Over the weekend, I finally saw a movie that I’ve been dying to see for the longest time. It’s called The Truman Show and it stars one of the greatest comedians of all time, Jim Carrey.
So I’ll give you guys a quick synopsis, basically it’s about a man named Truman, who is unaware that his entire life is being filmed and watched, a la reality television style. However, Truman isn’t completely oblivious, awhile ago he had a girlfriend named Lauren (an actress who really went by Sylvia) who kind of exposed everything to him.
The way she told him was so chaotic and quick, it wasn’t enough to completely shed the veil. It wasn’t her fault, since she was literally dragged away by another actor, who claimed to be her father, while she was exposing everything to Truman. Her “father” dismissed her to Truman and claimed she was “schizophrenic”. Sadly, their parting words left him with the impression she would be leaving forever and moving to Fiji (even though this wasn’t exactly true either).
Luckily enough for Truman, something resonates and it seems like it was definitely triggered by Sylvia/Lauren. Since the incident, Truman appears to be paying more attention and noticing the oddities around him. There’s so many odd happenings for him to notice as well: product placements (which is usually done by his wife, Meryl, whom he settled for after Sylvia’s departure, and his best friend, Marlon); advertisements that his co-workers sometimes push him up against (that also change daily); falling set lights (that are later excused by a radio program that eerily replies to everything Truman says, all while discouraging him from traveling via airplanes); rainfall that only falls on his head and nowhere else; spotlights that fall on him; and the most bizarre occurrence by far, he randomly sees his presumed-to-be dead father while on on his way to work.
The truth is, Truman, doesn’t have a father or a mother. He was the first baby to be adopted by a corporation and the people he believes to be his parents are just actors. Everything around him is actually a production set, and they make money using advertisement revenue, which is why they are constantly displaying ads and products throughout the film. Everything Truman believes to be his life is actually just a conceptualized reality that was made by the corporation who adopted him.
According to George Rodman, in his book Mass Media and the Changing World, Truman is a victim of ‘agenda-setting’, this proposed theory has the overall goal of influencing what Truman thinks about and his “perception of what is important”. All of the measures the production team goes through to fool Truman is apart of their ultimate agenda to have Truman believe his life is real, despite it actually being a constructed life for television. Furthermore, the sheltering and controlling aspect of Truman’s life subjects him to another effect that Rodman calls ‘selective exposure’. According to Rodman, the ‘selective exposure’ theory entails “people are only exposed to things that are consistent with their attitudes”. In this case, the production team in control of Truman’s life decides those very things that are consistent with the attitude they want Truman to have for their show.
Just as things are becoming increasingly clear to Truman, him and his wife, Meryl, have a disastrous episode that ends with her exposing herself by declaring her work environment to be “unprofessional”. She is immediately sent away, just like Sylvia/Lauren before her, and Truman’s father is returned to him with the excuse of amnesia (which by the way is a ratings success for the show as the audience is fully engaged). At this point, Truman is already nearly sure that his reality is not actually real.
This reminds me a lot of reality television today. Everything is mostly scripted and dramatized, yet there’s this false perception that the viewers and sometimes, the actors themselves, undergo that makes them believe it’s real. According to Vulture, the characters in reality tv are often controlled by production team members who will even instigate conflicts among their cast, they write “Sometimes we’ll leak information to them [meaning things each character wouldn’t know that the other characters said or did, which may instigate a conflict] but we won’t tell them what to do.” In this way, reality TV productions team also seem to be pseudo-influencing the actions of the cast, just as the Truman is being influenced by the producers for his show (unbeknownst to him).
Additionally, regarding the character selection and intended audience affect in reality television, the Chicago Tribune states, “It’s important to find the right group of people with a variety of personalities that can grow on the audience and drive the show. Reality TV is like sports in the way that the viewers root for their favorite character from episode to episode. People love to root for their home player…It’s the competitive aspect of reality television; they get an intimate view of the people they’re attached to.”
Speaking of the viewers, they are also undergoing an effect throughout all of this. Rodman calls this the “powerful-effects model”, which states that the media they are watching will have “swift and potent influence”. We see this as the viewers cry and laugh while watching Truman, appearing to actually care about him and how he ends up. They root for him and they are hooked on his journey.
This rooting aspect sustains till the very end of the movie, as Truman finally figures out that everything is indeed a conceived reality, created by Christof, the show’s creator and producer. Once Truman finally sheds the veil, he busts out. The final words from a viewer being, “he made it!”
At this point, in the film, everything is actually real. The show is no longer about Truman and his daily activities. The show is now about Truman finding and exit from “reality tv” into reality.
I think that’s what I liked the most about this film, the fact that the more aware he becomes, the more real the show becomes. In the very beginning, the reality factor comes from Truman himself, believing everything to be real. It’s not till the very end that everyone is finally on the same plane of reality.
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