Mediating Quarantine: Considering Netflix’s Homemade through Baudrillard’s Hyperreal and the Banal

Abstract

Baudrillard has long been used to analyze media through critical, postmodern theory and as this paper shows, his work remains relevant as a lens through which to continue to view new works. This article considers how hyperreality and banality have made their way into viewers’ homes with international representations of life during the Coronavirus pandemic. By investigating production processes, artistic choices, and narrative content contained within Netflix’s Homemade series released in June 2020, this article considers how the remediation of quarantine exemplifies Baudrillard’s hyperreality and the banal. By considering how Homemade remediates quarantine’s social, cultural, physical, and economic realities, the films call attention to an age of increased information: we cannot escape the banal. Today, just as when Baudrillard first suggested it, the dissolution between reality and representation can be found throughout culture, leading to questions about the gap between art and the banal. As such, Baudrillard will remain a seminal media scholar who provides a distinct context through which to analyze and evaluate media and the world around us.