The Truman Show

How does the film The Truman Show tell the audience about the influence of the media?

The Truman Show tells us that the media has infiltrated our lives, influencing our aspirations, and the way we perceive both ourselves and others. Our group will focus on how the character in the film, Christoff, highlights the influence of the media.

Christoff is the producer, creator and director of the Truman Show. He created The Truman Show, which is broadcasted 24 hours every day. The show features the life of Truman Burbank – his life experiences and emotions that he goes through are broadcasted worldwide. However, Truman is unaware of the fact that his every move and action is recorded and aired to millions.
Even though Truman makes decisions in his life, his choices are often greatly influenced by what Christoff has designed for him. Through the product placements in the show, both Truman and the audience are subconsciously affected in their choices of products. For example, a particular brand of soft drink or baked beans may be featured in the show, and this may be a form of advertisement for the product. Certainly, the media has infiltrated many aspects of our lives, and affected the decisions we make.
Christoff is a manipulative character, and oversees every single aspect of the film set and Truman’s life. He wields control and dictates the events that take place in Truman’s life. This includes the systematically planned death of Truman’s father. Christoff provides a setting for Truman to behave in a desired way, such that the audience will be interested to continue tuning in to the show. For example, when the truth that Truman had been filmed all these while was revealed to him, Christoff undermines Truman’s feelings by cueing for melancholic music to be played by the production team. He creates an artificial setting for the audience to feel for him. Similarly, the media manipulates the target audience’s feelings by putting up a specific situation or scenario that aims at certain emotions. For example, slimming advertisements target at consumers’ guilt and desire to appear physically attractive, through visual appeal of models with a desired body figure.
Furthermore, Christoff manipulates Truman by influencing his beliefs and values. He controls various aspects of his life (such as his emotions and his perception of reality), impeding him from reaching his goal. Initially, Truman wants to become an explorer and Christoff prevents that by instilling in him the fear of water. In addition, he hindered him from being with the girl whom he really loves. Christoff manipulates Truman in such ways, creating a plot that ensures viewership. The final aim of Christoff is to gain fame and success for himself. Similarly, programme makers in real life decide the plot of television shows, and what the audience watches. They choose to bring across certain messages to the audience, manipulating and toying with the audience’s emotions to increase viewership and earn profits. Certain companies influence our perception of products by packaging them as cool and hip things to possess, so as to boost sales. As a result, consumers are often controlled unknowingly in their decisions to buy a particular product due to the way the media portrays it.
For example, after his wife left with his mother, Truman watched a TV show that emphasises on how good home is and why we should not venture far from home. All these subtle hints deter Truman from wanting to explore the world around him and discover he is just in a large set. This tells the audience that the ideas propagated in TV shows do have an effect on how we think. Yes this does happen in real life, especially in commercials and advertisements that try to market their products to us. Successful marketing will influence us into thinking that their product is as desirable as they say it is. As for drama serials, they can influence us into thinking that a certain set of values are correct, for example, the male lead in the show hits the villain and wins the admiration of the female lead. This may influence the audience to an extent to think that violence is a good way to resolve problems and that it is heroic to do so.
Christoff is also a callous character. He is cold and hard, and is rather nonchalant to Truman’s feelings. Even as Truman is facing an emotional breakdown after learning about the truth, and trying to escape from his engineered life, Christoff resorts to various underhand means and methods to keep him within the film set. When Truman was sailing on the artificial sea in the film set, hoping to escape, Christoff controls the weather, ordering for a stormy weather to prevent Truman from leaving. Despite Truman’s struggle and fear of water, Christoff relentlessly asks for increasingly stormy water to stop his escape, threatening Truman’s life in the process. In real life, the media can possible be as callous and cruel. For example, in reality show Big Brother Australia, a participant whose father had passed away was uninformed. The producers had decided not to inform her about her father’s death as they did not want to disrupt the flow of the reality show.
However, it is not right to blame Christoff totally. The reason why Christoff was able to successfully create the Truman Show is because people are interested in it as it creates a world which is not possible in the real world. The audience gives Christoff silent support by watching the show every day and encourages him to continue with the show. It can be said that Christoff is only giving the people what they want by creating Seahaven. It is a place created by Christoff to attract the interest of the audience. The audience watches the show partly because of Truman and partly because they can imagine living in this ideal little town and continue believing that the American dream exists. Therefore one of the main reasons why Truman has been deceived for so many years is the audience’s desire for a true reality show. The audience is aware of Truman’s situation, yet most of them do nothing to help him get out of the show.
Television dramas can also greatly influence our values and mindsets. Drama serials may lead us into thinking that real life is the way as it is portrayed in the programmes. For example, casual sex and violence on television shows may influence us into believing such acts are acceptable. Constant messages and ideas sent out by TV shows may affect us subconsciously and become ingrained in us eventually. As Christoff mentioned in the film, people often accept reality as it is presented to them. Likewise, without even being aware of it, people often accept what television shows present to them, allowing the producers to manipulate our lives with the embedded values and messages.

As such, The Truman Show is a wake up call for many as it reminds us of the influences of the media and how it greatly affects our values, perceptions and choices in life. It is essential for all to develop greater awareness of the power of the media, and the ways which we can minimise this influence on us so as to be truly in charge of our own lives. In addition, it is also the producers’ part to exercise social responsibility in the entertainment sector.

Cheong Li Min, Rachel Chin, Lim Shi Min, Sun Yi Yue, Tao Tao
09S03K