Truman Show Essay Example for Free

Truman lay down EssayJim Carreys complex upbringing has led to a niche in cinema for him that cant be described as anything else but unmatchedness of a kind. While he started his c beer in Hollywood off being recognized or soly as a funny man, he soon grow this persona with his murders in such films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Majestic, and recently the highly acclaimed 23. many an(prenominal) critics con positionr C beys decision to take on the function of Truman in The Truman carry as the focal point of his expansion of the comedic archecase. This probe attempts to assess what is so significant ab stunned Jim Carey and his particular performance in The Truman indicate.Jim Carrey has been famous for his intents as a comedian since he first hit the big screen in the early 1990s. He was born in Canada on January 17, 1962. He started working in the 80s, at small harlequinade clubs. Carrey discoverd from Canada to Los Angeles in the 80s to try and ge t more work. His biggest belong was in 1994 with the comedy Ace Ventura Pet Detective. He continued making skag stick comedies in the years to follow, including Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and Liar Liar. In 1998 Jim Carrey took on the role of Truman Burbank, a role that would diversity his career and audience perception of him. Not single was The Truman Show making Jim Carrey step away from his slap stick, low comedy side, he was experimenting with a much darker comedy.This shocked his audience at first beca go for e reallyone sham any film Jim Carrey was in, had to be laugh fall out loud funny. No one had seen a darker side of him. After The Truman Show, Jim Carrey accumulated a much larger fan base. People became fascinated by the ideas and themes that The Truman Show turn to. Jim Carrey continues making people laugh all everyplace the world. People depart flock to his comedic movies because they agnize that they will always have a sense of Jim Carrey mood. He has a way o f playacting that is all his own. The films he stars in, not only draw a grand audience, they in like manner have an affect on his audience. This essay will look at Jim Carrey as a comedy comedian, with specific focus on his darker comedic role in The Truman Show and its affect on society. Although The Truman Show is considered a comedy, its themes touched on issues that in the 90s were still unaware to most people. The idea that someone was always watching scared society. Webcams, and worldly concern television was still new and being developed. The thought of watching other peoples lives wasnt interesting to society yet.The only shows that were considered reality were Cops and MTVs The Real World. These followed regular people around and showed them doing terrestrial normal things, like eating, shopping and seeing friends. This began to fascinate and attract people and once The Truman Show came out it sparked a chain of shows surrounding the idea of Big chum, we are always be ing watched. Within a short people of time reality television and media started to run our lives.As the 90s progressed Jim Carreys comedies went from slapstick humor to more serious humor. The Truman show questioned if Jim Carrey would reside a comedian comic or take on the role of more versatile actor. He was originally known as a funny guy, who couldnt be taken seriously. Once he took on roles that still had comedic aspects but had a lot more depth he was able to reach a larger audience and bear on more people with his versatility. He shows that on that point is humor in the most dramatic situations and his classic comedic measure only further enforces his ability as an actor..All the freshen ups I read categorized The Truman Show as high comedy. Jim Carreys actions are funnier then what is actually happening. Very often his facial expressions and actions imply a deeper, or even darker nitty-gritty than what is on the surface. The theme of the movie is much deeper and more p rofound than one might want to initially count.. This is partly why Jim Carey has been able to command so much specie at the box office. His ability to connect with audiences of all ages has much to do with his highly animated performances combine with their adult implications. Reviewers were shocked at first to see Jim Carrey in such a serious role.In a review on time.com title Smile Your lifes on TV the article said once the script was sold the producer took the script straight to Jim Carrey because Jim had the kind of madness the stand out needed to ultimately get make. His warmth was a hedge against a movie that could have been on the cold side and needed someone with audience sympathy(Corliss). The underlining theme in the film is finding yourself and finding your true individualised identity and Jim Carrey does this in a way that he brings comedy and seriousness to the role.This is a very mature concept, and one that might not always be expected from a comedian. In mos t reviews, refs agree that Jim Carrey carries the movie. One reviewer said, For Carrey detractors who are easily turned off by the comics rubber-faced antics, The Truman Show proves to be an eye-opener. Not only does Carrey remain rigidly-controlled and reigned in, but it would be fair to call