The Truman Tell
I’ve watched “The Truman Show” more than anyone you know & I keep coming back to the scene early in the film where Truman visits the newsstand to pick up a paper for himself & a few glamor mags that are ostensibly for his wife but which we soon learn are really just collage materials for his tragic stalker/reminiscence project aimed at recreating the face of the one person who ever made him feel an authentic emotion.
I can now honestly say this is one of the most chilling (yet subdued) frames I’ve seen in cinema. It’s pretty much a perfect depiction of the tightened noose of late capitalism around all of our necks.
As we know, nearly everything seen on the “Truman Show” TV program (cars, clothes, packaged goods, etc) is for sale. The products that are placed for display within the global broadcast are as essential to its success and longevity as Truman himself. This is true for the mags at the stand. Those which Truman can see are there both to sell subscriptions to the worldwide audience AND to subtly induce Truman to certain behaviors (ex. The multiple copies of “Child” meant to subtly supplement his wife’s urges to have a baby…for the inevitable ratings bonanza and product diversification which that plot development would bring).
The excessively creepy part is that there are publications placed *outside* of Truman’s view, above & to the side of the vendor. These can *only* be placed in frame for the “benefit” of the TV viewer (really for the benefit of the sponsors). We see Dog Fancy (copies of which are also in Truman’s view) getting the full cover treatment on the left, featuring a cover photo of a Dalmatian …the very breed that terrorizes Truman daily as he leaves his house. But we also see a copy of ADVENTURE WEST, a travel & adventure magazine focusing on the joys of frontiers and borderlands. This is a publication that the show producers would NEVER allow Truman to read in their constant efforts to shut down any inclination he may ever have to leave his “idyllic” & isolated home town and explore the world. This is the moment when we must reckon with the fact that the producers wouldn’t let something as trivial as a product being ABSOLUTELY ANTITHETICAL TO THE ENTIRE MISSION OF THE SHOW get in the way of making a fortune by allowing it some of the most valuable ad real estate in the history of humankind. Yes, the Truman Show program may be the most engrossing entertainment/social experimentation ever devised but not one inch of it (even something its main character will never see or think about) is allowed to exist outside of the most cynical commercialism.
