The Truman Show: The Character of Truman

What kind of person is Truman?
Truman is a typical American man, who is 'living the American dream'. He stays in a normal house, leads a normal life with his wife, goes to work every day, and does pretty much the same thing every day. However, he does not know that everyone living around him are paid actors and actresses, and he is the unknowing star of the show “The Truman Show”. Truman seems to be a very popular person in Seahaven, as he greets everyone and everyone greets him. However, he does not seem to really know them in person, but only in name. He has climbed up the corporate ladder quite quickly, and seems to hold the position of a manager. Truman does not seem to love his current wife. The one woman he ever really loved is not his wife and has long since left for the other side of the world where he longs to visit but feels he can never go. Truman seems to be deceiving himself that the current life that he is leading is a perfect one, one that has no real trouble and is the best for him. However, he always has a niggling want to go to the other side of the world, to get away from his monotonous life, to experience something new. He even seems to want to go find his ex-girlfriend, as seen in a scene where he tells his close friend that he wants to go to Fiji, the very place that his ex-girlfriend is at.

Why has he been chosen as the star of a media show? Why doesn't he know about it?
Truman was chosen because he happened to be born at the time of the production. Moreover, he was an unwanted baby and that made it easier for the producers of the show to use him, as he would not have any family members that they would have to account to, nor did he have any knowledge of what a normal life should be like. Hence, they would have been able to create a life around him without him knowing anything about it. Also, the producers felt that by doing so, they were adopting Truman and giving him a chance to lead a normal life that he would not have been able to had he been left unwanted.

Truman is unaware that his whole life is actually a show because he has been living this life ever since he was a baby, and everything seems to be normal. All the people around him – his family, friends, neighbours and even strangers – are all paid actors, and all the events that have happened to him are planned. Hence, his whole life seems to him to be a typical and routine one, so he does not suspect anything. The cameras that are positioned around Seahaven are also hidden so he is unaware that he is being filmed.

In what ways is he influenced by the media?
Unknowingly, Truman's whole life is influenced by the media because everyone and everything around him is part of a television programme. The actors in Seahaven are made to say or do certain things so as to affect Truman's decisions. An example of this was when Truman decided to book a flight to Fiji, and the producers placed prominent posters about buying travel insurance in case of terrorist attacks, diseases etc, and warning travelers of lightning strikes during flights so as to dissuade him. Also, Truman is unknowingly forced to stand in certain positions so that the hidden cameras are able to capture advertisements which will be conveniently broadcasted to the audience. In addition, he is also made to endorse certain products that his family and friends recommend, like the “Chef's Pal” that his wife introduced to him.

Truman is influenced by the actors and events happening around him that the life he is leading is a real one – that he has a real family, real friends and is living in a real town. However, what he does not know is that his actions are consciously planned by the production team, and everything that is said by the people around him is directed by the producers. Drawing a parallel to real life, just like how Truman is made to believe that he is living a normal life, the media has the power to influence our decisions and make us believe that what we see is reality.

Think of a specific scene in which this is illustrated well and comment on the effect.
A specific example of how Truman was influenced by the media (ie. the producers and actors of the Truman Show) was when he witnessed his father's “death”. The production team staged his father’s death at sea so that Truman would develop a fear of water, and this would then keep him from leaving Seahaven as he would have to cross a bridge over water to leave the town. This incident illustrates the power of the producers over Truman’s life, and how they made use of this power to make him believe what he saw was real, and to control his actions, to ensure that he would not leave Seahaven. The producers took advantage of the relationship between Truman and his “father” and Truman's experience of losing his father at sea to influence Truman to develop a phobia for water.

How does this reflect how the media influences us?
This shows us that the media exerts a great amount of influence on us. The media is around us all the time, and is constantly feeding us information and images that we subconsciously take in. We must, however, be conscious of the fact that not all this information is real and be able to decide what to believe and what not to believe. The above example in the Truman Show shows us how the media is able to manipulate our thoughts and actions without us knowing it. The media conjures in our minds an idea of reality and what our lives should be like, and most of us believe it. Like Truman, who eventually discovers that his whole life was not real and merely a creation of the media, we must equip ourselves with media literacy skills so that we may be able to tell real life from reel life, and not lead our lives the way the media dictates us to.

Zoe, Joel, Yingxin, Cheryl, Ben Khoo
09S06H