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Analysis Of The Movie ' The Truman Show '

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The Truman Show is a 1998 comedy-drama starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, a man born and raised in the town of Seahaven, Florida. What Truman doesn’t initially realize, however, is that Seahaven is a giant television set, filled with many thousands of cameras. Truman’s life is being broadcast worldwide, controlled from above by the creator, Christof. Truman lives his life in blissful ignorance while Christof pulls all of the strings and controls the direction of Truman’s life. Everyone in Seahaven, including Truman’s wife, is an actor, doing their best to keep Truman from discovering the truth. The movie follows Truman’s discovery that his life is being controlled and his eventual decision to remain in his peaceful prison or venture out into the mysterious world. John Pollock’s “Brain in a Vat” argument makes you consider that you have no body, you are simply a brain hooked up to wires and tubes, being fed neural signals that simulate the life you think you’re living. This argument is similar to Descartes’ musings about an “evil demon” making you think you are doing things that you aren’t. Both of these scenarios relate to The Truman Show in that the events Truman thought were going on in his life were caused by a team of people watching his every move. Nothing that happened to him was “random”. Christof played the role of the “evil demon” or “evil genius” by allowing Truman to believe that his life was his own. These scenarios differ when you realize that Truman

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