Fridge / The Truman Show

Fridge Brilliance

• The film was made in 1998, and Truman's world seems to exist in a modern time period, but look what's missing: cellphones and the internet. No one in Seahaven seems to have a cellphone. Truman certainly doesn't. A cellular phone network would be difficult to control; some audience member might spot Truman's number and give him a call. By restricting all the phones on the island to landlines, the producers can keep any calls they want from getting in and out. Truman also doesn't seem to own a computer, or even have one on his desk at work (though one of his coworkers does). The travel agent also has one. But both computers look pretty out of date for 1998. Note also that Truman tries to find Sylvia by calling directory assistance and book a flight by walking into an actual travel agent's office. You'd think that both tasks (especially trying to find someone in another country) would be easier done online. Well, Truman's never heard of online. Again, too hard to control. The producers would have to block out huge sections of the internet to keep Truman from ever hearing about himself. So they simply struck that particular invention from Seahaven entirely. ^note  It could still be possible for Truman to have internet access. North Korea actually has a small intranet (an internet only in that country), so would not be inconceivable for Christof to set one up for the show. But he still couldn't have had normal internet.
  • While the Internet and mobile phones were certainly something that Christof would have to factor in when determining what kind of technology Truman and Seahaven would have access to, it is worth remembering that in 1998 the internet and cellphones still weren't nearly as ubiquitous or all-reaching as they are today; in 1999, only 41% of adults regularly went online, and those users would have to face slow dial-up connections, and less ability to transmit image and video footage. Many businesses also still relied on technically outdated computing technology because they simply didn't need much else, as this was the early days of businesses using it as a tool. Mobile phones also lacked many of the features that were introduced with smartphones, such as hi-res cameras, advanced internet browsers, So it is still entirely plausible that Truman, a low-level insurance salesman in his thirties, would have less direct experience with and simply wouldn't think to use the internet or a cellphone.
  • This also counts as truth in television, or truth of television. I know a popular medical show where the Doctors look at the patients paper files, in the real world those files have been digital for at least a decade. However the show made a creative choice to keep using paper, it’s more dramatic to show the cast angrily handing each other clipboards, than tapping a few buttons.
    • Considering the technologies required to build and operate the Geodome – which, by the start of the film, is already thirty years old – it would probably be very difficult to make a 1:1 comparison between the setting of the film and real-life 1998 in terms of technological development.
• The lack of advanced technology in Seahaven also makes sense for another reason: Seahaven is intended to be the "ideal community" with an "ideal person" at the center of it. Perhaps when creating Seahaven, Christof deliberately restricted the technology available to create a wholesome, nostalgic aesthetic. Not just so he could market to older viewers wanting to look back at "simpler times" before technology "ruined" everything, but because he is projecting his own idea of what the perfect place could be. This demonstrates how much of a delusional whackjob Christof is, considering his fantasy world can only exist with the very advanced technology he scorns.
• Seahaven was designed to be the perfect community and a representation of the American Dream. However, it(unintentionally) embodies the dark side of the American dream of picket fences and homeownership:
  • America's car-dependent and isolated neighborhoods. One criticism of American urban planning and suburbia is that due to its car-centric development, many people live incredibly isolated from not just other neighborhoods but from their own neighbors, which mirrors Truman's own isolation from any other social or cultural context. The bus to Chicago "breaking down" and the ferry not working is reflective of how crappy public transportation in America is. Seahaven is a place of bad infrastructure and community isolation.
  • The exclusion and scorning of other communities and racial groups. Truman's "mother" saying, "It's about time they cleaned up the trash downtown before we become just like the rest of the country," is eerily reminscent of an older relative of yours complaining about how "those people" will ruin the community if they are allowed to move next door, how ethnic minorities were systematically barred from being allowed to move to suburbs, and how some communities persecute the poor and homeless. Although this might not be intentional, there are almost no people of color in Seahaven, save for the one guy driving the bus, reminiscent of redlining, which denied minorities access to suburban homes and upward mobility. Seahaven is also a place of exclusion and discrimination toward the poor.
  • Concern with material and consumer wealth over any other metric of human well-being. "Meryl's" justification for not wanting one final vacation is how they have to worry about things like mortgages and car payments. The reason for her existence is hocking consumer products to Truman rather than forming any genuine emotional connection to him. "Meryl's" approach to life reflects how parts of American society worship money and consumerism over other meaningful social values like community, faith, and life experiences. A trip to Fiji would certainly be costly and Truman does have ulterior motives, but surely a vacation to a tropical island would be a wonderful thing to share with someone you love, wouldn't it "Meryl"? Seahaven is a place where money and goods are held up as the end all be all of life, which is not a very happy life, to say the least.
