The Truman Show (1998) directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol was released twenty years ago. At the time of its release, The Truman Show was meant to be a satirical sci-fi film. Now that we have entered a post-reality TV world, The Truman Show looks more like a documentary about what our world has become.
The Truman Show is about a man named Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who is the unwitting star of a 24/7 reality show that is broadcast all over the world. Truman’s world is an elaborate Hollywood soundstage that is made up to resemble a seaside town and is bugged with cameras and microphones that capture his every move. Every person in the town is an actor. Even the closest people in Truman’s life like his mother (Holland Taylor), his wife Meryl (Laura Linney), and his best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich) are all played by actors. The producers of The Truman Show bombard Truman with constant messages about the dangers of traveling so he doesn’t leave the town. The producers even go as far as to kill his television father (Brian Delate) off in a boating accident, so that Truman develops a fear of water.
However, things begin to go awry as Truman nears his thirtieth birthday. He begins to notice a series of strange events that nobody else in the town notices. As a result, Truman slowly begins to realize that his life is a lie. Meanwhile, the show’s creator Christof (Ed Harris) and his crew attempt with all of their power to prevent Truman from finding out the truth of his existence.
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| Jim Carrey's performance made people take him seriously as a dramatic actor. |
Jim Carrey was one of the most successful actors in Hollywood during the mid-nineties. However, he was strictly a comedic actor. The Truman Show was the first-time Carrey was able to show the world that he was a fantastic dramatic actor. Only Jim Carrey could’ve played Truman. Carrey is able to take the audience on a journey with him and is able to get the audience to feel what Truman feels. Carrey shows anger, disbelief, and sadness in just one scene. He is able to mix this in with his excellent comedic timing and antics. Starring in The Truman Show was the smartest decision Jim Carrey ever made because it prevented him from being typecast in goofy comedic movies and allowed him to thrive in more dramatic roles. The Truman Show is one of Jim Carrey’s finest performances and the fact he wasn’t nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor is one of the lesser known snubs in Academy Award’s history.
If you take out all of the funny moments, The Truman Show becomes an even darker film. Truman is a human being whose entire life is manipulated for the sake of entertainment. The entertainment of the audience is placed above his own aspirations. The Truman Show audience that watches Truman’s every move is seemingly unaware of how cruel this whole matter is just like how viewers of reality TV shows are seemingly unaware of how bizarre and fake the shows that they are watching are. The only reason why The Truman Show’s and reality TV’s s are so popular is because it allows the audience to engage in what they think is guilt free voyeurism. The best example of this is that the ratings for The Truman Show skyrocket when Truman finally figures out that his world is a lie and has an emotional breakdown. The audience in both the world of The Truman Show and audiences of reality TV are at their most entertained when they watch people go through their most embarrassing and emotionally devastating moments on camera.
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| Many of the shots in The Truman Show reminds the audience that Truman is always being watched. |
The Truman Show was prophetic in how it predicted how voyeuristic are TV shows became. Neither Truman’s world or the worlds of reality TV show are real. They are all manipulated and just as plastic and artificial as the products that advertise for their programs. There can be no such thing as reality TV because people automatically start acting differently when they know they are being watched.
With the exception of shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Survivor, it appears on the surface that the era of reality TV is over. People grew out of their voyeuristic TV practices and now prefer narratively complex shows on streaming platforms like Netflix or cable TV networks like AMC or FX. That doesn’t mean the world has shed its voyeuristic instincts for good. Social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have allowed our voyeuristic instincts to live on. People like Logan Paul and Casey Neistat have gained millions of viewers on YouTube by broadcasting their lives to the rest of the world and we the audience eat every second of it up. The medium of our voyeurism has changed, but the principle remains the same. The fact that the President of the United States was a reality TV star and runs the White House like a reality TV show is a terrifying example of how reality TV still has consumed our society.
The Truman Show, is one of the best and most underrated films of the 1990s. This film continues to become more relevant with age and given the path our society is heading towards, it will continue to be that way for many years to come.
Rating: ****
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