Abuse In The Film 'The Truman Show'

The 1998 film, The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir, is the thirty-year story of the life of Truman Burbank. Truman, played by Jim Carrey, is the unsuspecting star of the film. Truman was an orphan, adopted and raised by a television corporation, Omnicam, which has been filming his every move ever since he was born. With the use of over five-thousand cameras, in a dome shaped set which houses the population of a small town, the producer, Christof, captures Truman’s everyday life. However, Truman starts to discover certain aspects of his life which he can control. He starts to believe that his whole world is based around himself. Truman then tries, with his wife Meryl, to leave his home in Seahaven, but finds that he is unsuccessful, and

is stopped whenever he tries. One theme of the Truman show is the use and abuse of power, mainly shown through the producer, Christof. Power can be used for good, or to abuse. Christof uses his power as a producer more abusively than not, trying to keep Truman from leaving Seahaven, and to control what Truman does. The Truman Show is a continuously running program, so there are no commercial breaks. The producers include product placement into Truman’s life, using the people and town around him, to advertise the show’s sponsors. The Truman Show demonstrates many uses of power throughout the film, mainly towards keeping Truman from leaving Seahaven, but also in controlling what he does and his surroundings.

Christof uses his power over Truman to gain ratings, and to help the show continue running. Ever since Truman was born, Christof has been watching him, controlling everything Truman does. Christof controlled what Truman ate, wore, liked and dis-liked, and who his friends and family were. He was brought up as the perfect television star. Although the Truman show is not scripted, Christof occasionally feeds lines through microphones to Truman’s friends. Christof does this to cause Truman to believe things which might not be true or right. For example, when Truman was talking to Marlon about how he thought that everyone and everything around him was set up for himself, that it is all fake, Christof tells Marlon to say “If everyone was in on it, I would have to be as well… There is nothing going on... and I would never lie to you”. Some of the things Christof orders could be seen as abusive. He orders the storm over Truman’s boat, tipping him over and nearly drowning him. Christof has the power to control everything around Truman, and Truman himself. But Christof does not always use his power for the good of Truman, but for the good of the show, to maintain its popularity and ratings.
Throughout the Truman Show, Christof uses his power to keep Truman from leaving Seahaven, this could be seen as abuse.

“Abuse”, is the manipulation of a person or their surroundings for a selfish goal, with no regard for the wellbeing of the person involved. Christof manipulates Truman’s surroundings, and his childhood, to cause him to not want or need to leave. In a flashback to Truman’s early school years, Truman says that he wants to be an explorer when he is older. But then his teacher responds by saying that it is a silly idea, and everything had already been found. Christof planned Truman’s father’s death out at sea, so that Truman would be afraid of the ocean for the rest of his life. Then, when Truman walks into the travel agency, there are posters covering the walls - showing airplanes crashing, and with titles such as, “This could happen to you”. He asks about plane tickets, and discovers they are “sold out”. Back at his home, the television is on and there is an advertisement for a show called, “There is no place like home”. The voice over was enthusiastically says how great home is, and how you never need to leave. When Truman takes Mary and tries to leave for Los Angeles, he is blocked by traffic at every turn. Once Truman passes through, he is stopped by a nuclear plant meltdown. Christof’s power to continuously control Truman from leaving Seahaven is shown multiple times throughout the film. It seems that as Christof starts to feel his power threatened, his manipulation of events starts to look much like abuse. Truman tries to leave by sailboat and Christof orders a storm over Truman, nearly drowning him. Christof uses his power in an abusive way to stop Truman from leaving, so that The Truman Show might continue. If Truman was allowed to leave, then it would be the end of an extremely popular show, which had run continuously for thirty years. Christof’s manipulation of events for his own ends, is an abuse of his

power.

Product placement in the Truman show is much more obvious than in other television shows. With no breaks for commercials, The Truman show has to use product placement to advertise and promote its sponsors. The aim of product placement is to convince the viewer to buy a certain product advertised, and the Truman show has many scenes where this is shown. When Truman is walking to work, two men, (who look like twins), stop him to talk. Behind Truman is a large poster for “Kaiser’s free range chicken”. Then the next day they stop him again and the poster has changed to “Carton – Fine colonial homes”, a different sponsor. Then later, when Truman is in the garden, his wife comes back from the store, and says “Look what I got free from the checkout, it’s a Chefs Pal, a dicer, grater and peeler all in one”. She was not doing that to tell Truman about it, but to advertise to the viewers, and Truman starts to sense something odd in the way his wife is talking to him. Marlon, Truman’s best friend, is always drinking beer. Whenever he drinks, he does so with the label facing the camera, advertising the beer company. After Meryl has returned Truman from the nuclear plant, she offers him some hot chocolate, saying “Try some of this new Mococoa drink, grown from the world’s finest beans from the high mountains. I have tried a lot of different cocoa’s, and this is the best”. There are many times in the Truman show where a product’s advertising is exaggerated. The producers have to do this, for there are no commercial breaks to advertise their sponsors. This can also be seen as an abuse of power, for millions of people watch the Truman Show, so advertising is a real money maker.
The Truman show, produced in 1998, demonstrates the use and abuse of power. Christof, the producer of the Truman Show, uses his power initially to nurture Truman’s growth, creating a ‘safe’ environment for him to grow up in; but he starts to abuse this power as time goes on. Once Christof sees that Truman is trying to leave, he uses multiple methods to stop him, even abusive methods which nearly kill Truman. Product placement has a significant role in the Truman show, and can even be seen as abuse of power, as there is so much of it. Christof realises that he can’t control Truman forever, for Truman has a mind of his own, and chooses to leave Seahaven for the first, and last time.