This article covers some of the more terrifying implications of the 90s’ hit movie ‘The Truman Show’, some under the surface chilling aspects that you needn’t particularly know about but it’s nice to read articles sometimes anyway, isn’t it? And some anger inducing moments from the movie that will serve as reminders of what could’ve become of this world if Ed Harris was elected president in the 80s.
The Truman Show is not a movie that needs articles to read for you to feel creepy about it, that’s the premiere function of it. Its eerie world-building premise assures a hair-raising response, but nevertheless, there are things you have to stop and think about. Things like:
1: The Dedication of Marlon
Marlon, a guy so immersed in the role, he’s been working since he was 7 years of age. Performing a job which is to deceive an innocent person and play a pretend best friend through the aid of sci-fi tech, like Judas collaborating with Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who is way less evil than this guy. A guy capable of relaying, “the last thing I would ever do is lie to you” by the showrunner. This level of immersion is malicious enough that I hope his family wanted to strangle him but decide not to because he gets paid by the bucket load every hour.
I hope in real life it’s impossible to find a sociopathic 7-year-old who could ever commit to a lifelong deception but then again, there are teen influencers on this planet who will ecstatically crush my ill-advised optimistic wishes. I wonder if in that fictional universe Marlon wasn’t allowed to talk to Truman’s wife off screen and off set, because that’s all it would’ve taken to turn it into a prison break movie, Marlon saying to Meryl, “We have got to talk about Truman, I don’t think it’s right what they’re doing to him.”
2: The Wife’s a Glorified Prostitute
Meryl Burbank, practically a prostitute since she has agreed to have an intimate relation and be the pretend-wife of an international media experiment for some money, represents the gruesome depths of the deception. Especially when you take into account that the character of Meryl does not like Truman.
Raising questions like how is that even legal and why is she forced to do it with someone she clearly “can’t stand” and bear his child, which brings us neatly to-
3: Crystal Cruel Continuity
Truman, in circumstances where the fraud had played out more cunningly, was on track to having a child. A child who was going to see the same fate as his father and live in this game of mirrors and shadows. A minimum of 1 child actually, they could’ve had 7 children and lived a life like Kardashians, except in this case the victims are the actors and not the audience.
Then those 7 children could’ve had 49 of their own, why not, finding a mate is easy when a country sized studio is doing that for you, then those 49 would have hundreds of great-grandchildren of Truman, in a show run by the great-grandchild of Christof, the reincarnation of the black plague. And in the distant future as the studio expands to accommodate more and more deluded Trumans, it would be a job for AI and machines because most of earth’s population is Truman people now, making him a more genetically successful being than Genghis Khan.
The last non-deluded guy on earth would be the new Christof who oversees a whole planet of people living their lives in the same un-innovated 80s sub-urban America with the help of his robot buddies. A future that still sounds less dystopian than most climate reports.
4: Attempted Public Execution
Truman vanishes suddenly in the final act of the movie; a search ensues and he’s nowhere to be seen. When he is eventually spotted over water, a very touching moment since the character was bestowed with hydrophobia thanks to the benevolent hands of profiteering in that universe, he is subjected to resistance again, and this time lethal. Christof decides to kill Truman rather than let his lab-rat escape his container, and surprisingly no one tackles him to the ground or call the cops. The movie then proceeds to show that Christof is allowed to offer a proposal to keep Truman inside his cage, with the knowledge of his surveillance circumstances this time. I hope the sequel starts with Christof in jail, and for the love of God Hollywood, do not make a sequel.
5: The Revelation of Delusion
There is an imminent relief you will feel when you watch this movie. The realization of “thank god it isn’t happening in this world” yet. And a moral certainty that you wouldn’t allow it to happen in this world if it ever came to it. Except we have it worse. We have The Truman Show with consent, where shows like the big brother are international hits and livestreams of people who are literally just sleeping gather enough views that people like me have heard of it.
Well, that’s not the creepiest thing about that movie that bugged me. The creepiest thing is that I believed I’m living it. There is a medical affinity named after the movie called “The Truman Show Delusion” and it eerily resembled a semi-make-believe scenario I used to joke about with my cousin when we were little and hadn’t seen this movie. We would say that we are the “main ones” and that every person who we only see once get shot after they are out of our sight, the places we are yet to visit are still under construction including whole countries, and everyone’s an actor who, depending on their acting skills, are placed in proximity to us. In this joint delusion, me and my cousin were both real people and everyone else a phony. If only I was born in the 50s, I could’ve written and directed that movie, instead of getting diagnosed with it.
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