Entry 10: 2 paragraphs on Truman

Truman and the Consumerist Woman
Women are constantly bombarded with advertisements persuading them to: “increase your breast size with NuBra”, “gain power and education through Stila cosmetics”, “dive into Weight Watchers Linguini”. Anywhere a woman turns, they always seem to come across a sign that tells us to look better, feel better, and live better with a certain product/service. We see models in commercials advertising Lap-band, Jenny Craig, Curves, MAC cosmetics, AVON cosmetics, Maybelline cosmetics, etc. and how those particular products made them successful, and thus, powerful. The women in the commercials are usually perfect: thin, beautiful, with a bright white smile and a twinkle their eye. They wear the latest fashions in clothing, hair, and makeup; they are usually accompanied by a tall, strong, handsome man (and let’s not forget the background: a luscious sunset, a beautiful house, a ballroom, or a relaxing beach!) All in all, such advertisements are propaganda for an artificial world: a world in which women are perfect, live in perfect situations, and are accompanied by a perfect beloved. A world that enhances your inner/outer beauty and personality; a world that makes you happier; a world in which women are persuaded to live a certain routine-ish lifestyle; a world that does NOT exist. A world in which we constantly try to escape, but cannot because of all the overwhelming pressure…a world just like Truman’s.
In the film, The Truman Show, we discover a man (Truman) who has been living in an artificial world since the day he was born. Every moment of his life has been videotaped in order to entertain the world; however Truman knows none of this. He has been raised by actors whom play the role of his parents; everyone in his world is an actor. Truman is married to a woman named Meryl, whom is perfect: thin, bright smile, great career, always presentable. However, Truman is not pleased. He believes there is something missing from his life: he needs an adventure and needs to reencounter with his lost love Sylvia. Everyone around him lives in perfect routine-ish lifestyles; they are all fit, happy, and seem to live great successful lives.
This correlates to OUR everyday women. We constantly encounter advertisements that contain perfect people with perfect lives. We were raised by actors/models through television, always telling us what to wear, how to live, and how to behave. Producers of products/services have been following us around since the day we were born in order to gain insight of our preferences. The media constantly tells women to choose a husband whom has a great career, a perfect smile, and is handsome, just like Ken from Barbie. The people in the advertisements seem to live such ideal lives. These advertisements have shaped women in such a superficial manner; it makes us seem perfect on the outside, but it is not what we truly want. And for Truman, Seahaven is not what he truly wants either.

The Truman Show depicts the community we currently reside in. Our "individuality" and uniqueness are results of a "scripted out" society. As evident in the film, protagonist Truman Burbank's life is completely arranged and planned from his birth. This is the overwhelming reality our citizenry has come to face. Whether we accept it or not, the media and our communities arrange and create expectations that we as citizens are expected to fulfill, such as education and being "successful." Although most do not accomplish such fates and decide to go against the grain, there is always a sense of obligation. Consequently, a person's individuality is manipulated and torn by surrounding external factors such as media and community, as well as internal factors such as cognitive dissonance and ignorance. Moreover, our curiosity for knowledge creates a fake self in which our identity is created by the manipulation by the media and community within our society.

The individuality a person holds is faltered externally by media and communities. The media tries to control our every move and depict the perfect lifestyle. By such presentations the media hopes to script out our lives, and create a sense of aspiration to live. Similarly, communities create expectations that every individual must meet. A person is surrounded by others full of unique thoughts and perspectives. However, there are a number of inscribed values that each are expected to meet, such as education. Growing up, individuals are taught that education is the key to a successful life, and that they will not succeed in life by any other method. Another inscribed value are those depicted in television shows, magazines and other forms of media. The common theme depicted by all forms of media is obtaining wealth. An individual's uniqueness is lost when they try to obtain those goals. Even though they "do it their own way", they are trying to achieve the goal that was expected of them to obtain.

Philosophical analyses on the Truman Show have questioned my acceptance to the world in which we live in. I now question myself as to why does our society live and act the way we do? Our routinely lives of going to school, work, eating, sleeping, etc., have accustomed our bodies and minds to believe that what we do is the right thing to do. Like the main protagonist of the movie, Truman Burbank, our society rarely questions or seeks the truth if we are living a comfortable life. It took Truman twenty-nine years of living in a constructed reality television show, which was televised to billions across the globe 24/7, before realizing that maybe there was more truth to the world than he has been accepting. This epiphany leads one to the question, is my life a Truman Show?

People are born, they live a life they try to make something out of, and they die. This has been the circle of life since the beginning of time and us humans have come to accept it. Before Truman sought the exit door to the nonexistent reality in which he lived in, his life would have been perfectly planned living in a bubble of conformity and a fixed destiny. In this same manner, we live our entire lives with very little questioning and basically accept what is presented to us. The creator of the show, Christof, quotes that “We accept the reality of the world in which we are presented.” Whether we are living a truth or a lie, there is very little time within our lifespan to reveal all the world’s hidden secrets, therefore, resulting to the question, “why waste the time if I’m living an okay life?” This acceptance is a safe bet due to the fact that the truth isn’t going to make our lives any less complicated….

