Surveillance

THE TRUMAN SHOW: FROM FICTION TO BIG BROTHER 2.0



The Truman show: From fiction to Big Brother 2.0 According to the Metropolitan Police Service, in the year 2011, there were around 4.3 million cameras in the UK1, this means one camera every 14 British citizens. On the other hand, Peter Weir created The Truman show in November 1998. What it is exciting about this topic is the relationabout those two realities: the creation of an entire life through a television show and how our society is starting to be near this surveillance that we use to look with certain distance and it was only possible inside the fiction world. The Truman Show is questioning the concept of freedom. Where does everyone freedom ends? How do we conceive freedom? What happens if we don’t know that we are lockedin a place2? If we ignore that, are we still free, then? Are we free if all our surrounding is full of cameras (or the idea of being observed)? How does our behaviour would react in front of this situation? Moreover, the director of The Truman Show (1998) presents an entire world created for this particular television show. Everything is false except the main character of the movie, interpretedby an impressive Jim Carrey. Weir is dealing with the idea of reality all around the movie. What is reality? How do we conceive it? As Thruson comments, the movies goes deeply in analysing the reality:
“What does it mean to control someone’s reality? Where does that control cross the line into taking away his free will, and his freedom? Christof said he gave Truman a better world than the one welive in. In some respects that may be true - Truman didn't have to live in a world filled with anger, senseless violence, hate crimes, politics, and the threat of nuclear armageddon. But he was never free. […] Is that a better world, or is it just artificial?”3

There is not a unique answer to these questions. Reality, according to the Mainstream science is described as “the state of things asthey actually exist”4. And, according to Rebecca Turner, reality is everything we observe to be real. On the other hand, Einstein established “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one” 5. So, despite


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1
 Malanowski.
  2 2 3

In this case, Seahaven town.
  In this case, Seahaven town. Thruston. 4
 Rebecca
 Turner.
  5
 Rebecca
 Turner.
 

there is no concrete and universal definition of reality, this essay is going to go deeply in the reality presented in TheTruman Show. Christof, the director of the show inside the movie postulates “We accept reality of the world with which we are presented”. The protagonist of the film accepts that the world he is living in is the only possible existing world. He has no conscience of the outsideshow existing world and as a consequence, Seahaven is the only possible reality for him. He attempts to leave the town severaltimes, but the director of the show makes it impossible. The first moment that Truman notices this false reality he is inserted in is when a spotlight falls from the sky (is the roof of the giant set). If we try to imagine our future, it is unavoidable to incorporate to the vision images drawn by George Orwell in his 19846 novel: cities full of cameras watching all our movements. Then the questionthat comes up is: what would happen if we were living being conscious of all this technology that is surrounding us? We have reached a level when we don’t notice, or we simply don’t pay attention, to the hundreds of CCTV that surround us every day. So, imagine that one day we wake up and we start noticing all this surveillance as hundreds, thousands of eyes looking at us. What would happen...