Im definitely not going to be the first person to give some thought to the themes in the film ‘The Truman Show’ which was released in 1997 (I think), in fact on of my best friends wrote her Masters thesis on it, linking it to the christian faith.
But I think nearly 30 years later (ouch) I can do a few spoilers.
Truman is born into an artificially created universe for the purposes of being filmed constantly on TV, he is the star of his own TV show, that he doesn’t know, from birth, to school, to friends, to girlfriend, all are actors in the set, and this is his life.
On a number of occasion people invade the set to try and ‘free’ him, and gradually, and accidentally he begins to realise that what he thought was normal, was actually scripted, and regular behaviours by actors on the set, people going to work, the street cleaner always in the same place, the lift actually not being a real lift in the lift shaft next to the one he usually used. His ‘wife’ talking to the camera to advertise a cereal product, in the midst of a conversation. Branding was everywhere because this funded the series, and it was big money.
It was Big brother before big brother came to being, yet big brother was voluntary act, Truman show was about the story of Truman – being the only True Man, and everything around him being fake.
What Truman had to start doing was realising that there were patterns to peoples behaviour.
What Truman had to start doing was realising that whilst no one was completely lying, they were all affected by the desire to control and contain, because, they were being paid to ‘keep the show on the road’ sponsorship, branding and advertisements were driving, and popularity moments (like first kiss and wedding) were big popular national collecting moments, in which sponsorship craved.
What Truman had to start to do was disrupt the patterns.
What Truman then started to have to do was decide when and where he was going to believe and accept the lies happening around him. His Mate on the truck on the bridge, they have a long conversation, ‘I wouldn’t lie to you’ he says. But he is.
Truman starts to realise that inner pull to something closer to the truth.
He only knows the structured world of his existence, a world in which everyone is lying to him, a world which has been cleverly constructed and formed.
But he starts to realise that he has been lied to for all of his life.
And he starts to express the emotions of this
He begins to realise that the world in which he has been contained in – even if its being broadcast to millions, wasnt free and wasnt big enough, for though he had dreams to go to far off lands, every boat he tried to use to get through was subject to ‘fake’ storms and weather incidents…. fake weather he began to notice….
His anger at being lied to began to fuel the energy for him to find freedom, and live a life of truth, beyond the falsity of containment, marketing and to also realise and find the person who once loved him.
For so many of us … actually
I am definitely in a phase of ‘middle age rage’ at the moment, and im sure I am not the only one.
Whether we feel small, and been kept small for too long
Whether we realise that we’ve been lied to, or not believed
Whether we feel like our world has been clipped and shrunk
Whether we’ve been told were not good enough, clever enough, pretty enough, worked hard enough, in the right job etc etc…
Or told to stay within the confines of lies to stay safe, small and loyal.
Whether were not able to be ‘true’ to our purpose, destiny or calling
Whether we’re being or have been abused and contained.
Whether our minds have been conditioned by all of this, happening to us, in childhoods, churches, systems, workplaces, relationships, wherever.
And often, subconsciously we swap one place of lies for another, because its what we got used to.
Im realising now quite how much I experienced suppression.
Realising how I made myself small.
I realised that my mum was lying about me, and to me, and always was, but I had to go along with believing her, whilst I was in the house, until I was 18 and until I was free, so free that I was sick on the train leaving home. Free to not have to navigate suffocating and destructive lies on a daily basis.
With so much disorientation around him, Truman grew up in a place that the blurred lines between what was real and what was fake were difficult to notice. The people themselves were real, physically, but they were being pulled by invisible strings (often also with ear pieces in ) . Invisible strings of a controlling director and a team of producers and TV staff. When I was 18/19 and watching the movie the first time I had so little ability to see how relevant it was for me.
‘The Truth will set you free…… but it will piss you off first’ (source contested)
‘For centuries, even millenia, humans have believed that a conflict exists in the human mind between good and evil. But this isnt true. Good and evil are just the result of the conflict. The real conflict is between truth and lies. (Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)
The Lies on Trumans wall were keeping him safe.
They were also keeping him contained.
They were told they were for his benefit .
What are the ones you believe in, that you can’t let go of?
But they were for the TV viewers, for the paid actors, for the paid TV staff, for everyone else.
Everyone else benefitted by Trumans containment.
The lies on Trumans wall needed rage, needed awareness, need for him to see them, and see the effects of them on him. How nothing made sense and nothing was real.
Nothing emotionally was real in a world played by fakery, by sheen, and for performance. Truman was the star of a show he didnt want to be in. Yet he played it until he realised it was fake. Yet he played it until he realised it was doing him harm.
For I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness (John 10:10, The Bible)
And that might mean being a sheep free from a pen that Jesus describes, in which the thief is present, to roam and explore the hillside, knowing that theres a safe shepherd at the gate as a touchpoint back.
Truman didnt know what lay beyond the wall at the edge of the known world to him. He didnt know how even to get out. But something real was burning inside.
He didnt even know there was an out. He just kept going. With the belief that there was one day a person who showed him what love was and that she was waiting.
Maybe it’s beauty that does save us in the end (Dostoevsky) , but it might take a period of rage at the unreality to get there. The Lies on Trumans wall, at the edges of his universe held him in, until he realised there was something else, something deeper at the source of his soul that urged him to look, urged him to find it.
Freedom was beyond the lies on Trumans wall. Freedom is to live a life free from lies, from the lies we believed and and the lies we inherited. Freedom from the lies we tell ourselves.
And Truman after all that rage. Just walked through. Once he found the door.
The Universe conspires to help the dreamer (Paulo Coelho)
James Ballantyne 