The Truman show is a movie that follows the character of Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman whose life unknowingly exists inside a giant domed television set complete with hundreds of homes, an artificial sun and moon, and a massive lake. The “Truman Show”, as it is called in the movie itself, is a 24/7 reality TV broadcast that is streamed worldwide. Everyone apart from Truman, including his wife, best friends, and family, are all actors who are aware that the show exists. Everything Truman does and says is filmed by thousands of cameras all around his hometown. The show is monitored and run by dozens of workers behind the scenes who change camera angles, the weather inside the set, and music headed by a man named Christof. Eventually, Truman begins to notice the strangeness of his world, and begins a journey to uncover the truth and eventually escape the set of the show. While comical and adventurous, the movie itself serves as a larger critique of mass media and the ethics of entertainment.

The movie uses many satirical elements including irony, hyperboles, and parody to critique modern reality TV. The entire premise of “The Truman Show” is deeply ironic. The audience of the world outside the Truman Show set is complicit in deceiving Truman, which mirrors the way that real-world audiences churn through reality TV without considering the ethical implication. Hyberoles also play a part in exaggerating the extent to which the media controls people’s lives. While reality TV doesn’t (yet) raise people from their birth for entertainment, the movie amplifies the invasiveness of media, and how much reality TV characters are monitored and controlled by producers. The movie also makes a parody of the artificiality of advertising on television. Truman’s life is littered with discrete product placement (which eventually Truman begins to notice) with characters strangely holding items towards the camera and dropping sales itching mid conversation. An example of this is that everyday on Truman’s walk to work he is strangely pushed against a poster with some sort of varying advertisement on it, forcing Truman to be an object of advertising against his knowing will. Eventually, Truman escapes the set of the TV show, and while his escape is watched by millions, as soon as the show stops broadcasting with Truman’s exit, all the viewers switch to watching some other TV program. This further parodies and exemplifies the lacking attention span and care of reality TV audiences.

While the Truman shows deeply satirizes media and reality TV, it also delivers a very deep critique of society’s acceptance of media control. The film exposes the broader issue of media violating personal privacies which is wildly more relevant now than at the time of the movie’s creation in 1998. Truman’s final act of choosing to leave his artificial world despite the pleads of Christof symbolizes the importance of questioning reality and seeking the truth. The movie as a whole challenges audiences to reflect on media consumption and their role as spectators, along with the ethical boundaries of television. With the rise of social media and influencers culture furthering erosion of privacy, The Truman Show forces us to consider how much of are lives is shaped by the opinions of media. At what point does entertainment go too far?