‘The Truman Show’, which is regarded as the turning point of Jim Carrey's career, is a movie that has been examined in many respects and opportunities. ‘The Truman Show’, which is often handled by Plato's cave allegory and our constant observance in today's society in other words, securitization, makes the audience laugh with his witty approach to the contemporary world and is equipped with many elements beyond its time. It's the story of a life surrounded by a director's approach to his first love experiences, adventures, studies and actors who give him answers without knowing. So, his life is a complete illusion. The movie asks people questions, serious questions. How right is it to manipulate a man's whole life in such a way as to draw the world's attention? Moral? Protecting her from the real world, depriving his experience of discovering his life, protecting him from the problems and impudence of the outside world? How right is it to prevent the attempt to move from an artificial light into to darkness? Carrey may not know the correct answers to these questions in an artificial world, but he does his best to make the questions easier and more understandable for us by playing Truman, part of a big show.
The hidden tendency of peeking at someone's lives in all of us was revealed in the early 2000s, and somehow it continued to grow stronger. With Facebook becoming a public platform in 2006, social media became a part of our lives and things changed dimension: all the children born were Trumans. The moment they were born, the places they grew up, their first lover, their closest friends, whatever they had built their identities, they became accessible to anyone who knew how to use the Internet. You can see this story the first time from a postmodernist point of view: Big Brother. In this case, it can be said that poor Truman is 1 running his life like a job. The freedom he enjoys is completely artificial, and the main person who uses it is a major filmmaker. We see a healthy rebellion against corporate image as the producers of the illusions in the media. But at the same time, everyone enjoys the idea of being the star of such a production, critics quickly lose their importance, and the argument becomes smaller. Can you imagine! You are becoming one of the famous all over the world! That you apologize for freedom and try to escape from the world by claiming that the life and institution before your eyes are false. An important part of our behavior on the Internet today coincides with the behavior of the audience at The Truman Show, especially with a political goal. While we were able to monitor, follow, and present what we watched as an important part of our identity while escaping from all responsibility, our fears really prevented us from putting our hands under the stone. The fact that our political activity on the internet is not reflected in other areas, but our tremendous mobility in online platforms, and our complete belief that this is the transformative force, is a kind of masturbation of conscience. Of course, digital activism is better than doing nothing, but when all we do is digital activism, we become individuals who are prone to believe the lies told to us, far from the resistance in the street, unless they are part of the real movements supported by the use of online platforms.
However, when the media is considered as a capitalist device that is thirsty for the production of content, exploiting the lives of normal people, the relationship of the media with entertainment is politically correct; because the existence of the media is seen as a rotating part of the system that allows it to make a profit. For this, creating a celebrity or removing a celebrity from a normal person is the success of the media (successful exploitation). In this case, Truman is an excellent experimental animal. The prominent American family manifests on the screen as a reflection of the happy life. It provides an example of the presentation of the life of an American family on the screen or in the lantern to the consumer society in content. This situation of Truman can be compared to the life of Michael Jackson or Princess Diana. These two famous characters have one thing in common: it is that hiding both of their lives under the guise of love, love and happiness rather than exploitation. This mask is made available to the viewers in the most natural form with the cover of smile, laugh, happiness, and love.
‘The Truman Show’ seems to shed light on the issues that have started to take place at the center of our lives today but we have just begun to name them. As individuals who are increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and virtual, there are still lessons we can learn from the movie.