The truth... it is an abstract reality that we live in but lack understanding of. We all live in a reality, but do we really know what that reality really is? Or are we all passive to all the clues that lead to that truth that we all wonder of. To know the truth is knowing what is unknown and no one know it all. Therefore, would this mean that the truth is out of reach for us all? In the (year) film The Truman Show is a man is trapped in a false reality. He believes that this life that he lives in is what he must wake up to everyday when in reality he is the protagonist of a TV show. A reality show where his story of a man that lacks adventured and emotion feeds the emotion of the thousands of viewers that watch him everyday. Truman, who stands for the "true man", lives in a lie everyday. This show is the perfect example of how we are all puppets of a reality that is created for us. The way we act and the things that we do on a daily bases are dependent on the events that are going around us. In the Truman Show the show end with Truman learning the reality of his planned out life, but now that he decided to go into the door of the un-produced world off of television he enters another truth. Even there in this knew world Truman will be facing deceit and lies. So the question is not if truth exists but if it is possible for one to truly ever be sure of what the truth is?
When Cristoff speaks to Truman as he is taking the door to the "real" world he tells him that the world out there is no different than the one he is already living in. Although, I believe that Truman makes the right decision to get out of the TV shoe I agree just as much on Cristoff's comment. I believe that even in the real world that the people outside of the TV set participate in their will be just as much doubt and empty feeling as in the one in the TV show. I am not saying that I agree with the unethical acts of the show. What I am saying is that I find it impossible for anyone to live a life of which they really know all truth to.

There is no better movie that captures the struggle of seeking the truth than The Truman Show. Truman Burbank was born into a world in which every single aspect of his life was planned out for him. Nothing in his life was “accidental.” On the contrary, his life was an endless loop of repetitive situations that he could not escape. No human being can live life settling for less when they know there is something better for them somewhere different. In the case of Truman, even though he did not know the “real” world, he had catched a glimpse of it through Lauren Garland, his unrequited love. Along with other traumatic situations in his life (the death of his father that he blames himself for) it is these multiple reason that were enough of a push to give Truman the courage to leave Seahaven Island Township forever.
Maturing into a young man of age 29 in front of the whole world is not what you would call an ordinary experience. Christof, the creator of the show (and Truman’s world), filters out all the hatred, evil, hurtful, and Truman’s chance of enjoying his life from the show. It was supposed to be a way of protecting him from the outside world. In reality, keeping someone restricted from achieving their full potential has to be the most cruel thing anyone can do for someone else.

Truman seeks adventure, this yearn ultimately leads to his pushing through the false barriers that have limited his life. Before Truman truly leaves, he has a chat with Kristof, who speaks to him over a massive loudspeaker. In a sense, Truman talks to his god –the creator of his limited reality– then chooses to leave the “reality” which his god has created for him. He walks up a flight of cloud stairs and steps into a completely black doorway. He leaves in to the darkness, we aren’t sure where he is headed to and neither is he but we are sure he’s gone. This scene reminds me of the book The Giver when the Jonas is leaving his false reality with the newborn, it seems as though it is all our struggle and ongoing fight of the truth vs. lies.

In our own lives, when we stop believing a powerful lie, we throw ourselves into a void. We see that the world we’ve been living in quite as big as we’d been led to believe, we are then filled by uncertainty as to what new world will replace our old one. Still, we step into the unknown/uncertainty of new options, and if we’re lucky, we feel liberated and if unlucky we are forced in to an endless search for the “truth.”

Imagine waking up one day and discovering that everything and everyone you ever knew was a lie? Everything you believed in and all the hopes you ever hand were crushed due to the will of someone else. All of your values and morals all meant nothing because they were derived from unreliable sources. Who could you turn to? Where would you go? These were the questions Truman Burbank was bombarded with after years of thinking he knew the truth. These feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and loneliness are similar to the feelings we experience in the consumer society. We devote so much time and energy into something that proves itself to be untrustworthy and reliable all too often. The same way Truman was being deceived in his make believe town, is the way we allow our minds and actions to be swindled by consumerism.

The Truman Show provides a unique allusion to today's consumer society. The role play occurring in this movie can easily be compared to the role play that occurs everyday in our society. We as citizens play a role similar to that of Truman. We take everything for face value and are content with our lifestyle until we realize that our lives are being controlled by outside forces against our will. In Truman's case, the outside force was Christof, the show's producer, but for society it is consumerism and advertising. Like Truman, we are on a constant search for the what is true. Truman's quest for the truth is like the consumer's journey for truth in this society. Both want

From the viewers perspective it is easy for us to see the fallacies that surround the life of Truman Burbank. We know that the setting has been created by an outside source, that Christophe is always watching over, and ultimately there is nothing that happens by chance. Free will in the life of Truman is almost non-existent. Actors spend most their lives playing a role in Truman’s life, but in this case the role isn’t one of friendship but of fame, popularity, and money. Seeing such a film from the viewers standpoint, Truman is entertainment, fiction, and in good fun. But what if we turned this all around? What if were you’re at right now, all is fake. Everything is there to humor you, to humor others, and ultimately mislead you all in the name of entertainment.
From a perspective pointed at oneself, it’s easy to say you wouldn’t want to be in Truman’s shoes. Looking at this scenario however, one of the biggest things I would have trouble with would be the relationships I was in with the people in my fake world. All of the people I grew up with, my best friend, my parents, and even my wife developing into a lie right in front of my face would be the most devastating thing imaginable. As I thought more into this however, I realized how many of our relationships that we have with people in our lives to are already based on ulterior motives. Using examples of relationships from Truman’s life and of my own, I will show how we are not really living in world that different from Truman.

