Truman, who has lived on Taoyuan Island since childhood, is an insurance company's agent in a small town. He has a beautiful wife and friendly friends and has always lived an ordinary life. But gradually he discovered the suspicious things around him, the strange words and deeds of his wife, the regular actions of passers-by, the secrets leaked on the radio... Truman worked hard to find the answer, until he finally reached the end of the sea through the storm, he did not know himself. What kind of lies are you in.
Taoyuan Island is actually a huge studio under the control of director Christo and his team. Truman’s life is actually a reality show broadcasted to the world 24 hours a day. The status of a "star" that has attracted the attention of the world, has not been aware of it before.
When all public discourses are increasingly appearing in an entertaining way, Truman's world is not a utopian fable, but a manipulation metaphor of the media age, a modern apocalypse that is extremely scary for careful consideration.
Due to many restrictions, many times we cannot get in touch with the objective real environment on the spot, and we need to understand the outside world through the information released by the media. When spending a lot of time in newspapers, television, and Internet information every day, what kind of world has the mass media created for us?
Through the selection, processing and reporting of news and information, the information environment presented to people by the mass media is a media reality that is different from the objective reality, a modified imaginary reality. Our cognition of this "mime environment" constructed by mass communication activities is guided and shaped by the media all the time.
The city streets, buildings, and ocean islands of Taoyuan Island are all artificially constructed scene props. The parents, wives, and friends around Truman are all actors in this show. Even the natural weather such as the sun rising and the moon setting, sunny rain, thunder and snow, etc. It is controlled by technical means. Truman believes that everything, the natural environment, social relations and even the growth process are constructed by the mass media, which is a good script for "agenda setting".
What else is true? Before Truman crossed the gate between the real and the false world, he was still confused: "Everything is false?" The director replied, "You are real..." What is the definition of true and false? Truman is a man who grows freely? Or is it a molded entertainment product?
Cooley's "me in the mirror" theory believes that a person's self-concept is formed in the interaction with other people, and a person's knowledge of oneself is a reflection of other people's views of oneself. People are always thinking about how others will form their own self-concepts in the evaluation of themselves, and their family, school, and social environment will construct, maintain, and change their complex ways of "feeling" the external reality, consciously or unconsciously.
A person's psychological development needs to rely on the symbol system formed as he grows up, and Truman's sense of reality of everything is constructed artificially. The growth process of more than 30 years has all been carried out according to the flow of the script. The dead father and the missing first love, these characters who quietly disappeared from Truman’s life are just chess pieces in the script, and everything threatens the plot. The uncertain factors of development will be eliminated.
From an objective point of view, the film presents scenes and events beyond any personal understanding to the movie audience through the eyes of Truman himself, the reality show production team, and the viewers of TV programs. Therefore, we can learn from the victims, manipulators, viewers, etc. Multiple perspectives to understand the absurdity of the entire Truman Show. As ordinary people in daily life, without the perspective of God, how do we know that we are not another Truman?
The rapid development of the media has affected mankind to a profound and extensive extent, and the influence of the media permeates all aspects of social life. In order not to be an entertainment-to-death species, we always need to stay awake. If you blindly accept media information such as radio and television, the Internet, and books without independent thinking and questioning, you will be easily controlled and used.
Harmonious and friendly society, clean and tidy streets, orderly life... Truman's world is like a model of an ideal society, everything is so perfect. Truman Show captures the sense of emptiness that the audience in front of the TV can't find in their daily lives, and caters to satisfy their desire and emotional needs for prying into the privacy of others. When the audience puts themselves in this world and is immersed in the lives of others, they almost stop thinking and pass by their lives while watching.
Truman lives in a normal society, but the real society is pathological. "People who are unsatisfied in the real world use television media to project their expectations for life, hoping that others will live their expectations for themselves. No one thinks that it is wrong to let Truman live in a virtual world, and no one opposes this. Deception, people only want to satisfy their own desires.
Although Truman lives in a huge lie, in a sense, he lives very real. Say hello to neighbors, work sincerely, treat love unreservedly, and live seriously every day. "If I never see you again, I wish you good morning, good afternoon, and good night!"
When Truman began to perceive the strangeness of his surroundings, he found that the world he lived in was full of lies, and finally chose to leave the virtual theater. Stepping into the real world, he needs to learn social laws from scratch and reconstruct his true knowledge of the world. After the curtain of the Truman show falls, how should the audience who have long been accustomed to watching the life of Truman return to the real world?
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