  • Marrying and forming a family for the sake of social status. "Meryl's" relationship with Truman is not just toxic, it is utterly fake: she only married Truman for the wealth and prestige it would offer her, and never considered the psychological trauma it would cause her decades later. Truman's "mother" is also obsessed with him raising a family and doesn't care that his marriage isn't exactly working out. It is a reflection of how marriages were (and still are to a certain degree) about social advancement and maintaining appearances, and divorce could bring about social stigma. Seahaven is also a place where you have to love someone or face ostracization.
  • Meryl is constantly smiling. Even when Truman puts her in danger (i.e. when she was locked in a speeding car) she almost always keeps an unnerving smile on her face. No matter how she feels, she has to keep up her image of a contented wife in a loving marriage, to an uncanny degree. Meryl (unintentionally) personifies the horrors of post-war domesticity.
  • Cultural suppression. The only culture that Truman is allowed access to are kitschy Hallmark-style movies that repeat the message of "love your hometown" ad nauseum, and is not allowed to watch anything else that might give him "funny" ideas. This shows how suburbanites have infamously tried to clamp down on culture that they consider degenerate, whether it's Tipper Gore's feud with Twisted Sister or the hatred Bart Simpson once had. Seahaven is a place where anything "degenerate" or "anti-family" is suppressed or banned.
  • Supporting the community at the expense of your own needs. Truman is often bombarded with things that convince him that Seahaven is the best place in the world. But even if Seahaven wasn't a complete sham, it obviously doesn't fulfill Truman since his community, boss, and family neglect his other needs like an adventure, and yet he is constantly treated as the bad guy by a community for daring to want something more in his life. Seahaven is a place where you are forced to sacrifice your emotional well-being to help those who don't have your best interests at heart.
  • Conformity and propaganda in the modern education system. While there wasn't much focus on Truman's childhood, what little there was showed that the education he got seemed to bully the imagination out of him, the same way that American schools are increasingly seen as institutions that indoctrinate children and teach them only enough to pass a test, rather than encouraging him to think about the world in a lot of different ways. Truman told his teacher he wanted to explore, and the teacher just told him that "everything has been discovered." Seahaven's educational system will rob your child of creativity and imagination.
  • Helicopter parenting. As a kid, Truman has been spied on and kept from adventure. In one scene, Truman was ostensibly prevented from climbing up a mountain because it was dangerous. Christof has Truman's father figure killed off to make him afraid of the water. It mirrors how in the modern-day, the well-meaning attempts to police our children, like supervised parties and zero-tolerance policies on bullying, maybe doing them long-term harm and preventing them from gaining independence. Seahaven is a place where children are not free to explore the world.
    • In conclusion, Christof unintentionally created a toxic parody of the worst aspects of American life, since this "perfection" came at the expense of Truman's other forms of well-being.
• Truman's name literally describes himself. Truman. True Man. He's the only person who isn't an actor on the set.
• How did Truman manage to face his fear of water? Probably he lost it when he discovered that his "father", whom he had seen drowning when he was seven, was actually alive.
  • And their programming of Truman to be afraid of water couldn't have been that intensive, as they couldn't have gotten all that rough about scaring a little boy without alienating their audience. Indeed, doing something so drastic to Truman as to make him truly petrified about drowning would've probably traumatized the audience by proxy.
  • Truman also shouted to the production crew of The Truman Show "Is that the best you can do? You're gonna have to kill me!" Truman viewed staying in the director-chosen life as a Fate Worse than Death — even death by drowning would have been preferable to staying in Seahaven.
• Truman has always had a natural wanderlust which Christof has tried to crush all his life by constantly bombarding him with everything from newspapers to TV shows to all his 'family & friends' relentlessly going on and on about how Seahaven is the most wonderful place on the world while the rest of the world sucks. All this promotion could very well have had the opposite effect the same way that many anti-cigarette ads often end up making smoking even more attractive to take up.
• There's a bottle of Vitamin D capsules on the kitchen table in one scene. Could it be these are standard for all residents of Seahaven as a remedy for going who knows how long without seeing the actual Sun?
