‘90s Sci-Fi Comedy On Hulu Is The Ultimate Reality TV Show

By Robert Scucci
| Published 12 seconds ago

When I was 10 years old, The Truman Show messed me up for a minute because my imagination got the best of me as I wondered if I was also unwittingly living on a sound-stage for all the world to see. Knowing that I was simply getting anxious because I thought I had to be “on” all the time (this lasted about a day), the fantasy was short-lived but disproportionately exhausting. I can’t even begin to imagine how much my worldview would have been shattered if I were in Truman Burbank’s (Jim Carrey) shoes for 30 years, only to find out that my entire life was a lie that was built from the ground up for the sole sake of entertaining the masses and selling lawnmowers.

Taking the idea of commercialized voyeurism to unthinkable levels in the year 1998, The Truman Show is interesting to watch in 2025; a time that allows the devices in our pockets to document and broadcast every waking moment of our lives should we choose to use them in this fashion.

Currently available to stream on Hulu, The Truman Show turns the mirror toward its audience in its efforts to demonstrate how anything you see on TV, even the “reality” programs, are mostly fabricated for the sake of mindless entertainment and escapism. And even if you’re in on the ruse as a benign spectator, you’re still falling for the theatrics of an elaborate work of fiction instead of focusing on your own life, which is patently dangerous because your life will pass you by before you know it.

Truman Burbank Was Done Dirty

Wholly unaware that he’s been the star of The Truman Show since the day he was born, Truman Burbank lives an idealized yet unfulfilling life in the whitewashed beach community known as Seahaven Island. As he approaches his 30th birthday, Truman starts to notice small cracks in the facade, but can’t quite put his finger on what’s really going on. Since everybody in his community are actually hired actors tasked with keeping the series going, they follow a script – and even get fed lines through earpieces – to make sure that they never break the illusion, but events beyond their control tip Truman off to the true nature of his life.

Truman starts to notice things that hint at the fact he’s living in a sort of simulation in The Truman Showlike stage lights falling from the sky, dubious weather and traffic patterns, and even frequency overlaps on his car radio that suggest producers are following his every move and reporting back to the network heads and series writers.

Meanwhile, the creator of The Truman ShowChristof (Ed Harris), along with his control room director (Paul Giamatti) and network executive (Philip Baker Hall), use 5,000 hidden cameras to broadcast every waking moment of Truman’s life the world over, only to realize that Truman is onto them, forcing them to change the narrative to keep him from leaving Seahaven Island and discovering the truth.

Product Placements Are Prophetic

Trapped in a loveless marriage and going through the motions, Truman fully breaks when he notices how his wife, Meryl (Laura Linney) often looks directly into an unseen camera to plug whatever product the network heads are trying to sell through sponsorship programs. Though writer Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir probably didn’t have the foresight to know that social media influencers would be be running amok in the present day with their only aspiration being to land paid collaborations with Chili’s, they couldn’t have been more on the nose about how commercialism and supposed authenticity would tragically intersect in the ways that we’re currently witnessing, but have yet to calculate the consequences.

Plotting his escape from Seahaven Island to track down his one true love, an extra in The Truman Show named Sylvia (Natascha McElhone) who was fired after attempting to shatter the illusion, Truman decides to live life on his own terms, if only the producers and network heads would step out of his way and allow him to think for himself.

Streaming The Truman Show

Ringing more true to real life with each passing year, The Truman Show is one of those movies that was so ahead of its time with its predictions of how commercially viable entertainment would be consumed as technology continues to advance. As common, everyday people become minor celebrities through the use of social media, the line between how they actually live their lives and how they report them to their followers becomes increasingly blurred, as if we’re all living under the guidance of some unseen, faceless media juggernaut who’s only concerned about the bottom line– even if their subjects are actually willing participants this time around.

If you’re mentally prepared to have a movie from 1998 tell you “I told ya so,” you can stream The Truman Show with an active Hulu subscription as of this writing.

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