Do we live in a world much different from Truman Burbank? Yes we can probably conclude that we have not been videotaped since the day we were born, and that the people in our lives are not paid actors, but like Truman Burbank we are constantly being watched. Our moves are continuously being examined and analyzed. Media institutions are gathering information about what we do as buyers and sellers, and competitors t competition. They manipulate us by watching us and figuring out how to control our moves for their benefit. The Truman Show is simply a satire that depicts characteristics of our modern society.
The society Truman lived in was being controlled, and much of what went on in Truman’s life, is very similar to the control media has over us. I like to say we are media robots because much of what we do and think is being controlled by media. Media has a huge influence on how we live our lives and with the production of advanced technology it is becoming much simpler to invade them. Almost any where you go there is a camera or someone that is "keeping an eye on you", in order to keep things "under control". Yes, security is very necessary, but many times those surveillance cameras are not only installed to protect, but I believe they are also around to creep. They’re there to see what we do, what we wear, and what we are buying. . .(Writers block)

People are idiots. They are irrational, impulsive, small minded and the only mentality they obtain is one of the mob, making them very easy to control. On the other hand a single person is logical, contemplative, open minded and a free thinker. Although the difference between a group of people and a single person is not always so vast, there exists a difference between those who are in a group and those that aren’t. Peter Weir gives viewers a glimpse of what occurs when a person become tired of being controlled in a group and decides to break free in The Truman Show. Truman Burbank, the protagonist of the story, has not only had ever single action of his life broadcasted on international television but he has also had every event in his life planned and executed with extreme precision. He is apart of a group that is dedicated to lying to him. The Truman Show is, like most form of good art, a mirror for society to look upon itself that warns of being idly complacent, excessive consumption and self-disillusionment.
Truman, for the first twenty nine years of his life, did not question the word in which he lived in creating an ever more false reality until it literally begins to fall apart at the seems. As Truman steps out of is his house and greats his neighbors with the same greeting he has always given them when a strange object falls from the sky. Unknown to Truman what had fallen from the sky was the light that imitated the star Sirus in the night sky. This is the catalyst that ignites Truman’s search for answer because it is the first sign of a poorly explained irregularity. Although he doesn’t question this first incident it does set a precedent in his mind for other events to be questioned.

Truman Burbank lives in the quaint little town of Seahaven where he owns a home with a white picket fence and lives with his fairly attractive wife, he holds an office job and is well liked by his friends and neighbors. In short his life is as close to perfect as possible, and how could it not be? Truman's life has been manufactured by the creator Christof for the purposes of increasing ratings for his television show, The Truman Show. Truman, who was adopted at birth by the corporation that produces The Truman Show, is the unsuspecting star of this show, he is filmed 24 hours a day by millions of hidden cameras and then broadcast all over the world without interruptions or commercials all day and all night for the length of Truman's life. Truman is also the hero in the movie because he manages to escape Seahaven in his quest for truth. Where there is a hero, there is a villain, but who is the villain here? It is easy to brand Christof as the bad guy in this case because he is the one who has trapped Truman in Seahaven by creating fears for Truman and almost killing him when he attempts to escape Seahaven. But is Christof really evil, or is he just a loving creator? After all, he did give Truman what most of us crave, a life of stability and a life of safety.

Truman was being followed around by cameras. These cameras were everywhere. This enabled Christof to know what Truman was going to do, say and where he was going to go. This reminded me of how marketers make sure their advertisements can be seen by everyone anywhere. In a way Christof can be seen as a marketer. I got the impression that Christof, Truman’s “owner/father,” was watching over Truman to give him a perfect life. Even when Truman got himself into trouble, he did not get punished. Probably because he was the star of the show and they could not afford to have him locked up. It can also be because Christof offered him “protection.” What Christof was not realizing was the fact that although he was offering Truman a perfect life, Truman was not happy. Truman felt an empty space inside him. Once Truman discovered that he had not been living a normal life, he was crushed.
The reason why the film reminded me of how marketers and advertisements work is because marketers, like Christof, know almost everything about us. Marketers know that we want a perfect live but lack skills needed in order to succeed. It is as if marketers want to help us live a life full of perfection by coming up with products that are said to mold us into an ideal person. Thus, they target everyone’s imperfections. We, like Truman, are not aware of this at the beginning. Then, little by little, we feel emptiness within us. We realize that the products that we buy are not fulfilling our needs.