• The manual HVAC controls on a 1996-99 Ford Taurus model like Truman's work as follows - the left knob controls the fan speed, the middle knob controls the mode and the right side knob controls the temperature. (Picture for reference◊) When Truman makes his first attempt to escape the island, the entire time they are driving through town the middle knob is turned all the way to the left to "MAX A/C", indicating he had the air conditioning on - understandable considering Seahaven's climate. However, when they are sitting stopped at the bridge, the middle knob is turned vertically to "OFF". As Truman was trying to muster the courage to drive across the bridge, he turned the car's air conditioning off so he wouldn't smell the water. Then when they clear the bridge and Truman drives through the fire set in the middle of the road, he still has the air conditioning shut off so the smoke wouldn't get sucked into the car's interior.
• Why hasn't Truman noticed strange, seemingly impossible things that happen in his life, e.g. rain falling on him and only him? He knows nothing other than this world. He could regularly experience things that seem bizarre to us, and not bat an eyelid. It's also why it took him so long to realize the Product Placement pitches Meryl does is really bizarre — he'd grown up experiencing that, so why would he bat an eye at his wife doing so? At least until she does it in the middle of a heated argument.
  • That's true for stuff like the very large Moon, but as for the rain falling only on him, he did find that strange. Usually when it rains there, it rains on everybody, and when the effects backfired and it only fell on him, he was surprised. He didn't react as much as you'd think he would, but he had a very weird and long day and this was just another thing on top of it all; he did react though and realize how strange it was. In fact, the impossible things (the skylight falling) were what made him realize that something wasn't quite right in the first place.
  • Truman has also never experienced the real world. How would he even know the moon is off-size? Christof also comments that "we invest ourselves in our reality." Truman has probably noticed some oddities, but he's shrugged them off and gone about his life. It's only when something earth-shattering — like seeing his dad — happens that he starts to really question the subtle wrongness of his existence. Had that not happened so soon to the "star" falling out of the sky, he might have taken Christof's Handwave that it was an airplane part.
• Marlon says something to Truman along the lines of how it seems that the sunset was perfectly painted by God, this takes the meaning of a common phrase about sunsets and gives the actual literal meaning relevance that Truman has yet to see, and could possibly be one of the things that helps Truman realize the entrapment.
• The plot relies on the idea that the filmmakers can manipulate Truman's emotions and plant ideas. So the fact that he randomly fell in love with a beautiful woman nearby when he first meets his "future wife" was probably the emotional cues in Truman firing off in the wrong direction. Hence his obsession over an "extra".
• Truman's known Marlon all his life. Watch his face when Marlon gives a beautiful, artistic speech about how great friends they are. He's gradually realizing that, "Marlon is my buddy who drinks and has been in rehab and stocks vending machines for a living and isn't exactly the kind of guy you'd peg as artistic and dramatic. Hey, this isn't Marlon's usual style at all." Now that Truman's finally looking out for all the things that are strange in his life, he's spotting the little things as well as the big things. Christof gave some beautiful lines, but he fed them to the wrong person.
• The name of the town is Seahaven — "C" Haven — Christof's Haven.
• "220 countries tuned in for his first step!" There are only 195 recognized countries in the world. This is a subtle indication of the 20 Minutes in the Future setting in the "real world", also implied by the fact that the real-time fetal footage of Truman probably wouldn't have been possible to capture back in 1969, or at least not without serious risk to both fetus and mother.
• While it makes sense in context, Truman misses a major clue to things not being right when Sylvia is taken from him. Her "father" says that she takes boys to the beach all the time. However, in his shock and panic, Truman forgot that going to the beach was his idea. That, plus the discussion about how the show used an "illness" from his mother to distract him, showed just how the producers preferred to distract Truman from the truth — if things got too close, they would overwhelm and confuse him. Up until the end, it worked, too.
• Not only is the film's premise eerily prophetic in terms of the boom of reality TV about everyday citizens, but so is its in-universe premise. Think about all the reality TV stars who are mostly despised or mocked for their shallowness or unlikeability, and the current 24/7 news cycle of social media that alerts us to every bad thing happening as soon as it happens; it's not unfathomable that The Truman Show would be a worldwide phenomenon just for people to turn to see a pure, good person in a world free of everyday tribulations.
  Christof: People sometimes leave him on all night for comfort.
• The second Truman steps out that exit door, the audience does not see him again. We don't know if he finds Sylvia (though it's certainly implied that they find each other) or what happens next in his life. The audience doesn't get any of the traditional Hollywood happy ending closure, but that's the point: he's escaped for good, and we're not supposed to watch him anymore.
• Truman's career in Seahaven is with insurance, and Truman was probably guided to this particular career choice — you know, dealing with all sorts of disasters, accidents, general trauma. Just more death and destruction to keep Truman's wanderlust in check.
