“The Truman Show,” produced and directed by Peter Weir, is an art masterpiece. The show has many lessons that depict our present society and culture. The setting of the movie is done on Seahaven. The major character in the show is Jim Carrey referred to as Truman Burbank, an average person living in a normal world. Truman resides in a dome world established on capitalism in a real sense. According to the movie, Truman lives day-to-day, noticing weird things that revolve around him that do not make sense. However, Truman decides to explore what is really happening and why things are always going in the wrong direction. Thankfully, at the end of the film, Jim secures the freedom of living in the dome. Therefore, this paper analyzes how the movie uniquely represents the American Capitalist society.
Firstly, Karl Marx’s explanation is evident in the movie. The Marxist approach to social infrastructure and economy controls how ideological and politico-legal superstructures behave. “The Truman Show” is a great example of a capitalist society. The movie utilizes objects and people to broadcast the greatest products (Marx, 1844). This is a model of Marxist depersonalization where Karl Marx contends that people are converted into objects and vice versa. Karl Marx opposes the capitalist society theory where the primary idea is to sell products with a major objective of getting more money without observing ethical concerns such as how humans were treated in the Truman movie.
Typically, the actors in the show are portrayed as a representation by which organizations can present their commodities to a wide audience. For instance: in the part where Marlon framed a beer and how Truman’s wife had to reference particular products. The different scenes turn Truman into a continuous commercial life (Marx, 1844). Peter uses this approach to show how commercialization has filtrated the entertainment industry. Commercialization has become people’s entertainment, whereas entertainment has become people’s commercialization. Furthermore, objectifying various actors is a daily routine activity.
Besides, the movie illustrates the manipulation of the way of thinking. Manipulation is among the primary aspects of capitalism. In the movie script, Truman represents Karl Marx’s capitalist desire machine under media control. Media is an industry that uses capitalism to get profits (Marx, 1844). Therefore, the show illustrates that people are more like machines controlled to attain capitalists’ desires. In the show, Truman Burbank was unconsciously adopted and manipulated into an iconic figure. Truman’s thinking approach relies on capitalism to acquire wealth by selling life stories.
Furthermore, capitalists gain total control by limiting individual movement. Manipulation of individual ways of thinking also limits a person’s freedom of movement. Therefore, in the Truman Show, the characters remained in the same environment where capitalists controlled them (Marx, 1844). For instance, Truman’s life was surrounded by surveillance cameras everywhere, so close people and environmental settings were created to manipulate the actor’s life. Truman’s life was similar to that of a prisoner due to limited space. This is evident when the capitalists in the room try to limit his space while he is trying to find the future.
The whole movie script titled The Truman Show reveals Karl Marx’s theory of capitalists. This is well illustrated through the analysis that focuses on the conflicts, the characters, and the conflicts. Additionally, the movie shows how humans are used as objects and machines to fulfill other people’s or industries’ desires.
Reference
Marx K. (1844). Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Economic-Philosophic-Manuscripts-1844.pdf
