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

“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