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Sociological Imagination In The Truman Show

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Sociological imagination can be defined as one’s awareness of the impact that society has on their personal life because of the outside conditions and circumstances. The outside world create standards for people, even if they do not know that they are being looked at in this way. Therefore, society influences a person’s behavior and limits their free will. This theory is clearly demonstrated in The Truman Show. The movie helps to deepen my understanding of sociological imagination and helps me to see how the outside world controls my life. Throughout the movie, Truman begins to realize that the whole world revolves around him and how the producers of the show have created his reality, thus developing his sociological imagination. To start, …show more content…

Early in my life, religion shaped some of my beliefs, limited my free will because of its principles, and shifted my perception of reality because it added a new perspective of the world to my life that I was forced to believe. I also know that I do not have to sit in the same seat in my classes everyday because everybody else and I do not want to cause a disruption by changing my seat. However, there are many things that in my life that I have yet to link to the larger world. I am still subjected to these social forces and my sociological imagination is still being …show more content…

This allows the person to know the truth about reality and how they are affected by forces in society. Truman Burbank in The Truman Show, develops his sociological imagination throughout the movie, because of this, his life is completely flipped upside down. In my life, there are forces that I do and do not know of, but either way they still affect my behavior and the decisions I make, helping to form my sociological imagination. Everyone should be aware of how their life connects to society because it can tell of how unaware they are of society’s actions. It can completely change the way they think and how they see the

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The media today controls everybody; the way they act, the way they talk, and the way people see things. Within the movie “The Truman Show”, it shows a great deal of indirect satire because of the way the adoptive father, also the director, hints to satire but never specifically hits one specific person, place, or thing but its does lean toward reality T.V. Another reason that indirect satire is present in this movie is because Truman lives his life out of proportion, sort of like everything is exaggerated. The huge studio he calls his home is constantly being recorded and broadcasted live to the entire world as a reality T.V. show and Truman has no clue about it.

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Truman is broadcast over the whole society for people to watch for entertainment. People know every aspect of his life, without ever having met

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Although Jonas and Truman inhabit different worlds in different times, there are many similarities between the two societies. One connection between the two is both Jonas and Truman, throughout their stories, receive clues that there are strange things about their communities. In the Truman Show, there are many random clues here and there that are accidentally presented to Truman. Some examples are when a light representing a star falls from the “sky”, when he flips to a radio station that is repeating every direction he takes, and when he sights his father, who is immediately taken away by two people. The biggest clue the Truman acquired was when Sylvia, a girl he loves, is frantically trying to tell him about how his whole world is false,

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In the movie, The Truman Show, Truman, the main character, is being lied to. He is told that he lives a completely normal life, but in reality, that is far from true. Instead, his entire life is one big TV show. All his friends, family, and everyone he's ever loved in life are just a lie, they are all paid actors.

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Truman is trying to find out the truth about what happened to his father that day many years ago and to try and find peace with his past. After a long talk both of the most important people in his life tell him he is crazy and is only using his imagination. This leaves Truman feeling completely confused and still in awe for meaning. He is overwhelmed with the feeling that his whole life is a lie and wants the

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At the beginning of the film when a light falls from the “world,” which is really just the stage, but he doesn’t know that yet. The light falling raises some methodological doubt in his mind, which causes him to, although not right away, to start subtly question the world around him. As was shown in The Meditations skepticism is met with doubt from the opposition. But first, a little background information on Truman Burbanks, Truman is an insurance agent who lives in a peaceful little quaint (and made up) town known as Seahaven Island. Truman does

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In the 1950s, almost half of Americans owned televisions. The rise of this entertainment brought in new ways to entertain people. A creation from this new found entertainment was Reality Television shows. However, as popular as television was, there wasn't a spike of these shows until the 1990s. The increasing popularity creating a boom for Reality Tv.

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Since the movie is based on Truman; an individual who is unaware that his life is being filmed. Even though his surroundings are very influential to him, he still remains to be himself. He lives in a reality of utopian urbanized city, and he is surrounded by societal expectations; to be like everyone else. A typical surbanaite. However, he does not abide by societal expectations demanded by the made up reality and he is true to himself.

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The rise of television in the 1950s, over half of Americans owned televisions, brought in new ways to entertain people. One of these ways being Reality Television shows. There was a spike of these shows and their popularity in the late 1990s (Wikipedia, n.d.). Consequently, The Truman Show was released in 1998, it taking a extreme look into the ethics of Reality Televisions shows, one of the points being freedom and democracy. Democracy has been something important to certain societies for centuries.

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It provides insight which allows individuals to see their situations in light of a bigger social picture. It leads us to question things that we would otherwise view as normal. 2.1 Personal vs Public

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An example of Sociological Imagination in todays world can be the issue of poverty. Poverty is rapidly growing in the United States day by day. The poverty levels in the last few years have greatly increased. When an issue like this starts to form, Sociological Imagination is a very helpful way to look at the issue to understand it better. One must take the issue of Poverty itself and examine it by putting the issue on two different scales.

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Watching others living their life in front of cameras and their problems being unfolded right in front can be somewhat comforting to those watching that maybe their life is not as bad. The difference from reality TV and the “Truman show” is that Truman was set up for it he did not have a choice. On the

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In The Truman Show, Truman Burbank lives a pretty normal life, to his knowledge. He has been on a television show since birth, and every single person in his life has been an actor, in the literal sense. Truman of course does not know this, since “We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented” (The Truman Show). Growing up in this false reality, Truman has no choice but to accept it as the truth. As the ultimate truth slowly begins to unfold, and stress begins to build for the actors, some characters begin to crack.

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By having a better understanding of the world, you learn why the world acts the way it does. Not only this, but it also helps your understanding in day-to-day life. For example, why people stare at the numbers in an elevator and are reluctant to make eye contact in this setting. It helps you to stand back, be logical and rational before you simply react.

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To have sociological imagination is to have “vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society" (Mills 2). Overall, sociological imagination is the concept which is based on social locators. As mentioned previously, there is a difficulty to grasp control on class, gender, and race because a person is born into these three categories. In a practical sense, my personal choices are shaped by my social locators. Sociological imagination currently plays a role in my presence at Sacred Heart University.

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