  • In the same vein, Meryl’s job in the hospital would have added to this. In one scene she explains that she has a patient to work on who was in an accident, and she really piles on how tragic it was that such a young woman became so horrifically injured. It’s likely that she did this regularly, especially when describing people who were victims of transport or water-based freak accidents.
• Insurance is often derided as a bland, stodgy, and boring profession. So it would be a fitting job for someone who is supposed to be depicted as "average" (read: white-upper middle class). Also, the unpredictability of other professions, like medicine or law, means that Truman would likely be given a down-to-Earth occupation that makes it easier to survey his actions.
• It is very well possible the trauma of his father's "death" drove Truman to the insurance business. Truman is decent, so a business that helps people who suffered accidents could fit him like a glove.
• Alternatively, the reason why Truman's profession is insurance is that an In-Universe insurance company throws advertising revenue at Christof so their company will be featured. Showing the most important TV personality in the world "working" for them is not only excellent advertising, but it allows the company to present itself an image of wholesomeness.
• The issue of Bad "Bad Acting" and people constantly needing their lines fed to them is likely evidence as to just how far Christof's Control Freak tendencies are before the climax. He doesn't trust anyone to improvise anything, so people are not allowed to, and they thus get blindsided when they suddenly find themselves required to.
  • The apparent lack of any improvisation at all, or at least nothing of any significance, might seem needlessly complicated, if not illogical, given all the moving parts necessary to keep up the illusion of Seahaven. Yet it's reflective of not only Christof's Control Freak tendencies, but also a simmering paranoia, and unwillingness to allow any threat to his vision. While ad-libs and improvs could lend more "authenticity" to keep Truman placated, their relative unpredictability also means that they would wind up fueling his desire to escape. Something that someone like Marlon could have potentially exploited to subtly nudge Truman without anyone noticing until it was too late.
• Likewise if you consider the long-term commitments of the show (Marlon has been on the show for decades and likely several other cast members have as well) and the fact the show is singularly focused on Truman with no additional storylines or plot elements for other characters, this is most likely not a show that would attract Hollywood A-listers. The majority of the cast is made up of bit characters and extras that probably have very little actual acting experience before joining this show. Meryl according to tie-in material was a child star before she got cast onto the show, which does not always translate to being a good actress in adulthood with her being noticeably bad at playing her part as Truman's loving wife with zero ability for improv or seeming natural. This also explains why Truman's "father" tried to get back into the show: because he was a talentless hack who nobody else would hire. It is very well possible the cast and crew go along with their incredibly immoral spectacle because they have no career prospects outside of it.
• When Truman patronizes the travel agency, his agent hastily walks in the door wearing a napkin in her collar, which she eventually notices and discards with a slight nervous expression. Truman and the majority of the film's audience might assume that it was from her lunch break to safeguard from food stains on her clothes, but in the context of the story, it's far more likely that she was wearing it while having her stage makeup applied.
• As Christof and the crew become more and more desperate, they pull a lot of stunts to keep Truman from leaving. These not only fail to convince him, and also help Truman understand how fake his life is, but a lot of them are symptoms of a show that has jumped the shark and is about to be canceled.
  • Suddenly bringing back a long-dead character: in a desperate bid to satiate Truman's wanderlust, Truman's dead father comes back from the grave. Such plot twists are often derided by critics as a "rating stunt" that grabs the audience's attention in the short term but doesn't improve the quality of the work in the long term.
  • Maintaining the story setting at all cost: in real life, people and our lives change over time. Life is rarely stagnant, and many people would dislike a world where everything stays the same. When a TV show sticks to the same outline, people usually get bored with it. The premise of the Truman Show is that he stays in Seahaven all the time. Truman has gotten bored with his routine and wants to try new things and see new places, and is annoyed when everyone around him harks about how great Seahaven is. Then, a series of accidents suddenly conspire to keep Truman in Seahaven. A forest fire and a nuclear meltdown happening at the same time and without any warning definitely push the Willing Suspension of Disbelief to its very limit.
  • The executives taking control of the storyline: Executives interfering with the story often presages a show's decline when they put their interests or bottom line ahead of the art or quality. Christof is called out for aborting the show's broadcast but defends his actions by gushing about the ratings. Later, he forcibly activates the artificial "sun" early, despite the fact it would destroy any doubt in Truman's mind that his reality was fake, and against the protests of his staff. Finally, he creates a storm to try and kill Truman, again for the sake of ratings. In trying to take control of his invented reality, Christof intentionally debases it further and ruins its authenticity, which also slowly pushes Truman closer to the truth.