his performance both understated and effective(Berardinelli, James).When reviewers are commenting on comedy, especially any comedy Jim Carrey is in the reviewer assumes it is going to be a laugh out loud comedy. When they walk into a Jim Carrey movie, whether it is serious or not they are always in hopes of escaping into a world full of laughter. He turns every role he has into a character, because that is what a comedian comic does when he acts. Audiences always react positively to Jim Carreys comedic characters. It is only when he stars in serious roles that his audience begins to question him. In many reviews for The Truman Show seldom do any of them come out and say that the film is a come dy.One review I read brought up questions almost the film and one of the questions was, how badly will merchandising The Truman Show as a comedy hurt the movie when viewers realize thats not what it is(Berardinelli, James)? Reviewers do not give an exact definition for comedy when they are talking round The Truman Show. On a review on IMDB a reviewer says, No, its not a comedy, wellnot exactly. I didnt quite go through until I watched it myself. Truman takes on a tone quite different than any parody/comedies Ive seen late(IMDB).Jim Carreys versatility draws even more audience and fans. He has now acquired an even larger fan base. The marketing controversy behind The Truman Show stems from the fact that western audiences are accustomed to seeing Jim Carey as a comedian. The irony of this that it creates a dual conflict of identity both for Truman and for Carey and the way he is perceived by the public. The film has multiple layers of understanding of what it style to be both a c omedian and a hero.In Krutnicks, Hollywood Comedians, The have Reader the Steve Seidman essay Performance, Enuciation, and Self-Reference in Hollywood Comedian Comedy talks about Comedian comics. The essays talks about the origins of the comedian comedic. Comedian comedy comes from show business, such as vaudeville. This type of performance acknowledges the audience. Where as a film draws the audience into another world, vaudeville included the audience or made the audience aware that they were watching a show. This is the way a comedian comic acts. They use a lot of big over the top gestures to make something comedic.In The Truman Show Jim Carrey begins to suspect something is weird in his life and begins acting strange. He starts to speak to the camera although he doesnt realize it is a camera. He is acting towards the audience and making them realize they are watching a movie. Jim Carrey does an excellent melodic phrase at this because he has worked as a show business performe r since he first started as a stand up comedian.Jim Carrey is a comedian comic and he steps outside his ordinary comedic role to play Truman Burbank. He tries his hand at playing a darker comedian. This sparked a series of films were Jim Carrey took on less comedian comedy films. In the end, Careys experimental work enhances the depth of his comedic performances. Careys abundant eyed zaney antics come off as borderline rational when he is put into situations similar to the Truman character. In many of his films he has the boyish charm of a man discovering the world for the first time. In The Truman Show this is exactly what.The Truman Show brought about a lot of controversy after its debut. It questioned the sanctity of identity. In Gary Pantons review on The Truman Show he says, Its an exploration into the idea that we always induce the reality of our surroundings without question. Once the movie came out people began to question their place, role, and effect in life. They want ed to find their own identities and who they were, because Truman is searching for his identity throughout the whole movie. It raised a lot of questions about who we where and who was watching us. It questioned societys identity and whether they were safe.They used dark comedy to bring flatboat on an substantial issue. Having Jim Carrey in the movie alone made viewers assume the film would be comedic. I think by him being in it, it was a comedy. His body language and acting is always comedic. end-to-end the course of the film they used comedic tricks to make Truman question where he is. At one point a piece of the lighting set falls from the sky on to Trumans street. Another example of comedy that they use is when Truman is on the beach and it starts to rain, but to Trumans surprise the rain storm is only over him and if he walks a couple of feet away he is out of the rain. The Truman Show came out before the huge increase of reality television. After the movie came out reality t elevision skyrocketed.Many of the shows were based on the ideas that came from The Truman Show. As op make up to people not knowing they were being filmed, they knew and were trying to find their identity in front of a camera crew. Most shows set up cameras all over a nursing home or had camera crews follow a person around. This reflects the actions of when Truman finally realizes he is being filmed. He behaves as though he is aware of the camera. This is what reality television stars do. None of these shows are seen as being serious. oft of this parallels the relationship between the media and the public a complex