"The Truman Show" - "What Else Is On?"

SPOILERS ahead.

My friend Robie Malcomson invited me onto his podcast, Knowing You Know Nothing, to discuss The Truman Show (I'll share a link to the podcast once it comes out), and just like with Unforgiven a few weeks ago, I decided to also write an article about the film. When The Truman Show first came out, I was only interested in it because Jim Carrey was the star. While I found moments of the film funny (and still do), I originally came away a little disappointed. After realizing that Carrey was getting into more serious acting, I was able to appreciate the film much more over the years. Looking back at it now, I consider it one of Carrey’s best performances and an amazingly deep, though entertaining, film. Watching it with philosophy and the current state of the world, I came away with a lot of topics I want to cover.

“What else is on?”

The immediate question I ask myself after watching the film is, “Who is the real prisoner?” Is it Truman? Is it the millions of addicted viewers within the film? Or is it me, watching the film? 

With Truman, he is certainly a type of prisoner in that he’s an unwilling participant in a reality show. Every time he even thinks about leaving, the producers sabotage him subliminally and overtly. They make the argument that they are giving him a great life, but being free has nothing to do with your circumstances. Whether you are in misery or bliss, unaware or aware, if you do not have the option to leave, then you are a prisoner. But does that make Truman the “real” prisoner of the film? Since he gains his freedom at the end of film, I would say he is certainly not.

The viewers of the show seem to prisoners themselves. All of the viewers we see in the film never change location, whether they are at work (the people at the Truman-themed bar, the security guards, Christof and the technicians who never seem to leave their posts) or at home (the bathtub guy, the old women). In a way, they seemed trapped in their locations due to their dependence on the show, whether for financial or emotional reasons. These are self-imposed prisoners, though, as they can always turn the TV or find a different job. I do find them to be the “real” prisoners of the film, especially since one of the last lines of the film is one of the security guards asking, “What else is on?” Their imprisonment has nothing to do with Truman; they just want a distraction.

Which brings me to...well...me. As someone who spends a lot of his free time watching movies both for fun and to write about (which I also do for fun because I am definitely not making money writing about random movies from my collection), I often question how dependent I am on movies as a distraction in my life. I know that any time spent watching then writing about a movie may keep me from experiencing more meaningful moments in life. But I like to do it, and I think it keeps my mind fresh. But entertainment in general is a distraction, and if we depend on it, that makes us slightly imprisoned by it. 

But I’m hardly a prisoner. If for no other reason than because I’m aware that it’s all a distraction. But distractions are necessary from time to time. I get overwhelmed by the news quite often these days, and I find it relaxing to shut down with a movie. If I am a prisoner, I am at least serving my sentence from moment to moment rather than consecutively. And it’s not against my will. I find that being an occasional prisoner helps keep me sane. Perhaps my life isn’t as “real” as it should be, but a little imprisonment is acceptable to me in the long run.

What Is “Real” Life, Anyway?

Something that has annoyed me more and more as I get older is the idea of living a real life as presented in TV and movies. Almost always, a person living with a family in the suburbs is considered to be a wasted life. I get that raising a family and working for a paycheck to support that family is not a glamorous or exciting existence. But abandoning your family to just go bum around doesn’t make you noble; it makes you a piece of shit. 

Perhaps I take things too personally, but I am a guy who is raising a family while working a job just for the paycheck. According to a lot of shows and movies, I am a waste of fucking space. I need to go climb a mountain or go to Europe or something. But why is that considered “real” life? I have never felt more purpose in life than when I became a father. It is my goal to be a part of my children’s lives and be a supportive partner to my wife as we raise our kids. If that isn’t worthwhile then what is? 

In The Truman Show, Truman’s fake wife Meryl brings up having a baby multiple times. It’s like if they have a kid, then Truman will be stuck in his personal prison forever. Why the fuck do we have to view having children as the end of life? Sure, I don’t get to travel as much as I used to, and the kids take up most of my attention, but does that make my life less “real”? 

I get that the idea of getting a job, a wife, a house, some kids, etc. is considered conforming to society’s idea of what a person should be, but “real” life is what you decide it is. For me, bumming around Europe right now would be a real scumbag move. But for others, perhaps that’s a life worth living. Personally, I’ve always found people that abandon their families, no matter how imprisoning they found them to be, to be selfish assholes. 

The Truman Show isn’t necessarily decrying raising a family, but is saying that you shouldn’t do it just because it’s expected of you, and I agree with that. If I didn’t want to have a family right now, I wouldn’t have one. If raising a family isn’t considered “real” living to you, then you need to realize that before you start one. 

