`The Truman Show,” the hit TV series that is the centerpiece of the movie of the same name, does not now exist in real life, of course.
Or does it?
The movie, as you have no doubt heard by now–and probably even seen, judging by its impressive box-office performance–tells the story of a man named Truman Burbank, the butt of a colossal and unspeakably cruel joke.
The life of this hokey naif played by Jim Carrey is, unbeknownst only to him, a fraud. His wife, friends and neighbors are actors, their words to him lines from a script. His town exists not on the map but in a climate-controlled biosphere. And it is all being broadcast, live, 24 hours a day, via some 5,000 surreptitious cameras, to a worldwide audience enraptured by the reactions of the human lab rat to the things–people, emotions, situations–that are tossed in his cage.
It is obviously satirical exaggeration on the part of director Peter Weir and writer Andrew Niccol to propose that the rest of the world would, with almost no dissent, allow a man to be kept as an unwitting prisoner for its entertainment. Where is the ACLU? Where is the FCC? Where, for that matter, are the TV critics?
But the film is so disquieting–come out of it and you’ll spend the first hour reassuring yourself that people are behaving according to their own motives and you are not the secret center of attention–largely because it is only a slight exaggeration. If not the show itself, elements of “The Truman Show” are everywhere on television already.
We can already tally dozens of men and women who, like Truman, became fleetingly famous through no–or only slight–fault of their own. In the klieg lights of current media culture, make the mistake of popping up, out of anonymity, and expect to have your behavior and motivations examined on the all-news channels. Rodney King and Donna Rice are among the people from very different realms who can watch the film and feel that they have lived some part of its scenario.
Regularly-scheduled television, meanwhile, is already thick with shows devoted entirely to titillating the audiences with moments that were never meant to be seen but that we tune in with nearly as much anticipation as does the movie’s audience for its television show about Truman.
The syndicated “Real TV” gathers visceral video–rescues, car chases and worse–and replays it each day, often half a dozen times per dramatic moment. The Fox network, one of television’s “Big Four,” has made a cottage industry out of footage of animals savagely attacking humans and cops recklessly chasing robbers.
The HBO series “Taxicab Confessions” secretly videotapes all manner of real people talking to their cab drivers, about topics as personal as their sexual practices and life’s regrets. A voice in his ear from the control room plants provocative questions in the cabbie’s mouth, much like Truman’s best buddy in the movie is fed his dialogue by the “Truman (TV) Show’s” director Christof. Only after the cab ride is over are the unknowing subjects asked to sign a release authorizing use of the spy video; the surprising thing is that so many do, although in their defense it must be said that not all appear to be sober at the time.
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee have sex, entirely appropriate behavior for married couples according to American cultural mores. They videotape it, perhaps not as widely accepted but apparently not all that unusual either. And it ends up all over the Internet, which is like television only more so because its content can be summoned on demand. Rather than question the morality of looking at this video–an issue that informs all of “The Truman Show” as we watch viewers blithely enjoying the man’s life–hundreds of thousands of people download it for their own enjoyment.
Even a program as insipid as ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” can be said to resemble “The Truman Show.” The wacky pratfalls and cute pet behaviors captured at home and sent in to the show are supposed to be accidents, but how many viewers have shared my suspicion: that the poor kids, for example, whose antics and injuries are caught on tape, are really serving as miniature Trumans as their parents play the role of Christof, trying to stage television-worthy events?
And the advertising in “The Truman Show’s” TV show, one of the movie’s most clever running jokes, becomes less so when you realize it has been happening the same way in real life for decades now, and with almost as little subtlety.
Two brothers periodically pin Truman against a billboard, for instance, giving his show’s cameras time to focus on the ad signage. It’s supposed to seem hamhanded, but it is no more so than the conspicuous Coke cans or the AT&T logos on telephones in other Hollywood movies.
Or the actress playing Truman’s wife (played by the actress named Laura Linney) will drop product references into the marital byplay: She tells hubby she wants a new lawnmower, or she just bought a great new kitchen gadget. The Fox network is way ahead here: A couple of years back, it acknowledged having sold as advertising time dialog in its prime-time series “Party of Five.” The characters worked the advertising slogan “Got Milk?” into their conversation.
The overriding emotion of “The Truman Show,” even after Truman begins to figure things out, is a growing revulsion at the inhumanities that are visited upon him in order to keep the illusion of reality–and therefore the television show–alive.
Back in the real world, we’ve already got a Washington, D.C.-area woman who makes a media splash because she broadcasts her life via the Internet. We tolerate, even celebrate, the dissemination of illicit sex video, a l a Pam and Tommy. Laws protecting privacy lose teeth faster than an 8 year old. And television, eager to meet the demand for new sensations, is ready to take advantage.
It seems ever less far-fetched to imagine that these trends might come together to bring us something even more like “The Truman Show” than we already have. I don’t know about you, but when my stomach starts to feel like this, I take soothing Pepto-Bismol.