conflict that has undergone much pupilly debate. One scholar in particular who is considered an expert on many of the conflicts depicted in The Truman Show is Pierre Bourdieu.In all of Bourdieus beliefs, his most customary is his assertion that the public does not exist (1984). This concept is addressed in his book, Distinction A Social Critique of the Judgement of Ta ste, in that he feels there is a different of class taste between the ruling class and popular horticulture. But, within this conflict, there is no public, only a media mediating between the two and a culture to which they often cater to do so. In John Fiskes critique on television, television receiver Culture he analyzes the nature of what makes popular television. He concludes that the shows that succeed in gaining popularity tend to have many symbols and plot lines containing multiple meanings. He also states that remain within a duality of containment and resistance (1987).This idea basically revolves around the fact that television producers, who are viewed as the upper class and semipolitical elite, are expected to produce material that correspond with popular culture. This material that the elite minority culture produces for the popular culture contradicts elitist ideals but allows the status quo to remain intact. This means the political elite can only remain the elite s o long as they humor the beliefs and ideals of their less powerful but more dominant counterparts.The rules Fiske establishes for television shows can very easily be applied to the media. They present the media as a tool being used to prey on the wants and ask of different cultures. Another media technology that isnt always addressed is the literary outlets in societies. This is undoubtedly the yard that Pierre Bourdieu is an acclaimed literary theorist as well, addressing such theorist as reader response theory.The Truman Show talks about social power. It talks about the power that the media have over people. The show is compulsive on a larger scale to peoples lives, who spend their life watching it and on a smaller scale the people creating the show and controlling everything Jim Carrey does. The Truman shows creator Christof is controlling what everyone is seeing and saying. He plays the God of Seahaven, the made up township that Truman lives in. There is the outside real au dience watching the show and then there are the actors in the show and then there is us, the audience watching the real actors, watching Truman. We are always being controlled.David Thomas and Garry Gillard article titled, The Truman Show and the programming of reality, mention this when they say that the film poses important questions of identity and reality, because of the way the film uses both diegetic and non-diegetic audiences. This highlights the boundaries between real people, actors, fictional audiences and real audiences, and how they are skew and confused by The Truman Show. The film also addresses certain concepts of matter identity.The idea behind national identity is that one defines their self through the identity of their nation. In their article, National Identity and Self-Esteem, Jeff Spinner-Halev and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse analyze the nature of national identity. They adopt the theory that if the self-esteem of an individual is tied to their nation than its the perfect proponent to prolong safe and secure nations. They feel that there is an immediate connection between self respect and radical identity so much so, it could lead to one sacrificing their own personal needs for the good of the group. They also acknowledge that there is a competitive nature within group self esteem this meaning that most groups want their group to do better than others. This is often seen in the patriotic nature of political propaganda, carried out by many countries to convince soldiers to go to war. This system of control is one known for cajoling groups to unbroken a certain program or way of thinking by catering to individuals wants, needs, or taking advantage of their fears. This complex of national identity is a major aspect of a governments societal control, as well as a significant ideal satirized in The Truman Show.It is most visibly personified in the character of the shows producer Christof. He argues that human beings accept the world in which th ey are presented, and uses this to justify why Truman hasnt figured out his predicament up to this point. All of the employees, of the studio, acting as Trumans family, friends and extras living within the town, can all be viewed as nationalists to the studios regime.The National Identity of these films can be directly corresponded to the culture and news report of immature Zealand. In 1945, the unexampled Zealand Film Critic Gordon Mirams argued that if there was a New Zealand culture, it was a mostly a Hollywood creation. The only thing more popular than going to the movies, in New Zealand, was drinking tea, during that time period. This idea is support by the statistic that for many years New Zealanders were the most frequenters of the movie world. In their book New Zealand Film 1912-1996 Helen Martin and Sam Edwards analyze the filmography of many films produced during this century in New Zealand.This book