A Movie for Thinkers

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2005)

I just got finish watching Truman Show for the first time. Really excellent!
Consider that Truman's world is the same as your mind. You create your reality every day with the way you think, your perception about things, the programs/scripts that you follow subconsciously and consciously.
How many times have you found yourself doing something even though you know you shouldn't? You think you are doing so with your free will. Are you? Yes, if you always make rational choices. But it isn't possible for a human being to make rational choices for the thousands of actions we take each day. Many are automatic. Further, our emotions are largely subconscious and automatic. Think about people who are very emotional, and how little control they have over themselves. Thus the term "prisoner to your emotions." To the extent your thoughts, feelings, and actions are automatic, you are a prisoner in a world of your own making.
Consider that we are all being controlled by others to some degree--other people, other people's thoughts, other people's patterns, other scripts, the media, the government. Any time you allow yourself be led, you are being controlled in the same way. Now, this isn't always a bad thing, and most of the time it's a good thing. Consider what civilization has built with leadership: medicine, safety from anarchy, space travel, food, shelter and grand buildings, and so on. Consider too the horrific worlds which Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and too many others created. Will we let this happen again? Yes, if we let our minds become imprisoned by a leader like them, again.
At first I thought the premise of the movie was silly from a legal standpoint: The TV Truman Show (in the movie) would be unconstitutional since it deprived Truman of liberty. I also thought it was implausible that an actor would commit a good portion of his/her life, as with Truman's wife, just for a chance to be rich and famous.
But wait...we know that the movie makes obvious statements about greed, with the product promotion in the TV show, and Christof's goading over the show's ratings. Perhaps then the movie creators were suggesting that with intense lobbying by media companies, Congress could pass laws to make such a TV show possible, depriving Truman's liberty for his entire life. Scary thought, but think about the results of lobbying in the real USA: tax credits for SUV's, our government's position on global warming, industrial mercury emissions poisoning our children. How much influence does big business have right now?
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