Exploring Media Impact in The Truman Show
Watching The Truman Show, one can easily begin to notice underlying social issues portrayed throughout this film. Social constructions are obvious throughout the environment of the film. Habitualization and internalization become relevant theories when observing the audience who play a large role in the movie. Focusing on theorists’ Berger and Luckmann, this review will critically analyze this theory of social construction, focusing on the impact media has in this film and universally in the United States of America.
Media as a Social Problem
Media is everywhere, a social aspect so critical to the economics of the United States often we do not even notice it’s constant presence. Advertisement is unescapable, thus can be a dangerous weapon. Looking at the media in the United States, one can be certain that current trends and standards are used as marketing tools to suggest whatever is being sold or reported on adds value to your life. Children grow up with false ideals of beauty, success, love, and happiness as a response to the overflow of product placement and media coverage in the country. From a very young age people begin to internalize these social constructions blasted by the media and as children begin to age and mature we see these false ideals of happiness become measures of success in life. The Truman Show is a film focusing on a man who has spent his entire life living on live television, unbeknownst to himself.
Another image that Peter Weir used in this film is the representation of Christof as the director or ‘creator’ of The Truman Show. Christof portrays himself as the man behind the show and once we are able to see through his tough exterior we can see that he is not a completely unsympathetic character but quite and conservative. Christof is a very powerful man and is portrayed as a god-like figure. This is shown through the image of individual versus society - as Truman the individual is constantly trying to break free from the control and strong hold of Christof who represents the society.
Peter Weir’s The Truman Show features the ideas of a utopia, commercialism and the power of media through various film techniques. Mise en scen is used by Weir to show the idea of a utopia. The cinematography is utilised by weir to demonstrate commercialism. Weir also uses editing to convey the power of the media.
The Truman Show is centred on a man-made island called SeaHaven where a man named Truman Burbank has been televised without his knowledge since birth. The show is a 24 hour live tv show where every aspect of Truman’s life is shown. As Truman grows older he begins to notice unsual events that leads him to believe that there is something incongruent with what people are telling him and what he experiences in his day to day life. As Truman begins to test the boundaries he realizes that the town seems to revolve around him and his desire to escape comes to an all time high. Eventually Truman begins on a journey to escape his virtual reality. Despite the boundaries that the director throws at him he eventually escapes and will try to find his way in the real world. This movie made me sympathize for Truman being that he has no privacy and is oblivious to his lack of freedom. This movie shows how it is possible to create an “ideal” community and how New Urbanism can be created and maintained.
The Truman Show, is a film starring Jim Carrey, directed by Peter Weir. The film revolves around Truman Burbank, who is the star of The Truman Show, the show within the film. The Truman show is a live stream of Truman's life, filmed by hidden camera's capturing his everyday movements. Truman is a key character in the film, who helped me to understand the important message of the film. Truman's developments during the film and the manipulation of him and his surrounding environments helped to understand how the media and big corporations have excessive power and control over society and people's opinions.
Utopia - A perfect world. Truman's world was an utopia. Everything, including the weather, was controlled in a huge Hollywood dome. Truman grew up having no idea he was being watched every hour of the day, and that every step he took was being viewed by millions all over the globe. As the show progressed, it became clear how much media influenced Truman's life, and also how Christof played a huge role in Truman's well-being.
In the film “The Truman Show”, directed by Peter Weir, many techniques are strategically used to position the audience to respond emotionally to Truman Burbank. Techniques such as lighting, music, camera shots and angles are used in three specific scenes throughout the film co-ordinated by the shows director Christof. He uses these techniques to encourage the show’s audience to believe that what they are watching is unscripted and real.
He also wrestles with limitless surveillance and the reasons that people are willing to be surveilled. He suggests that people are willing to divulge information willingly and submit to surveillance because there are easily distracted by the novelty of technology and they are believe that they are receiving a service in return.4 In The Truman Show the surveillance is deemed acceptable by the audience because they are receiving as good, the television and Christof reasoned that the surveillance and major invasion of privacy was acceptable because he was giving Truman a happy simple life, separate from the cruel realities of the real world. However, The Truman Show diverges from Harcourt’s theories, because Truman is not aware of the surveillance
The film ‘The Truman Show’ directed by Peter Weir, shows how society is manipulated by the power of media. We see how Christof creates a ‘perfect’ environment for Truman to live in since his birth to his adulthood without Truman knowing that his life is being watched by millions of people around the world. The society is quickly being manipulated by Christof and doesn't realise that Truman gets no privacy and he is just being used for their entertainment. This is shown through a series of verbal and visual features in this film.
Peter Weir’s 1998 film, ‘The Truman show’ effectively manages to portray the message of audience manipulation both through the internal and external audiences of the show. This essay will be critically analyzing the techniques used to manipulate the audience in ‘The Truman Show”. Firstly, by analyzing the sound techniques, then by analyzing the camera shots used. Finally, by discussing how the symbolism used manages to successfully manipulate the audience’s views. There will now be three critical and analytical arguments supporting the statement that ‘The Truman Show’ manages to effectively manipulate the audience.
Throughout this journey to find the truth, lots of similarities between the life of Truman and Siddhartha can be found. By depicting his life as a parallel version of Siddhartha’s life, the idea of spiritual journey and enlightenment is indirectly shown in the film. Furthermore, The Truman Show can be analyzed as the
The media has been able to manipulate people by making them believe what they say. One example that satirizes the media is a movie called The Truman show. Throughout the Truman show, the main character, Truman Burbank, is trapped in a stage set which he perceives as the real world. As he has lived there for around 30 years he starts to get the perception of being in a false environment. The media plays a big role in our lives as Truman is exposed to the corrupt side of them.
Truman Burbank is the star of a favored reality television show called “The Truman Show.” The show is a live feed of Truman’s life. Cameras continue to roll 24 hours a day, seven days a week, commercial free. The whole world tunes in to watch and over the years has developed a connection with Truman. However, Truman Burbank has no idea. He believes he lives in the town of Seahaven, a staged set on which he has remained his whole life. In " The Truman Show," Writer Andrew Niccol illustrates the theme of perception versus reality through the use of dramatic irony, pathos, and symbolism.
In the movie called; The Truman Show the main character named Truman finally comes to terms that his reality has been created for the purpose of a TV show in which he unknowingly stars in. For Truman, this is a dystopia, because he lives under constant surveillance, and was led to believe that Sea Haven was an ideal,perfect place.However for someone like Christoff;the director it could be considered a Utopia.
These days, our society has become overrun with technology and the media. Everywhere you look, it is easy to spot. At this rate, it is fearful to think about what our future might hold. Similar to this, The Truman Show, is a film that presents a strong message about the negatives of this. Extremely unethical, this movie follows the life of Truman Burbank who, since his birth, has been the star of his very own reality television show. However, Truman is not privy to this information and believes that he is just living a normal life. Through watching, viewers watch as this hero struggles to discover the truth and gain his freedom.
Across the United States, youth are exposed in massive amounts to media influence and the dangers that it beholds. For instance, teenagers in the U.S. spend an average of seven hours on media every single day: four hours of which are on television, and two hours spent listening to music or other audio (Johnson). Through these long hours of exposure, media relentlessly extinguishes kids’ positive thinking patterns, replacing them with its own corrupt and immoral techniques which were merely made to create heavier media users and further the media’s moneymaking scheme. Over the course of children’s contact with the television, the average American child sees approximately 20,000 commercials every year (Schaefer 152). Each advertisement, proposing a new idea or product that suggests