basically analyzes the entire accounting of film in New Zealand. The two authors managed to find more than 162 films. In formulating their list and deciding on what they would identify as New Zealand Films, they decided the film had to have a significant connection to the muddle in terms of the films creators, cast, copyright holder, financiers, production team, and technical equipment.They also felt that a film that holds a sociological connection to New Zealand should be categorized as a New Zealand films as well. Thus, they included The Piano in their list of films pointing out that though it was not filmed in New Zealand, its story was still set there. The authors also felt it the film addressed social issues pertaining to the history of New Zealand within the time frame it was set.In the 90s when The Truman Show first came out reality television was very rare. No one put their tv sets on the Internet or had video chats. In one article I read The world is watching by Jennifer Tanaka she writes about a couple who place a web cam in their new bor n daughters crib. They connect it to the Internet so their friends can go online and see the muff and watch her grow. They didnt think anything of it until they began receiving emails from people they didnt know telling them how cute their baby was and how they loved the idea of the wed cam.They still didnt really think anything of it, except it was flattering. They watch The Truman Show and immediately disconnected their web cam. They realized what they were doing and didnt want their baby to have people watching her like Truman. It wasnt until a movie like The Truman Show that brought light on a media obsess and driven world. It has only gotten worse from there.With the increase in a media obsessed culture, reality television has become a historical landmark of our generation today. In Gary Pantons review, I think he makes a good point when he says, The scary thing is that for us, the Big Brother generation, the notion of a 24-hour TV prisoner really isnt all that far-fetched. P erhaps the birth of a real Truman isnt as far into the future as we might like to think.The Truman Show poses an crease larger than itself in respect to national identity, only this film speaks more metaphorically. The idea previously posed in National Identity and Self Esteem, was that national identity is largely the product of a imitate that is followed by a group of people. These people are so caught up in the ideals of the group, they rather give oneself up their own individual comforts for the good of the team. The authors found that these groups are also very competitive with one another, identifying their identity with that of the group and basing the groups identity on their contrast from other groups. This becomes very relative to some of Rene Girards views. In his seminal theory of mediated desire Rene Girard argues that human desire is imitative. His views is that the goals we hold most personal are actually the desires of others which we want to achieve because other s want to achieve them.This is very compatible with the ideals of national culture and the cult group fallowing it incites. This is also seen constantly in The Truman Show, the main motivation for Truman to escape the studio/town is to travel to Fiji after his one true love. If the character personifying his school crush had never desired to move there, Truman would have never desired to follow. This is a direct personification of Girards theory, as well as an example of Morse and Halevs version of national identity.Work CitedAdorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment philosophical Fragments. 1947. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford Stanford UP, 2002.Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture. New York The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and New York Center for opthalmic History, 1994.Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984) Distinction, Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press.Chatman, Seymour (1978) Story and Discourse Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N Y Cornell University Press).Cheshire, Ellen. Jane Campion. Great Britain take Essentials, 2000.Eric Young (Executive Producer). (1998). Hows It Going To End? The Making of The Truman Show, Part II DVD (Special Feature). Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.Fiske, John (1987) Television Culture, London Methuen.Fiske, John (1992) Popularity and the Politics of Information in P. Dahlgren and C.Sanes, Ken. Truman as Archetype. Transparencynow.com. 1996-2001. 29 July 2004. http//www.transparencynow.com/truman.htm.Simons, Jon (1997) The Dialectics of Diana as Empty form , Theory Event, 1(4).http //muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_eventSimons, Jon (2000) Ideology, Imagology, and Critical Thought The Impoverishment ofPolitics, Journal of Political Ideology, 5(1), 81 103Slavin, John (2002) Lost causes the political theory of national identity in Australian cinema. PhD thesis, Department of English, University of Melbourne.Sparkes (eds) Journalism and Popular Culture, London Sage.Minow, Martha. (2006) Not that for Myself Identity, Politics, and the Law. New P, 1997. Chapter 2, Identities. 8 Dec. 2006.