Mediation In The Truman Show

Mediations influence on our decisions stops when we realize its effects so that we can live with individuality and not by those we see on television. In the film The Truman Show the medium of television becomes the prison in which Truman Burbank resides. Mediation decided every major decision in his life including his marriage, his job, and his lifestyle. This film shows how the desires of people around us, caused by mediation, become our own desires and this influences the decisions we make. Many scenes in The Truman Show explain how Christof, the director, altered Truman’s life through the use of mediation. Mediation negatively affects us by identifying lives of those on television as reality causing us to imitate their actions. The show

Truman finds Lauren very attractive and would date her if not for Christof, whose plan includes Truman marrying Meryl. Christof tells Marlon to play the trumpet in Truman’s ear so that he stops paying attention to her because Christof plans for Meryl and Truman fall in love. Meryl then “accidently” falls into Truman’s lap so Truman cannot talk to Lauren. From there, Truman and Meryl start dating and get married. This shows how Christof dictated Truman’s future by causing him to marry Meryl instead of Lauren. Gamson, in his essay, “Look at Me! Leave Me Alone!” relates this to “big business” controlling our decisions on what we buy. Surveillance records our actions and once it discovers our wants and needs, it advertises them to us so that we buy their product instead of another (515). Christof realized through surveillance that Truman wanted a girlfriend. Christof planned for Truman to marry Meryl so he made Marlon distract Truman like an advertisement would distract a buyer, and so Truman received a different product, Meryl. This makes me wonder how our future can change because of mediation. Truman’s desire to date Lauren changed because Christof scripted his life to marry Meryl. It surprises me how the power of mediation can change what we purchase by finding our desires through records of our purchasing habits and exploiting them without us even

Unlike the men in “The Allegory of the Cave” who accepted their fake reality and rejected the actual reality presented to them by the one man who saw the “light”, Truman rejected his fake reality, listened to Sylvia who represents the man who saw reality in “The Allegory of the Cave,” and tried his best to escape it. The film suggests that we can escape our fake reality full of mediation, but first we must realize our fake, mediated reality. Truman symbolizes the citizens of our world and how Mediation controls their life and influences them to consume unneeded products. I agree with the film that we can avoid mediation, but to spread this idea on a global level becomes nearly impossible. Unlike the film, mediation controls not just one man, but the entire