Friday, March 14, 2008

The Truman Show - Christoff

As the producer, Christoff’s role in the programme is to make sure the show goes on as planned and nothing will go wrong in the process. In order to make sure that the show is broadcasted as per normal, he has to think of ways to prevent Truman from finding out that he’s actually living in a studio. However, as time passes, Truman notices too many flaws in his “life”, and tries to escape the set and into the real world. As he attempts to leave Seahaven, Christoff tightly controls any possible ways of leaving, restricting him to the island. For example, when Truman tries to book flights off Seahaven, he is confronted with his fears of his plane being struck down by lightning. Even after he overcomes that fear, he is told that all flights are fully booked, and thus he is unable to leave via a plane. When Truman books a bus ride out of Seahaven, the bus beaks down and once again he is unable to leave the town. Even when Truman takes matters into his own hands and tries to drive out of the town, he is confronted by his fear of water (which was planted into him when Christoff uses a scene where his father tragically “drowns” in a storm and Truman almost died) and fears of rejection by society (Christoff uses people close to Truman to subtly hint that he would be mad to try and leave Seahaven). But even when Truman overcomes these psychological barriers, a series of seemingly “uncontrollable” and “external” factors such as massive traffic jams, forest fires, and even a nuclear accident block his path to freedom.


Furthermore, Christoff wants Truman to be spontaneous and decisive, but he does not want him to make choices. By providing Truman with an environment that is micro-controlled and repetitive, Christoff influence his preferences and predilections and reduce the possible decisions Truman can make so that there is only one favourable outcome at any point of time. Similarly, programme makers in real life can choose to manipulate the characters in a show by subjecting them to specific environments such that they experience certain emotions. This is especially true in reality TV programmes which supposedly documents unscripted scenes and actual events that feature ordinary people instead of professional actors. In this case, Christoff ensures that the show is broadcasted in a way that will appeal to the audience, and there will be enough drama and events to entertain the general public. He directs how the light should be used, when and how the camera should shoot a scene such that the greatest possible effect is achieved. In a way, he makes sure that the audience view Truman’s life from a point of view that he wants them to view. He chooses to influence the choices that characters make in real life TV programmes or write scripts that have characters making certain decisions so that they are commercialised and palatable to the tastes of viewers who will then want to continue watching the show.


On top of this, Christoff is an authoritative figure to the general public, a spokesman for the company, who justifies certain events going on in the show, providing explanations and feeding audience with interesting facts that will arose their curiosity. When talking to the audience on television, he explains how and why he intends to bring Truman’s father back into the show, and what the audience should expect from the show in the future. He also tries to make the audience believe that everything happening in the show is real and not fake. He is the producer, and also the seller. He tells the audience what he wants them to know and what the audience needs to know so that they will keep on watching.


In addition, Christoff is used as a creator figure to give a social commentary about problems created by the modern media which blurs the lines between appearance and reality. Christoff is in charge of creating a utopia for Truman with limited influences from the outside world while programme makers in real life can determine the environment in which a show’s context is set in, ultimately producing a programme that is scripted. Once again, this points to the fact that media influence can actually be a disturbance to our perception of reality when immense amount of media entertainment causes us to be unable to differentiate between media and reality anymore. All these tell us that we are living in a world surrounded my the media, much akin to Truman’s life, and that we have to be media literate and be aware of the fact that we are leaving in a world controlled by the media. However, escaping the media’s control will not be easy, and the media will try and stop us like how Christoff stops Truman’s escape attempts. When we try to break free of the media’s control, we are confronted by fears of rejection by society. After all, people who do not watch TV are considered by the society to be weird.


Therefore, we can say that movies and television (TV) programmes affect our attitudes and beliefs. Depending on what our values are, these programmes can either strengthen or corrode our mindsets over time; and that is the influence the TV has on us. TV is the main source of information; we listen and watch a short news sequence that provides us with the necessary information and keeps us informed during the day. In addition, TV brings about entertainment in our lives, it offers a variety of programmes to keep us occupied while having fun just sitting around, relaxing. However, TV programmes are created by people who want to affect us, to change our mindsets and hopefully “enlighten” us on what they think is right to do, to make us believe in whatever they do and most of the time it works. If the TV does not have an impact on us, then there would not be people citing catch phrases from these TV programmes and that it would not have caused major influences on the fashion industry. That is the power and affluence the TV has on us, whether positive or negative, in influencing our daily habits and lifestyle.

Wenyu, Jasmine, Amanda, Tu Guang
09S06H

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