Truman Show attacks media but upholds imperialism

Rating: Null/10 (17 April 2001)

The Truman Show, starring Jim Carey, satirically documents the life of Truman Burbank, a man raised from boyhood by his corporate adoptive parent in a fictitious Hollywood, continuously-televised world where actors work to convince him of the legitimacy of his life and surroundings. The film correctly exposes the artificial nature of the media, and the decadence and delusion of the Amerikan populace. But it incorrectly portrays people blindly led by the media and ignores the possibility of an objective reality. The film incorrectly boils the world down to a simple dichotomy of the creator and the created, ignoring the ways people can be bought-off by those in power and thereby dictate, or remain complacent to, the actions of the oppressor.
The Truman Show has been running 24 hours a day, for Truman's entire life (30 years), and has no separate commercials. Instead, product advertisements are included as part of Truman's interactions with people. Truman senses the artificiality of his human interactions (why do the people walking down his street come around and around again if he doesn't move?) and begins to rebel against his life by attempting to escape and committing violent attacks. In order to prevent such incidents, the "creator" of the TV show writes experiences into the script that would prevent Truman's escape, like making Truman fear oceans by staging his father's death at sea and then having actors continuously blame him for the father's death. This method of psychological warfare is accurate as far as how imperialists have worked to suppress the oppressed desire for revolt. The oppressor takes away the land and resources of the oppressed and justifies it with religious or biodeterminist examples of racial superiority. In both cases, material interests are the principal motivation for oppression. However much Truman's life is artificial and alienating, it is not at all materially comparable to the lives of the international proletariat. His meaningless life is nevertheless free of violence and provides all the necessities and commodities of a bourgeois existence -- when his "wife" flips out and quits the show, the producers even provide a new love interest to improve ratings. Yet, loosely interpreted, the film tries to make Truman's life a parable on the emptiness of Amerikan life as subject to media hype, and ultimately the constructions of the capitalist class. While Amerikan in the movie do little more then stare at the Truman Show, they also rejoice when he finally escapes the set.
Every time Truman questions his white picket fenced, paper-pushing Amerikan lifestyle, an actor comes along to tell him to stop chasing stars and accept his lot in life. Most Amerikans have unproductive and meaningless jobs, too, but the film fails to question why few viewers questioned the psychological torture that Truman experienced. Instead, like real Amerika, the characters used their sympathy for the oppressed (Truman) to feel better about the meaningless, but materially rewarding lives and jobs they have.
In the same way, very few Amerikans have or do question the information that the media feeds them. When the media says "terrorist" or "military target," it doesn't matter to most in the Amerikan populace if either one is fighting for national freedom against imperialism or the other is composed of unarmed civilians. The fact is that imperialist actions and media have served the material interests of bought-off Amerika. For there to be successful propaganda, there needs to be a populace willing to accept the message. MIM doesn't buy into the idea that people are stupid pawns of the "big guys." People have the ability to make everyday decisions regarding the oppression of themselves and others. Available to all is the choice to work to overthrow imperialism, but that choice is a lot less attractive to decadent Amerika. In the end, Truman chooses the uncertainty of the violent and deceptive "real world" over a continued existence within the equally deceptive but safe life on the Truman Show. The decision is presented as the ultimate answer to alienation. Individual choice to subjectively define reality is framed as the greatest subversion to the controlled interactions in Amerikan society. Although individual ability to experience life without the fear of repression is a good ideal for the future, this model for ending oppression is not in the interests of the international proletariat. Instead it pretends that each individual can escape from group power relations that exist innately within an unequal world. MIM says that Amerikans wishing to end oppression for good have to commit class, nation and gender suicide in order to unite with the international proletariat against oppression. Escaping within the myth of supreme individuality only ignores the fact that people benefit and are oppressed as groups.
The Truman Show brings the role of the media to light, but insists on upholding imperialist ideals, especially the one that says most people are basically stupid and weak -- though they like individual heroes who stand up for themselves without challenging the system. But the film, like most of Hollywood, is not attacking, or even mentioning, the destructive forces of U$ imperialism. The only lip-service given to progressive organizing is when the "Free Truman Movement" is said to be rallying against Truman's oppression (and that's a single-issue movement around liberating one person...).
Fighting imperialist media is about creating an independent media aimed at fighting the principle oppressive force in the world, U$ imperialism. Individual stories can be inspirational, but if we made the movie, it would have also featured a real revolutionary movement against the imperialist power structure and its media, not just the noble story of one man who decides not to play along anymore.