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Film Critique
The Truman Show (1998)

Hannah Broadbent

Central Memorial High School

Psychology and Sociology 30

Ms. Herage

September 25th 2020

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The Truman Show (1998) is a concept film about a man who has lived unaware that he

had been bought by a company and commercialized as an extreme take on a reality show for all

of his life. Truman was born and raised in a fictional utopian island created by a television

company. His life and identity was adopted and molded from birth for the entertainment of the

people. Although this story is quite hyperbolic, with a complete fake town and entire cast of

actors, this concept was not that abstract after all. Interest in Reality Tv was steadily rising. Fast

forward to today, The Truman Show seems not as alien as it might have when it first came out.

Today, exploiting people for entertainment and money is oddly accepted and continues to be

practiced. Did The Truman Show predict this? What should be taken from the film?

In many ways, The Truman Show can be seen as a cautionary tale. Today we see

countless examples of scenarios that resemble the story of Truman. In 1997 while the show was

being filmed, Princess Diana died in a car accident, one of the factors being the pursuit of the

paparazzi. While meticulously attempting to escape the cameras, they drove into a tunnel where

they crashed, resulting in Princess Diana’s death. Many people believe if the paparazzi and

media was not so ruthless in their search for pictures and stories of the princess, she could have

arrived home safely that night. Violation of the right of privacy can have devastating effects and

yet we continue to normalize the concept of watching real people for entertainment. Other

examples are more recent, such as the rise of “Family Channels” on Youtube. There are

hundreds of channels on Youtube that feature parents who have put their non-consenting kids on

camera at extremely young ages, susceptible to anyone who comes across their videos. In a way,

this is exactly like The Truman show where Truman was put on air from birth with no proper

consent or knowledge. These channels are meant to be raw showings of people's lives, like the

concept of The Truman Show, however they thrive off of dramatic titles and thumbnails. This
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shows the reality of ‘Reality Television”. The content will not be entertaining unless it is

something controlled or tweaked like by the dramatization family channels include in their

videos. At a more extreme level, the entire fake town Truman lives in gives the creators the

power to make Truman’s life whatever they want. We see this in shows like Big Brother or The

Bachelor, where they have a heavily controlled environment, thus allowing heavily controlled

characters and plot lines. Like the director in charge of The Truman Show, lives on such shows

are seen as mere opportunities for cinematic masterpiece. Directors, producers and writers

manipulate their audience by using emotional triggers that will increase empathy towards

characters. In The Truman show, the audience’s empathy is used as an advantage multiple times,

such as when they give Truman the storyline that his dad died in a boating accident. Viewers feel

bad for him, despite the fact they know that this is not real. Is this because that no longer matters

to them anymore? Does it matter to us? The distinction between reality or fiction seems to lose

relevance more and more.

Truman can be seen to represent society as a whole, with his authenticity, curiosity,

stubborn nature and determination. The idea of “Reality Television” is to be able to see behind

the curtain, to feed our natural curiosity, but as we see more and more patterns on falseivity in

the media, it’s clear this information we are getting may be tampered with. This can blur our

sense of reality, similar to how the actors on The Truman Show have assimilated into a

completely fake world. They now “accept the reality of the world in which they’re presented”.

They are the characters they are casted to be, no longer just playing them. That translates to our

life, we can become so involved with a false reality provided by the media that the world in our

eyes actually changes. As Well as the misleading nature of Reality Television, dehumanization is

present in many mainstream shows, like “Live PD”. This show promises real behind the scenes
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footage of police pursuits. They use crime or the arrest of a real person as pure entertainment,

making a mockery of people doing the jobs, and the people recorded live on a show with no

consent. This is possibly one of the closest relatives to The Truman Show that exists is real life.

It is 24 hours, invasive, and blatantly using people for personal gain. Whether the people shown

on “Live PD” are criminals or not, they are being used as a circus attraction for the audience,

being dehumanized by exploiting their lives and crimes for profit. Many people enjoy this live

action drama, but people forget that for the most part it is real, and not just a set these people can

come home from. Again, blurring the line between fiction and reality, and muting the reality of

pain and suffering because it is merely a picture on a screen. Do we as an audience care that this

can alter our ability to feel empathy? The audience of The Truman show don’t seem to mind,

because in all honesty, Truman’s pain is just entertainment. Truman has been dehumanized and

exploited since birth and yet this is accepted by the majority? What this tells us is that Reality

Television and similar media has been an aid in normalizing exploitation of people even more so

than The Truman Show in 1998 depicted. The movie was seen as a sci-fi type story, yet the

depiction of this theoretical and abstract concept of “The Truman Show”, has shown to be not as

abstract as we had once thought it to be.

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References

Niccol, Andrew. (Producer), & Weir, Peter. (Director). (1998). The Truman Show [Motion

Picture].United States: Paramount Pictures