Boyer 1
William Boyer
Dr. Norman
WRTR2304
Essay 1
How James Truslow Adams Predicted The Truman Show
In the 1998 film The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir, the protagonist, Truman
Burbank, lives his entire life within a television set with his every move being broadcasted to the
whole world. Truman’s life and entire world are totally artificial and controlled by a corporation
unbeknownst to him. By constructing this fictional world in which Truman, the ‘true man’ who
represents the modern American, is totally unaware of the fact that his life has been constructed
by and is subject to control by an unseen corporation, the filmmakers argue that in modern
America the parameters of life have largely been established and controlled by unseen corporate
agents. This problem of corporate control that the filmmakers recognized in the 1990’s is the
very same as the problem that James Truslow Adams warned about in the 1930’s in his epilogue
to The Epic of America. In the epilogue Adams warns that Americans must decide as a country
on their collective values lest their vigorous and industrious natures be perverted by corporations
and business leaders who would seek to promote the pursuit of wealth and economic prosperity
as the sole parameter of success.
In 1931 in response to Henry Ford’s assertion that “we now know that anything which is
economically right is also morally right,” James Truslow Adams makes the argument that the
American people must not allow for their energetic and earnest nature to be appropriated by
industrialists for the sake of vain consumerism (Adams, 400). Adams saw in America that with
the end of the frontier era the nation’s adventurous and industrious natures, which in times past
Boyer 2
had fueled the nation’s advancement, were now being perverted by industrial leaders for the
purposes of economic advancement as well as their own personal enrichment. By doing so these
business leaders would cause the American people to desire and pursue wealth above all else,
and to view wealth as an end unto itself, thus distracting them from more noble and meaningful
pursuits. Adams antidote to this idolization of wealth is that “our [America’s] communal,
spiritual, and intellectual life must be distinctly higher than elsewhere” (Adams, 411). At the
heart of Adams’ epilogue is the fear and warning that the parameters and circumstances of
American life would come to be determined by corporations and business leaders, which is
articulated in his succinct rebuke to Ford: “if what was economically right was also morally
right, we could surrender our souls to professors of economics and captains of industry” (Adams,
400).
In The Truman Show the world that Truman lives in is the fulfillment of Adams’ warning;
his whole life has literally been constructed and controlled by a corporation. Truman,
representative of the modern American, lives in a world of total corporate control, a fact that
takes him almost 30 years to learn. Sylvia, the one character in the film who attempts to free
Truman from his ignorance says of him, and so too of the modern American, that “he’s a
prisoner” (Weir 1998). Through this depiction of an imprisoned man the filmmakers assert that in
modern America the world that people live in has been constructed and controlled by
corporations and business leaders who have used their immense and largely unchecked power to
establish, according to their own values, the parameters and circumstances of life for most
Americans. The same business leaders then claim that the world they have created is “the way
the world should be,” just as Christof says of Seahaven, his created world (Weir, 1998). Most
people will never know or question the truth of the world they live in, or as Christof also says:
Boyer 3
“we accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented” (Weir, 1998). Such a deferral of
power and influence into the hands of business leaders is exactly what Adams warned about and
is exactly what the makers of The Truman Show recognized within the country, reflecting that
Americans of the twentieth century failed to heed Adams’ warning.
In modern America, George Soros, a billionaire hedge fund manager, is often maligned
for his contributions via his Open Society Foundation (OSF) towards radical political activist
groups which oppose the values of large swathes of the American population. In “George Soros:
The ‘God’ Who Should Be Jailed” author William Jasper uses fierce language to accuse Soros of
exerting great and unchecked influence over America by means of his vast fortune. Jasper also
points out some of Soros’ own self-incriminating words, such as when he told The Independent
that “it is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god […] but I feel
comfortable about it now since I began to live it out,” insinuating that he had become
comfortable using his immense wealth to inflict his will on the world, even while refusing
“accept rules imposed by others,” insinuating Soros’ proclivity to circumvent law (Jasper). Such
power and influence being concentrated in one man by merit of his immense wealth is exactly
What Adams warned against, especially when that one man freely admits to “fantasies about
being God” (Jasper). In this way Soros can also be compared to Christof in The Truman Show,
the show’s director who renders to himself God-like powers over Truman’s life.
Peter Weir argues through The Truman Show that modern Americans have succumbed to
the influence and control of business leaders and soulless corporations, the very thing that James
Truslow Adams warned about in his epilogue to The Epic of America. Adams’ stern words of
warning can also be applied to powerful billionaires like George Soros who use their massive
fortunes as tools to undemocratically exercise power and exert influence on the world.
Boyer 4
Works Cited
Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1931.
Jasper, William F. "GEORGE SOROS the "God" Who should be Jailed." The New American, vol. 33,
no. 3, Feb 06, 2017, pp. 10-14. ProQuest,
http://proxy.libraries.smu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/george-soros-godwho-should-be-jailed/docview/1873301607/se-2.
Weir, Peter, Director. The Truman Show. Paramount Pictures, 1998.