question what is reality if this is a dream. Soon after the viewer is taken to another country where Cobb, Saito, and Arthur are pictured sleeping in an apartment. With that the viewer thinks that this apartment must be the reality, but then after a series of events the scene shifts to a bullet train in Japan where the same characters are sleeping and attached to a special machine. By then Saito realizes that he is actually within a dream within a dream and the viewer has can no longer perceive what has actually occurred.

2 As the movie goes on similar ideas of questioning reality begin to arise through the construction of dream space and the ability to be endlessly creative. In the dream world the architect has the ability to create with his mind and thus defy laws of gravity and introduce paradox. The viewer then creates the assumption that whenever the physics of the world are maintained that we are in fact in reality. However the problem arises when characters fail to realize they are dreaming and thus follow the laws of physics. For example while Cobb, Arthur, Ariadne, Eames, Saito, and Yusuf are trying to convince Robert Fischer to break up his fathers company, they are attacked in the dream by projections with real weapons. However if the dreamer realized the environment was a dream they would be able to warp the space around them and find a better way of getting rid of the team. This idea that in order to affect change that the dreamer must know they are dreaming begins to question whether the reality presented is in fact a reality. The point that reality is unknown and questioned is used to convey the message that what we perceive on a screen is not reality even though it is treated as such. The purpose of the movie is to entertain however Inception goes beyond that and the viewer becomes immersed in an experience. The point of the film then becomes to educate the viewer to begin to question whether or not they are in fact living in reality. With non-personal communication such as text, twitter, and email people are able to read messages however they lack emotion and are up for interpretation. From there the reality of the message then becomes distorted and could be taken the wrong way and become ineffective. Without speaking directly to people the message is in effect lost. The idea of totems is to give the viewer a sense that reality is existent however, that only applies if there is in fact a reality to start with. Totems are used to tell the characters when they

3 are in a dream and when they are not. However at the end when the viewer is left with the image of the spinning top, there is no definitive answer to whether or not the final scene is actually taking place. This scene is used to show the irrelevance of the totem and spurs the viewer to snap out of the mindset that the movie has created and seek reality for themselves. The idea that postmodernists have introduced holds true in the film and is addressed in a way for the viewer to really think about the way they view the world in order to enact change. Postmodernism is about the hyper-reality and simulacra whereas projections and copies of reality are now reality. With the common use of high definition television and movies, entertainment has begun to look like reality. 3D technology has also immersed the viewer into an experience they find more real than reality itself. With 3D technology people no longer view reality as three dimensional even though it is. People are attaching 3D apparatuses to iPhones and using apps to view 3D on the street yet they fail to recognize that there is no need to use that device because the world around us already exists in the same format. 3D has essentially become more real than reality because people view everything in their face with depth. This idea of simulacra where copies of reality are reality can be seen on youTube and all over the web where videos are uploaded every second. People see them and fail to recognize that some are in fact computer generated graphics. They have begun to accept animation as truth. The idea of simulacra also arises in movies that are based on real events. After seeing that opening, viewers immediately take it for fact and truth and began to quote the movie as if everything really happened. The problem is that much of the movie is fabricated for entertainment purposes and in fact did not actually occur. Also some movies have even begun to take clips of real live broadcasts and inserting them into film to further blur the lines of reality. Actors and actresses are cast to look as much like the real person so that when recalling historical

4 events, people now associate Morgan Freeman with Nelson Mandela. This is all in part due to ignorance and the ability for directors to create hyper-realities. Even actors in Americas Most Wanted find a need to enter witness protection because it is their image that people remember versus the artist rendering of the real suspect. Media and technology have clouded the judgment of this generation. One of the most important scenes in the movie Inception is when Cobb is in Mombasa visiting Yusuf to discuss a sedative. While there they go to a room and see tens of people who have been put under to dream. The old man with Yusuf then tells Cobb and the rest of the group that the only way these people can dream anymore is if they come here. However the catch is that they dont go there to dream, rather they go there to get woken up. They have lost track of reality and believe their dream is their reality. Whenever they wake up they want to return to their dream world because they believe that reality is in fact a dream and want to leave. This dilemma is used to criticize how many people are starting to confuse reality with fiction. With the depiction of film appearing so life like there is now a problem where people begin to think that film has actually happened and plot lines have become muddled with personal experience. People constantly bring up dreams that they thought had actually happened and are then received poorly by the general population. Another important scene from Inception was when Mal jumped off the ledge of a building in order to return to reality even though she was already in the real world. She believed that killing herself was the only way to return to the world that Cobb and herself had grown old in which was in fact purgatory. She had lost touch with reality and therefore committed suicide and ruined Cobbs life by barring him from the country preventing him from seeing his children.

5 This consequence is used as a lesson to the viewer that losing touch with reality through technology and media has dire consequences. The blame for all of this confusion is the media and technology. With this idea of questioning reality there is a need for this generation to put down their smartphones and return to the real world. Face to face communication is now becoming an art and a skill taught in classes because people have lost touch with personal communication. It has now become unnatural for people to talk to random strangers without using Chat roulette. Everything done on the internet has become a reality for people and services such as Second Life only encourage users to delve further and further into a virtual reality. The movie Inception provides an important lesson to the viewer that the reality we have created for ourselves is hindering our ability to view what is really in front of us.