  • Excessive product placement : A show that obsessively tries to milk its franchise for money will eventually sacrifice quality to do so. The moment where Truman finally gets sick of his marriage is when "Meryl" tries hocking some new coffee at him in the middle of a serious conversation. This could've been a moment of drama, where Meryl tries to act like a loving wife, but instead, she sees Truman's distrust as another way of making some cash. Which only infuriates Truman even more and leads to the marriage ending.
  • A random love interest thrown in: Truman gets a new "co-worker" at his job. From the way she looks at Truman and her physical beauty, this woman was intended to be his new girlfriend. Even if Truman was attracted to her physically, it is doubtful he is interested in romance after the breakdown of his "marriage" to "Meryl". Forcing this woman into Truman's life is no substitute for a genuine romance, and yet Christof plods on, again hurting the authenticity of the setting for Truman.
  • The breakdown of cast relationships. Even the best TV shows can feature conflicts between cast members. These conflicts can lead to the departure of key cast mates, causing the show to end since their replacements aren't that good. Truman was mainly kept in his show by seemingly having good relationships. But when he realizes his relationships are all fake, including the ones with Meryl and Marlon, he realizes he can't continue staying on the "set".
  • A new kid character: Christof has been hoping for Truman to conceive a child with Meryl. Adding a kid character into a setting can sometimes work, but oftentimes the kid character can be overhyped, or his or her existence can ruin the dynamic of a show.
• Going on the above, it is possible Truman comes to understand the truth about his existence because he's seen these cliches in the fiction he enjoys, and he is beginning to see it play out in his own life.
• One of Christof's glaring flaws is that he doesn't even try to give Truman the pretense of a healthy marital relationship: Meryl is plainly interested in how much money she can make while the woman intended to be the new girlfriend is shown (in a deleted scene) to see Truman and the baby as just a means to make money. But it is obvious why.
  • Christof isn't shown to have any personal relationships whatsoever: no wife, no kids, no friends, and no relatives. Even his own "relationship" with Truman is a very twisted and paternal one. The reason why Christof can't write any meaningful relationship is that he also can't form any.
  • Christof is shown to be bad at creative decisions and improv, which means he can't write a genuinely healthy romance.
• In the deleted scenes, it is shown that Marlon feels genuinely guilty about what he's doing. It is possible he has thought about joining the Free Truman movement or tried to sneak Truman hints about his situation. But he hasn't done that for several reasons:
  • He remembers when Sylvia was thrown off the show when she tried to spill the beans. Marlon doesn't want that to happen to him, because if he gets thrown off the show, Truman won't have any other friends since all the actors see Truman as a ticket to wealth and fame. Marlon might feel a twisted sense of duty to give Truman some semblance of genuine human connection.
  • Considering the level of surveillance Truman is subjected to, who's to say Christof doesn't monitor his own employees as intensely? There are instances of people (a Truman show activist and Truman's fake father) sneaking themselves onto the set, so it is likely anybody who works on the show is subjected to a lot of screening and oversight. While Marlon wants to do something, the risk of being found out is too high.
  • Marlon is genuinely afraid of losing his friendship with Truman. Marlon has been stuck on the show his whole life, and he likely doesn't have friends. If he told his friend the truth, Truman would, in his mind, never speak to him anymore. Losing your lifelong friend is a real fear for someone to go through.
  • Also, less honorably (but just as human) — Money, Dear Boy. Marlon's got to eat, the job likely pays well, and Typecasting would be a massive problem for actors working on the show. If he tried to get the show canceled, Christof would not only fire him but get him blacklisted from finding any kind of acting job.
• Truman seems to have had a healthy childhood. He is close with his "mother", misses his "dead father", and had remained friends with Marlon. But his relatively healthy youth was not given to him out of the kindness of Christof's heart. Christof couldn't use physical threats on Truman since that would make his show look terrible to the audience. Truman's fake parents stuck to more quiet forms of manipulation that the audience couldn't recognize as abuse.
• How was Truman's fake father able to sneak onto the set without getting caught? As a central figure in the Truman Show world, he knows the security cameras and their blind spots like the back of his hand. He once stopped his young "son" from climbing somewhere that could have exposed the facade, which means he's privy to where it would be possible to avoid detection.
