Sociological Imagination In The Truman Show

In The Truman Show, Truman Burbank lives a pretty normal life, to his knowledge. He has been on a television show since birth, and every single person in his life has been an actor, in the literal sense. Truman of course does not know this, since “We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented” (The Truman Show). Growing up in this false reality, Truman has no choice but to accept it as the truth. As the ultimate truth slowly begins to unfold, and stress begins to build for the actors, some characters begin to crack.

What you see can be altered by what you know. Authors fabricate and establish selective truths in their pieces,such as novels, films and poems this is shown by the director, Peter Weir,with The Truman Show, Author Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. They conveyed this through the use of figurative language such as irony, symbolism and metaphors. Together they bring the larger idea that oppression creates a new truth, which means there isn’t one truth but multiple, therefore the truth does not exist. To begin, oppression creates truth.

Although Jonas and Truman inhabit different worlds in different times, there are many similarities between the two societies. One connection between the two is both Jonas and Truman, throughout their stories, receive clues that there are strange things about their communities. In the Truman Show, there are many random clues here and there that are accidentally presented to Truman. Some examples are when a light representing a star falls from the “sky”, when he flips to a radio station that is repeating every direction he takes, and when he sights his father, who is immediately taken away by two people. The biggest clue the Truman acquired was when Sylvia, a girl he loves, is frantically trying to tell him about how his whole world is false,

Truman is broadcast over the whole society for people to watch for entertainment. People know every aspect of his life, without ever having met

The Truman Show was released in 1998, when reality television was still in its infancy. There were a couple of reality TV shows around at the time, but nothing like what we have now. This movie predicted the rise of reality television and the reality television star. The fictional television

In the movie, The Truman Show, Truman, the main character, is being lied to. He is told that he lives a completely normal life, but in reality, that is far from true. Instead, his entire life is one big TV show. All his friends, family, and everyone he's ever loved in life are just a lie, they are all paid actors.

Watching others living their life in front of cameras and their problems being unfolded right in front can be somewhat comforting to those watching that maybe their life is not as bad. The difference from reality TV and the “Truman show” is that Truman was set up for it he did not have a choice. On the

Truman is trying to find out the truth about what happened to his father that day many years ago and to try and find peace with his past. After a long talk both of the most important people in his life tell him he is crazy and is only using his imagination. This leaves Truman feeling completely confused and still in awe for meaning. He is overwhelmed with the feeling that his whole life is a lie and wants the

The media today controls everybody; the way they act, the way they talk, and the way people see things. Within the movie “The Truman Show”, it shows a great deal of indirect satire because of the way the adoptive father, also the director, hints to satire but never specifically hits one specific person, place, or thing but its does lean toward reality T.V. Another reason that indirect satire is present in this movie is because Truman lives his life out of proportion, sort of like everything is exaggerated. The huge studio he calls his home is constantly being recorded and broadcasted live to the entire world as a reality T.V. show and Truman has no clue about it.

The rise of television in the 1950s, over half of Americans owned televisions, brought in new ways to entertain people. One of these ways being Reality Television shows. There was a spike of these shows and their popularity in the late 1990s (Wikipedia, n.d.). Consequently, The Truman Show was released in 1998, it taking a extreme look into the ethics of Reality Televisions shows, one of the points being freedom and democracy. Democracy has been something important to certain societies for centuries.

An example of Sociological Imagination in todays world can be the issue of poverty. Poverty is rapidly growing in the United States day by day. The poverty levels in the last few years have greatly increased. When an issue like this starts to form, Sociological Imagination is a very helpful way to look at the issue to understand it better. One must take the issue of Poverty itself and examine it by putting the issue on two different scales.

To have sociological imagination is to have “vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society" (Mills 2). Overall, sociological imagination is the concept which is based on social locators. As mentioned previously, there is a difficulty to grasp control on class, gender, and race because a person is born into these three categories. In a practical sense, my personal choices are shaped by my social locators. Sociological imagination currently plays a role in my presence at Sacred Heart University.

By having a better understanding of the world, you learn why the world acts the way it does. Not only this, but it also helps your understanding in day-to-day life. For example, why people stare at the numbers in an elevator and are reluctant to make eye contact in this setting. It helps you to stand back, be logical and rational before you simply react.

Since the movie is based on Truman; an individual who is unaware that his life is being filmed. Even though his surroundings are very influential to him, he still remains to be himself. He lives in a reality of utopian urbanized city, and he is surrounded by societal expectations; to be like everyone else. A typical surbanaite. However, he does not abide by societal expectations demanded by the made up reality and he is true to himself.

In the 1950s, almost half of Americans owned televisions. The rise of this entertainment brought in new ways to entertain people. A creation from this new found entertainment was Reality Television shows. However, as popular as television was, there wasn't a spike of these shows until the 1990s. The increasing popularity creating a boom for Reality Tv.