Hello Blog!
Over the course of the two classes this week with our discussions about Habermas and Lyotard, I’ve been pondering the idea of realism and what we perceive as reality.
A media example that comes to mind for this topic is The Truman Show, which I interpret as being written from a postmodern lens. To give context for those who have not seen this film, “The Truman Show” is a movie about a man, Truman, who was raised from birth on the set of a television show, but he has no idea that he is in a show. He perceives the show as his reality and does not know that his parents, wife, friends, basically everyone he knows, are just actors. Using these methods, the producers of the program learn to manipulate Truman’s idea of fantasy v.s. reality.
This image is one of the most iconic scenes in the movie. It represents Truman’s struggle differentiating between reality and what is not “reality.” The clouds are a projection of real clouds, but they are just a projection, so are they actually “real”? To Truman they might be, for that is his perception. However, there is intertextuality to this image, and if you see the movie, you understand that the clouds are just a projection.
I would like to apply a quote from Lyotard to this film:
“But capitalism inherently possesses the power to derealized familiar objects, social rules, and institutions to such a degree that the so-called realistic representations can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia or mockery, as an occasion for suffering rather than for satisfaction” (Lyotard, 40). The Truman Show breathes some truth into Lyotard’s ideas.
I think it is safe to say that the television show is evidence of mass production and capitalism. The program has been on the air for as long Truman has been living, so the producers are able to edit and broadcast almost every moment of his life. Therefore, the audience has a lot of content to consume, which makes it a rather influential piece of media. The program also includes ideas of strict binaries, such as gender roles, and gives Truman, as well as audience members who consume it, “fantasies of realism” (Lyotard, 41) . The concept of the show itself is so derealized because of the capitalistic mindset of everyone involved in the production. Due to this, the reality of the film seems so false to the audience, and it even gives off an aura of nostalgia, which is an important tool the producers use to unite the fan base (both in the actual film and our reality).
I apologize for spoilers to anyone that has not seen this film (so if you don’t want spoilers skip to the next paragraph), but at the end of the movie, Truman eventually breaks out of his fantasy world and travels to talk to the Director of the show. He explains to Truman that he can chose what reality he wants now because the real world is just as untrue as the false one he grew up in.
Writing this left me with even more questions than I began with. How can we see through the “fantasies of realism” that Lyotard is referring to? How many things in our society are fantasies of realism, and how many of those do we perceive as real? It must be up to the perceiver.
Until next time blog,
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