Truman isn’t really running away from family life when he leaves the show. He’s running towards the love of his life. For all we know, he will be a family man in the suburbs a few years after the show. If that’s what he wants, then that is a “real” life. I suppose I’ve come to realize that “real” life is subjective. It all amounts to you making your peace with it. But as long as you are fully involved in your life, no matter how exciting it is, then you are really experiencing life. I can spend a few thousand dollars and train to get to the top of Mount Everest and get a great picture to post online, but there’s no way that experience will ever amount to even a fraction of the feeling I get when my kids light up and hug me when I get home from work. That’s real to me.

This Is the Best and Worst Movie to Watch During a Quarantine.

The Truman Show is a bit relevant right now because many people can identify with Truman while we’re stuck inside during quarantine. It’s easy to feel a bit like a prisoner. But it also makes it easier to buy into the premise of the film.

One issue I’ve always had with the film was why Truman was just now wanting to get out. How did this not happen much sooner. Christof gives a good reason by saying, “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” When you consider how Truman’s life has always been, it’s easier to understand why he’s just now waking up. But being in quarantine makes it even more believable.

Months ago, I could not have imagined life as it is right now. But after a few days, this became the new normal. It reminded me of losing my cell phone for a few days or being without internet access for an extended time. At first, you panic, but after a while, you get used to it and move on. This is why most of us can accept the quarantine, and it’s why Truman accepted his world for so long.

But Truman did eventually want to leave, which is why The Truman Show is actually a bad movie to watch during these times. Truman is kept from leaving his world through a series of lies and fears. A fear of water has been constructed for him. A fake fire erupts as he tries to drive away. A fake nuclear meltdown is staged to keep him home. Not to mention literally every person he knows and loves is lying to his face on a daily basis to keep him home.

Truman sees through it all, and it’s a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. As it turns out, everything is a lie, and Truman wakes up to see the truth. All of the worst conspiracies out there right now are claiming that the pandemic is being overblown, medicines are being withheld while others are promoted for profit, it’s been created to foil the upcoming election, it’s been created to reduce the population, the fear is being overblown in an attempt to keep us contained and docile, etc. 

If someone who believes one or more of those things watches this movie, it will seem like a vindication for them. “Look at Truman. He thought everything he was being told was a lie, and he was right!” 

The problem with a lot of people in this country right now is that they have no personal connection to the virus. I have heard from so many people, “I don’t even know anyone who has it.” Couple that with the fact that we can have it and spread it without showing symptoms, and it can feel at times that we are quarantining against an invisible threat. And if something’s invisible, many people will start to doubt it’s very existence. 

Truman was like this. He was surrounded by invisible, or fake threats. Hell, the guy even sold insurance. And what is insurance but a safety net for an invisible catastrophe that may never happen? 

Because a lot of people can’t see what the virus is doing, they start to doubt everything. And if you don’t believe the virus is real (or it’s at least not as bad as the experts claim it is), then you start to wonder why you’re stuck at home, and why your favorite restaurant is closed. And you start to get mad. You start to feel like you’ve been imprisoned by public fear. And this is when you get people protesting and sharing false information in the hopes that this is all some elaborate scheme to ruin our lives.

The problem here is that we’re not Truman. We are not the stars of some grand conspiracy like he is. We’re just people who need to take some precautions for a while for the greater good. But some people get bored with this, and then the conspiracy theories start to make more sense. But where Truman found real life when he left his home, many people leaving their homes too early right now may only find death.

So Is Meryl a Prostitute?

This article has been much more serious and dark than my usual subject material, so I’ll try to salvage it with this final topic: Is Meryl technically a prostitute? 

She is certainly an actress at first. She just takes a part. It requires some intimate action, but that’s nothing new. When she starts having sex with Truman things get murky. This makes her more of a prostitute because she’s technically being paid to have sex with Truman. If they showed the sex scenes I would argue that she is simply a pornographic actress, but as the pervy security guy points out, “They never show anything.”

An argument could be made that she has real feelings for Truman, but he, and the audience, can clearly see that she doesn’t seem to be truly in love with him. She’s much more interested in doing product placement and occasionally having sex with Truman to keep him docile. 

There are plenty of problems with this situation as is, but Meryl, and Christof, bring up the possibility of having a baby. Now how would that work? First off, would this baby be considered property of the studio, as Truman was? And wouldn’t Meryl want her child to live in the real world? She keeps pushing it (leading Truman to finally call her out with, “Why do you want to have a baby with me? You can’t stand me”), so she must have come to some agreement with Christof. I really want to know what her contract states regarding all this. The implications of a baby between Truman and Meryl are horrifying. Thankfully, Truman has always known deep down that he cannot have a child with this woman. 