• Almost none of the actors seem actually to care about Truman as a person, and Meryl doesn't pretend to show concern about Truman's mental health. This is no accident, but Christof's intention: Christof's scheme relies on people who are willing to keep someone captive for lots of money. Anybody who could come to care for Truman would inevitably destroy the facade, and so Christoff doesn't let anyone who feels any genuine emotional connection to him to stay on set.
• Seahaven doesn't appear to have any defined location within America. But there are two reasons for this:
  • Seahaven is supposed to be an Everytown, America: a supposedly average town that anyone can imagine themselves living in. Giving the town some kind of location would be "unfair" to any viewer watching.
  • Seahaven was built to house Truman and "shield him" (read: imprison him) from the outside world. Trying to create an authentic town with rich world-building isn't a priority since Truman is so isolated he doesn't have a frame of reference for what the world should be. Christof and his writers probably draw up whole fake textbooks and maps, creating a whole new Alternate History of America. The "trip" to Mount Rushmore can be within the driving distance because they could pretend Mount Rushmore is next to Seahaven.
  • The brief "Mount Rushmore" joke also highlights how writers often don't depict the right geography in their stories. Seahaven is a town on a coastline while Mount Rushmore is located deep in the American prairie. The amount of errors the writers make can only be glossed over because of Truman's isolation from civilization itself.
• The names of Truman's "wife" and "best friend" are Meryl and Marlon, respectively. The fact that they are named after two famous actors isn't a coincidence. Christof, in his incredible ego, chose these names because he styles himself as an incredible artist, despite his "art" being trapping someone in a prison, with people who are terrible artists.
  • There are only a handful of characters in Seahaven whose names we hear. Others include his parents Angela and Kirk, his boss Lawrence, new coworker Vivian, love interest Lauren Garland, twins Ron and Don and neighbor Spencer.
• Truman's catchphrase of "Good afternoon, good evening, and good night" is meant for audiences who were watching in different timezones, where they will be tuning in at a different time zone from Seahaven.
• During the interview phone calls, the showrunners receive a failed call from the Hague, Netherlands. This could just be highlighting the international reach of the show while saving the real production from finding a Dutch speaker. Or... The Hague is most famous for its crimes against humanity court. Maybe there are human rights to be violated in this world. Maybe people were trying to help Truman, and were stopped by the production.

Fridge Horror

• It's feasible that some of the people constantly working with Truman came to care for him, just like Sylvia did, but if they did, they would face the moral decision of the lie they are making him live. Thus, logically, anybody who cared about Truman would have to be taken out of the show and out of his life. Marlon is the only person who stuck by him while continuing the charade, but according to Word of God, it has taken a tremendous psychological toll on him.
• Even before Truman started to realize the truth, it is apparent Truman's marriage to Meryl wasn't exactly warm or kind, considering he always wanted to go to Fiji in order to find and reconnect with Sylvia. So why would he have stayed married to "Meryl" all of these years? Considering how manipulative his "mother" is, one can only imagine the kind of gaslighting Truman had to go through to stay married to someone he didn't particularly care for.
• One of the things that might have tipped Truman off was Marlon's Tear Jerker speech that he was dictated specifically by Christof. Marlon, in the Truman Show, is a guy who stocks vending machines for a living, and comes around with beers for spontaneous parties and is just your average guy. And suddenly he's coming out with all this philosophical, highly educated stuff about how if everybody's in on it, he would be too. Truman has known Marlon for years and even the viewers would feel it all sounds wrong for the character it's coming from. The speech backfires as it strengthens Truman's surety.
• Just how much exactly of Truman's life is covered by the cameras? How much privacy does he actually have? Would they follow him to the toilet? He and his wife were talking about trying for a baby. Would that also be recorded on air? And how would his wife the actress feel about it anyway?
  • Christof also mentions during TruTalk that one of the future goals of The Truman Show is to have the "first on-air conception". In supplemental materials, it's mentioned that "Hannah Gill" (the actress portraying Meryl) does indeed have sex with Truman for a contracted bonus, and if that seems implausible, remember that real-life mainstream actresses like Chloe Sevigny and Margot Stilley and even Oscar winner Mark Rylance have had unsimulated sex on-screen in the name of art. Presumably, Hannah/Meryl would get a substantial amount of money if she had to carry a baby for real.
• Christof declares his determination to have "the first on-air conception". The plan is for Truman to have a baby. Obviously, Truman will die one day, and, equally obviously, the child could never be let in on the secret. The conclusion one is forced to draw is that once Truman died, the new star of the show would be Truman's child. This would allow the name The Truman Show to persist.
