Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one in which we are stuck and forced to live with. We have an innate belief, or faith in our world, and our reality. This is evident in ‘The Truman Show’, directed by Peter Weir, where Truman Burbank, the protagonist, is born and raised in a mock reality. He grows up having faith that his world is reality, and never questions it. He grows up in a world where his destiny is controlled, but not fake. Truman faces numerous hardships that lead him to question the existence of his world and the truth of the people that surround him. The director of the film oversees the false existence of the world through the utopian Seahaven, which is a man-made island where a man named Truman Burbank has been televised without his knowledge since birth. However, reality is influenced by human perception in many ways such as our human nature, our controlling societies, and the influence of mass media. These all alter the way we accept our reality.
Whether we live to the reality of the world with which we are placed is debatable. It is human’s blood to question; we have a curiosity about nearly everything and everyone. It is why people gossip, why teenagers push boundaries to form opinions and to test, why toddlers taste all the wrong things. However, this is why we accept the reality of the world with which we are presented at first. Examples of this is when Truman accepted Sylvia’s disappearance without any question, and in the ‘real world’ why everyone was scared about swine flu when it is only mild. This trust changes as we grow older, we become more aware of people trying to influence us to what they think is right. Until eventually, we struggle to become less dependent on others, attempt to make our own decisions. To follow your own path, and be willing to question things that appear to be wrong are some lessons we can take from Truman’s human nature. Truman, once discovering that there was something wrong in his world, took the time to investigate it and met a challenge. That challenge was getting to the truth. The people behind the scene closed themselves off from him by sending different people in his path. These carefully orchestrated people were there to keep him on the same path he was already on. During the slow period there was a calmness everywhere except in Truman's mind. The questions, doubts, and yearning for freedom was still there. He faced betrayal and when it got extremely tough along the way, he faced death. After awakening from the shipwreck, Truman was able to finally become free to live the way he wanted. He kept searching for the right thing and didn't stop. This teaches us to examine our lives and make discoveries about ourselves and be true to ourselves. Lose the fake whether its friends, family or bad choices, live what is real not reality as our society will always try to govern the way we live life.
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Our society plays a huge role in the aspect of how the world should be and how one individual should act and behave. This society has us locked in an imaginary bubble that will always exist, no matter how hard we try to escape it, it will still haunt us. Society loves to have a say in everything we do, it loves to judge us and think that it is their life and their choice to decide what we do and how we should act. This is the problem with society, this is what makes everyone loathe society and the role it plays. In ‘The Truman Show’ we are able to get a glimmer of Truman’s society and the way in which they uphold themselves. Christof is a very powerful man and is portrayed as a god-like figure. This is shown through the image of individual versus society - as Truman the individual is constantly trying to break free from the control and strong hold of Christof who represents the society. The viewers, the ‘normal, everyday people’, in the film are seemingly oblivious to the moral questions involved not only in using another human being as nothing more than a controlled commodity, but also in deliberately doing so without his consent. They don’t understand that Truman, in a very real sense, is walking through life completely alone. His mother, his best friend, and even his wife are nothing more than actors playing their respective roles. While society is able to influence the choices Truman makes, they have little clout when dealing with matters of the heart. Although the producers can only control outside variables, it is impossible for them to control Truman himself. As its creator, Christof, says: “While the world he inhabits is in some respects counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards...It isn't always Shakespeare but it's genuine. It's a life”. This is the poor reality Truman had to live up to for 29 prolonged years, he continued to play this role of ‘televised Truman’, while everyone accepted the reality with which they were presented. Mass media does this to people, it allows them to be oblivious in their decision making.
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