We know that Christof sees himself as a bit of a god, but what does this say about Meryl? I find her to be just as bad as Christof. Not because she has sex with Truman, but because she is willing to have a child with someone she does not love for financial gain and job security. She should be thankful that Truman finally woke up, because if he had gone through with the baby plan, it would have made Meryl a truly despicable person. Well, so much for lightening up this article...

Why Do I Own This?

I like having this movie to revisit because it’s interesting to see how it becomes more and more relevant. It’s crazy that this film came out before reality TV blew up. A real life Truman Show has become more and more probable as time has gone by. At this point, I don’t wonder if we’ll see a show like this in our lifetime; I wonder when we’ll see it.

Random Thoughts

Why not have the actors playing Truman’s friends and family just go by their real first names? It’s not like he would know them from anything, and this way it’s more organic when they respond to their names. 

I love how they do ads in this movie. How often must Truman wonder why his wife overly explains every gadget she buys or why his buddy has to stop and comment on his beer. I just wonder why the filmmakers didn’t go ahead and use real products. It would add to the realism to see a real product, and it would help with the budget, kind of like Talladega Nights or Demolition Man.

They were willing to clearly use a Ford for his vehicle, so why not go all out?

So are things just now breaking down on the show (the falling star, the rain, the radio) or has this been happening his whole life? It seems like a new development since both incidents get a strong reaction from him. If so, is all of this actually orchestrated by Christof to develop a new plotline, or are things just deteriorating on the set?

I like how the newspaper headline the day after Truman talks about seeing the world is, “Who Needs Europe!”

 “Fiji. We’re moving to Fiji.” That is one hell of an ad-lib, emergency fake father actor.

Truman had a possible future as a serial killer with his creepy habit of remaking Sylvia out of magazine cutouts.

Marlon is stocking a vending machine...inside a grocery store. Isn’t a vending machine meant to be an option when you are not near a store? That alone should have tipped off Truman that something was fucked up with his world.

I want to see more fake vacation photos of Truman at national landmarks. Each one would have the same story from his mom: “You slept the whole way there.”

That fake amputation is hilarious. Imagine being the person on the operating table thinking you’re just an extra for the show then someone breaks out a real scalpel.

Good idea to have a nuclear plant set at the edge of town in case he ever decides to try to leave.

“What are you going to do? Dice me? Slice me? Or peel me?” I bet the Chef’s Pal people wanted their money back after that.

The funniest part of this movie to me is how Marlon always shows up with a six pack no matter the situation. 

This is part of a two-fer of ‘90s movies featuring Paul Giamatti as a technician for deception. The other film is Donnie Brasco.

“The Hague for Christof.” 

What is up with the bathtub guy? How can he survive living in the tub like that?

Vince Gilligan must’ve been inspired by this movie’s camera placement. Sure, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have featured some wacky POV shots, but none of them hold a candle to the inside-the-pencil-sharpener shot in The Truman Show. 

Truman escapes, and here comes Marlon, speeding to the rescue with his six-pack of emergency brewskies.

The ending is very open-ended really. Sure, he leaves and has made the choice to be free and live a “real” life, but what is that going to be? Will he continue to be a celebrity and do a bunch of press and stuff? I hope not, but it’s a possibility. And if that’s the case, then he’s not really free. Hopefully, he goes off with Sylvia and makes a life with her. But how does that go? It’s the Romeo and Juliet issue with me. What is normal life for these star-crossed lovers? It seems like more of an idea than a real relationship. What would Truman consider to be a satisfying relationship with her? And vice versa. Sylvia will have to spend a lot of the relationship explaining the world to Truman. That could get old very fast. And what if they end up in the suburbs with kids and whatnot? Is that good enough, or do they need to be traveling the world? As a parent, my views on what constitutes a “real” life have changed. Sure, I still like to travel and have new life experiences, but the main point of my life for the time being is making sure my children are taken care of. Does that mean I’m not living life to the fullest? A “real” life is up to the individual. In my opinion, taking care of your family is definitely a real life. This is why some fictional characters, Don Draper comes to mind, sicken me a bit when they pretty much abandon their families because they feel like they’re in a rut or something. I’m sorry you’re bored, Don, but your kids still exist, you fucking asshole.

This is why I love The Truman Show. It is so easy to think about it and go off on a tangent about so many different things.

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