Manufactured Reality

Several years ago we put together the similarities of The Truman Show and The Matrix, hence the name of this podcast. But it seems that we aren’t the only ones that have compared the two films. In his thesis “[What Is Manufactured Reality?:Parallels Between The Truman Show and The Matrix]:“, Jonathan Gomez presented some great points. http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp019w032621s

The Truman Show predicted the way social media and reality TV would come to dominate our lives. The tagline of the show is “An entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras and broadcast live and unedited, 24 hours a day.” This story about a man who doesn’t know his life is filmed and broadcast live to a large audience foreshadowed our present landscape of oversharing. Truman says that “it feels like the whole world revolves around me somehow.”

Those of us who have embraced social media are encouraged to act like the entire world revolves around us. It’s true that sometimes reality can be overwhelming and it creates an escape. The Truman Show actually sends the message that we should fight against the impulse to reduce our lives to hyper-controlled, artificial narratives.

The film exposes how turning real life into entertainment can dehumanize people and reminds us that privacy is a valuable, even essential component of an authentic life. Today social media allows each of us to star in our own personal Truman Show. Through social media, many people now live like Truman by choice, making almost every aspect of their private existence public knowledge. But The Truman Show points to central questions that we need to be asking ourselves in this climate: what’s lost when you no longer have privacy?

In The Truman Show, there is no difference between public and private life. And if you live life with others always watching, it is almost impossible to live authentically — how can you even know if you’re being authentically yourself when others are watching?

One can say, how do you know you’re not living in the matrix right now? Everybody gets it because people know “The Matrix”. “The Matrix” is just a brilliant depiction of the idea that the universe we’re in could be simulated, very reminiscent of some ancient questions posed by the philosopher, René Descartes. Descartes said, “How do you know that an evil demon isn’t fooling you into thinking the world around you is real by feeding you sensations,” when in fact none of it is real. “The Matrix” is just using digital technology to take that 400 year-old idea of Descartes and to turn it into something we can all viscerally appreciate.