Mardi Gras Post

One movie I feel would be a good addition to our class would be The Truman Show. Released in 1998, The Truman Show stars Jim Carrey and was directed by Peter Weir. The main character, Truman Burbank, played by Jim Carrey, has been unknowingly filmed his entire life. Truman was the baby of an unwanted pregnancy and was adopted by a film company to record his everyday life. Truman, who is filmed by hidden-cameras, lives in the town of Seahaven which is a huge production studio and all the citizens, including his family members, are actors. The show has become one of the most popular reality shows in the world and broadcasts twenty- four hours a day, seven days a week. The producers of the show want to ensure that Truman will never want to leave the island, so they kill his father off the show by allowing him to “drown” in a boat accident. In turn, Truman is terrified of water and traveling over it. Until one day, a few strange events occur that force him to reconsider his fear. First, Truman sees a large set light fall from the sky, he sees actors changing behind what he thought was a real elevator, but it isn’t until he is trying to escape the island, a policeman, who would otherwise not know him, calls him my his first name. In the movie, the viewers love The Truman Show but do not take into consideration that it is a complete invasion of Truman’s privacy. The message of the film is to present how the media controls our lives and how we control the media. The irony of the film is that the show he does not know he is the star of, is called a “reality show” yet it is completely fake. The movie compels the audiences to reconsider how they view reality shows, television, and the media in general.