• What kind of life would Truman's child have if had been born on the Truman Show? Considering the horrific efforts Cristof and others went to keep Truman in the dark about his life, and how even that wasn't enough to stop him from doubting his existence, what kind of terrible things would Truman's child be subjected to? Considering the kind of person "Meryl" is, and how she only sees her "husband" as a meal ticket, Truman's baby would be growing up in emotional hell.
• Truman actually went to school when he was a child. He didn't know his life was a TV show, which means all the children he knew at school had to lie to him every day. Kids being kids, one wonders what machinations the production came up with to keep them in line for years.
• Truman was the "first" child adopted by a corporation. He may not have been the only child owned by the show. Marlon has been Truman's friend since they were children. Continued involvement from such an early age would suggest that he has no say in his life like Truman, but he's actually in on it from the beginning. Unlike many other cast members, the childhood best friend, and really only confidant, is near impossible to replace. His relationship with Truman involves a kind of trust you cannot duplicate easily, unlike revolving love interests. Marlon likely cannot leave no matter how much he dislikes what's going on and just has to keep going along with the lie until the show, or his usefulness, runs its course.
• While Christof has a seemingly cool and stoic persona, he turns into more of a psychopath as time goes on. Specifically, he sees nothing wrong with what he's done to Truman and claims that the real world is the sick place. The seemingly callous disregard he has for Truman's well-being comes to a head when Truman is in the storm. The execs beg Christof to stop, saying that they can't let him die in front of a live audience, but Christof justifies his actions by saying he was born in front of a live audience. When Truman taunts Christof, he forces the crew to increase the storm and waves to dangerous levels, capsizing the boat and nearly killing Truman. Given how obsessed Christof is with ratings and breaking new ground in television, it's very possible he, in the spur of the moment, nearly killed off Truman to give the audience a dramatic finale.
• What kind of life is Truman going to have in the outside world? Yes, it's implied that he and Sylvia are going to get together, and given the show's massive popularity, he'll probably be financially set for life. Every news source under the sun will be clamoring for interviews, and there will likely be lots of TV, book, and movie deals — to say nothing of the financial compensation from the lawsuits that will undoubtedly be filed against Cristof and co. But what sort of shape is he going to be in psychologically? Other than Sylvia (whom he barely knows) he has no support network on the outside, no family or friends to lean on. He's going to be struggling with paranoia and trust issues for a very long time, which will make everyday life extremely difficult and forming relationships nearly impossible — and that's the best case scenario. He will be also be entering a world of CCTV cameras, and after a decade or so, mobile phones with cameras, which certainly isn't going to help matters...
  • The first part of this statement is already Fridge Horror by itself: Truman is an extremely public figure – and one with no experience whatsoever at handling fame and notoriety. He will be transitioning from a world where he secretly never had any privacy to one where he won't be left to have one either, possibly surrounded by a plethora of people who'll try to exploit him for profit. Should he choose to play along, as his only productive asset is capitalising on his experience as an unwitting reality TV star, he will essentially stepping back into basically the same hell, free to make his own decision, yes, but possibly very underprepared to do so.
  • Christof was right in saying that the outside world would still be terrible and feel less safe for Truman if anything. Christof just didn’t mention or acknowledge that, by giving Truman that overwhelming amount of fame, this was his fault.
• On the subject of experience, Truman doesn't have any real experience in anything. Every aspect of his life since his childhood including that which is supposed to be completely "real" was manufactured. Barring Syliva and maybe the occasional extra that was fired afterward, Truman has never interacted with a person who wasn't being fed or rehearsed lines most of which we see are not something real people say. Truman has never had a real loving relationship with anyone. Truman's "work" at his insurance job was likely also entirely faked. The very world Truman grew up in wasn't real. With only a few exceptions (his "father's" death, Syliva's relationship, and of course the events of the film) that we know of Truman has been kept from any real hardship or worries throughout his life. Truman is going to be deeply emotionally and psychologically stunted in ways he likely will never actually recover from. Upon his escape for years afterward Truman will have no real idea how to interact with people socially, he's likely to make constant blunders with how he treats people and how he interacts with the world in ways that our years of life experience since childhood prepared us for to the extent that many of them are subconscious. It's also highly likely Truman will develop severe mental disorders from having to interact with and live in the real world, whether he's got the support of Syliva and the millions Truman will likely make from his experiences or not. For instance, it wouldn't be surprising if Truman developed a severe aversion to or even phobia of being filmed.
