MIM Notes 166        July 15, 1998

Truman Show attacks media but upholds imperialism

by RC35

The Truman Show, a new film starring Jim Carey, 
satirically documents the life of Truman Burbank, a man 
raised from boyhood by his corporate adoptive parent in 
a fictitious Hollywood, continuously-televised world 
where actors work to convince him of the legitimacy of 
his life and surroundings. The film correctly exposes 
the artificial nature of the media, and the decadence 
and delusion of the Amerikan populace. But it 
incorrectly portrays people blindly led by the media and 
ignores the possibility of an objective reality. The 
film incorrectly boils the world down to a simple 
dichotomy of the creator and the created, ignoring the 
ways people can be bought-off by those in power and 
thereby dictate, or remain complacent to, the actions of 
the oppressor. 

The Truman Show has been running 24 hours a day, for 
Truman's entire life (30 years), and has no separate 
commercials. Instead, product advertisements are 
included as part of Truman's interactions with people. 
Truman senses the artificiality of his human 
interactions (why do the people walking down his street 
come around and around again if he doesn't move?) and 
begins to rebel against his life by attempting to escape 
and committing violent attacks. In order to prevent such 
incidents, the "creator" of the TV show writes 
experiences into the script that would prevent Truman's 
escape, like making Truman fear oceans by staging his 
father's death at sea and then having actors 
continuously blame him for the father's death. This 
method of psychological warfare is accurate as far as 
how imperialists have worked to suppress the oppressed 
desire for revolt. The oppressor takes away the land and 
resources of the oppressed and justifies it with 
religious or biodeterminist examples of racial 
superiority. In both cases, material interests are the 
principal motivation for oppression.

However much Truman's life is artificial and alienating, 
it is not at all materially comparable to the lives of 
the international proletariat. His meaningless life is 
nevertheless free of violence and provides all the 
necessities and commodities of a bourgeois existence -- 
when his "wife" flips out and quits the show, the 
producers even provide a new love interest to improve 
ratings. Yet, loosely interpreted, the film tries to 
make Truman's life a parable on the emptiness of 
Amerikan life as subject to media hype, and ultimately 
the constructions of the capitalist class. While 
Amerikan in the movie do little more then stare at the 
Truman Show, they also rejoice when he finally escapes 
the set.

Every time Truman questions his white picket fenced, 
paper-pushing Amerikan lifestyle, an actor comes along 
to tell him to stop chasing stars and accept his lot in 
life. Most Amerikans have unproductive and meaningless 
jobs, too, but the film fails to question why few 
viewers questioned the psychological torture that Truman 
experienced. Instead, like real Amerika, the characters 
used their sympathy for the oppressed (Truman) to feel 
better about the meaningless, but materially rewarding 
lives and jobs they have.

In the same way, very few Amerikans have or do question 
the information that the media feeds them. When the 
media says "terrorist" or "military target," it doesn't 
matter to most in the Amerikan populace if either one is 
fighting for national freedom against imperialism or the 
other is composed of unarmed civilians. The fact is that 
imperialist actions and media have served the material 
interests of bought-off Amerika. For there to be 
successful propaganda, there needs to be a populace 
willing to accept the message. MIM doesn't buy into the 
idea that people are stupid pawns of the "big guys." 
People have the ability to make everyday decisions 
regarding the oppression of themselves and others. 
Available to all is the choice to work to overthrow 
imperialism, but that choice is a lot less attractive to 
decadent Amerika.

In the end, Truman chooses the uncertainty of the 
violent and deceptive "real world" over a continued 
existence within the equally deceptive but safe life on 
the Truman Show. The decision is presented as the 
ultimate answer to alienation. Individual choice to 
subjectively define reality is framed as the greatest 
subversion to the controlled interactions in Amerikan 
society. Although individual ability to experience life 
without the fear of repression is a good ideal for the 
future, this model for ending oppression is not in the 
interests of the international proletariat. Instead it 
pretends that each individual can escape from group 
power relations that exist innately within an unequal 
world. MIM says that Amerikans wishing to end oppression 
for good have to commit class, nation and gender suicide 
in order to unite with the international proletariat 
against oppression. Escaping within the myth of supreme 
individuality only ignores the fact that people benefit 
and are oppressed as groups. 

The Truman Show brings the role of the media to light, 
but insists on upholding imperialist ideals, especially 
the one that says most people are basically stupid and 
weak -- though they like individual heroes who stand up 
for themselves without challenging the system. But the 
film, like most of Hollywood, is not attacking, or even 
mentioning, the destructive forces of U$ imperialism. 
The only lip-service given to progressive organizing is 
when the "Free Truman Movement" is said to be rallying 
against Truman's oppression (and that's a single-issue 
movement around liberating one person...).

Fighting imperialist media is about creating an 
independent media aimed at fighting the principle 
oppressive force in the world, U$ imperialism. 
Individual stories can be inspirational, but if we made 
the movie, it would have also featured a real 
revolutionary movement against the imperialist power 
structure and its media, not just the noble story of one 
man who decides not to play along anymore.