The Truman Show – A ‘Fake’ Life
In many ways the world Truman lives in, in The Truman Show, is not unlike our own world.
Undoubtedly it is contrived, a world inhabited by actors all playing a part designated to them by
the show’s producers, but how different is that from the lives most people live? For a large part
of the population, life is a simple series of steps, condoned by society, and enforced by the
government and various commercial interests. Some individuals almost seem like they are
following a script for their life, and this begs the question: Do such people really live their lives,
or do they just exist in a contrived world, much like Truman does?
From the start of the movie we see the fake world that Truman exists in, and seems to
fully embrace. He is painfully polite to his neighbors, without any real feeling. As he drives to
work, he talks to the radio in a manner that indicates that he has done the same thing thousands
of times before. He is sociable with his wife, but doesn’t love her. He is very polite to his
mother, but doesn’t show her any affection. He does not truly enjoy his life, he just exists in it,
disaffectedly watching every day go by. The only genuine feeling he shows is when he is
thinking of the girl he once loved, who was taken off the show because her relationship with him
was not part of the script.
This is a stereotypical life for many people in a suburban setting. Nothing really happens,
they have a stable dead-end job, a nice house and a car, and a lackadaisical relationship with
their spouse. They are still friends with their buddies from college, and the ‘exciting’ part of
their lives is going out for a beer with these old friends from more intense times. They have no
plan for the future except to raise kids and retire.
Why do people live like this? Is it a lack of creativity? Do people enjoy their lives like
this, or are they scared of being different? There are many contributing factors, but the
underlying one is that societal and cultural norms dictate how we should live our lives, and it is
hard to stray from these boundaries. As J. Macgregor Wise writes in his article on the culture of
control and how it relates to The Truman Show, “The subject is controlled not by the brute force
of a disciplinary regime, but by the shaping of the social space in which he or she is embedded,
by fostering habits of consumption.” While Truman is controlled and manipulated by the show’s
producers, individuals in normal society are managed by the government and consumerism.
The consumer society creates and enforces many of the social norms that determine this
stereotypical ‘life’. We are constantly bombarded by advertisements pressuring us to dress a
certain way, look a certain way and even live a certain way. It is obviously advantageous for
people selling things to also sell the idea that individuals should buy more things, and that’s
exactly what occurs. Our American society has become a society created by the advertisers, for
the advertisers. As J. Macgregor Wise wrote later in the same article on The Truman Show, “…
We could conclude that consumers have the potential to reveal their true authentic selves and
revolt against the control society but are duped by capital, dopey from spending, sedated by the
opiate of consumption, sleepy after a trip to the mall.” And this is how control is enacted in
modern society, sometimes by force, but mostly by manipulation, convincing people what they
should be like so that they buy more things. This is reflected in Truman’s world, where he is
manipulated by his friends and family into living his life the way expected by the show’s
producers . They constantly tell him that where he lives is the best place on earth, and how he is
so lucky to live the life he does. The town where Truman lives has societal norms, created by the
actors, that relentlessly encourage Truman to live a life he distains.
Force is employed in the control of society in the form of predetermined norms from the
government. The most obvious examples of this are laws which prevent consenting adults from
doing the things they’d like, even when doing so harms no one else. There is no reasonable
argument for precluding such private behavior, yet a multitude of laws exist that do exactly that.
. There are laws that prohibit ownership of certain items. With few exceptions, recreational drugs
are illegal, and even those that are legal are unrealistically restricted for adults of various ages.
Immigration, the free movement of humans on their planet, is difficult and discouraged.
Anything ‘fun’ or slightly out of the ordinary is officially banned or looked down upon. And the
situation is getting worse. Politicians are continuously inventing new ways to control society and
to make it easier to govern and control other people. Individual freedoms are increasingly
ignored for the sake of ‘security’, and more efficient governance. As Benjamin Franklin said,
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty
nor safety.” This is happening everywhere, as people submit to a more and more officially
regulated life, in exchange for security, or in many cases, for nothing at all. In The Truman Show
this control is reflected in the forced inhabitance of Truman in his artificial hometown of
Seahaven.
The government controls the population in other, less obvious, ways as well. Excessive
taxation takes away individuals resources, forcing people to work harder, and discouraging social
and economic growth. This means less free time to enjoy life, and more time working to pay
both for one’s needs and government programs that are frequently of questionable merit. So are
the lives of Truman and those of most individuals in a modern society really that different? In
terms of actually living a ‘real’, individual, satisfying life, it is hard to say. Both go through lives
contrived for them by others, either as a method of control, or as a means to make commercial
profit. It is a frightening prospect, all those irreplaceable lives lived far below their potential. Just
like Truman, many people live out lives in a prison created for them by others, rarely even
realizing that they are imprisoned. Maybe there is hope however. At the end of The Truman
Show, Truman escapes his constricted and contrived world for the ‘real’. If Truman can escape
his bubble, maybe others can too.