• As noted in the main page, the world in which the Truman Show takes place is a really, really, really nasty place, for several reasons:
  1. It is legal for corporations to adopt children, use them as assets in their business, keep them imprisoned in some imagined reality, and deny them any contact with the outside world.
  2. Christof nearly kills someone on camera. I mean, it isn't that surprising, considering how he's functionally a damaged sociopath. But what's shocking is how no one tries stopping him! The executives and technicians in his office do nothing but make small protests and tiny acts of insubordination, but no one considers calling the police on Christof or tackling him. Yes, many celebrities can get away with a lot of shit, but they don't get to outright murder people on camera. It is obvious that the Truman Show is a dystopia of epic proportions since television executives can get away with killing people. What other horrible things can corporations do in this world?
  3. There is a lack of child services. Again, manipulating a kid on camera could easily bring the attention of child protective services, regardless of whether or not he is adopted. Either they don't exist, or they are easily bought off.
  4. The actors who are close to Truman will be paid the most but have the least freedom. His best friend is trying to recover but the executives won’t let him. His “mother” has to always be on standby in case Truman calls or shows up spontaneously. And his wife has to support, make love to, and eventually carry the baby of a man she does not love. None of it is his fault, but how does one not grow to hate him for denying them their freedoms?
     1. Money, Dear Boy.
  5. People on the outside who saw how unethical the show’s production was being a “tiny minority”. People in Hollywood being paid off is one thing, but it’s shocking that the show got such a huge loving audience with very few common people seeing anything wrong with it. Especially as the show didn’t even try to hide their unethical production methods - it was freely admitted, almost as a brag, that Truman was the first baby to be adopted by a corporation.
• What would've happened if Truman was successfully recaptured? Would they lock him in a set reproduction of a mental asylum to try make him think that the Moon turning into a searchlight, the sun coming up at random and the entire town hunting him down like a fugitive was all in his head? What if he refused to play his usual routine regardless and stayed inside for the rest of his life?
• What if viewership failed? In-universe, the Truman Show had been around for decades but what would have happened if the novelty wore off or if the public found the show distasteful? Usually, when a show loses its audience, the show is cancelled and the actors move on to other projects. That would be impossible for Truman since the was his life and he was both unknowing and unwitting. It’s disturbing to think what might’ve been done to him.
• Sylvia was guilt-ridden for her (minor) involvement in the deception around Truman's life. At the same time, Word of God and several deleted scenes show Marlon as intensely traumatized by what he has helped put Truman show. How many other people suffer from the guilt of having helped, indirectly or otherwise, the Truman Show becomes what it is.
• Looking through the book of old photos, we see Truman and his parents visiting a fake Mt. Rushmore. His mother mentions, "he slept the whole way there." While this trip took place in a remote and rarely visited area of the Geodome, did they actually drug Truman so that he was asleep for the entire supposed duration of the "drive"?
• Considering Marlon has been on the show since he was 7 years old, what was he subjected to keep him in line for so long? What kind of parents would've been OK with forcing their child to lie and manipulate someone for so long essentially? It is no wonder Marlon has been to rehab: his life has also been one of constant fame and manipulation, like Truman's. Unlike Truman, Marlon is painfully aware of it, tearing him apart.
• It's a complete stroke of luck that Truman turns out to be such a nice person. What if he grows up to be a complete asshole no matter how well they try to raise him? What if he's born with antisocial personality disorder? Would Christoff just run with it and allow Truman to be a complete dick to his castmates with impunity? Having to keep a friendly Truman in the dark is stressful enough. Now imagine doing the same to a maniac who can fly off the handle at any moment.
• Going on the above, what kind of psychiatric care, if any, did Truman receive during his "career"? If he did go to a therapist (read: the actor playing one), would Christof allow his deep and personal thoughts to be broadcast? This would constitute an incredible violation of his privacy, on top of his daily routine already being entertainment for the masses. Would the actor not only manipulate Truman using junk therapy into staying but also toy with his emotions for the sake of ratings? The psychological damage a corrupt and inept therapist can inflict is impossible to quantify, but it could be even worse when the person counseling is not even certified: just a person who is being paid to gaslight someone.
• Christof's true nature is foreshadowed by the fact that Meryl points a knife at her husband over an uncomfortable question. This alone completely shreds Christof's justification that his spectacle is meant to protect Truman. Surely, he'd be a little bit angry at Meryl for brandishing a weapon, but instead he views Meryl's departure as a minor inconvenience at best. It also shows that all the actors, with the exception of Marlon, are not interested in protecting Truman, but keeping him in as their show pony.

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