Review of Peter Weir’s Movie, The Truman Show with Regards to The American Dream

Death by A White Picket Fence

The American Dream promises a life of happiness. However, this promise, surprisingly to some, often falls flat. People come to realize that a life consisting of the perfect family, the perfect children, the perfect house, and even the perfect dog is not a formula for guaranteed happiness. Instead, there is no formula that can guarantee happiness. In The Truman Show, Truman’s realizations of his unhappiness and lack of satisfaction with what many would consider a flawless life spark his insistence to leave Seahaven and pursue a life contradictory to the commercial version of the American Dream in an attempt to find happiness and satisfaction elsewhere. The Truman Show exemplifies Tocqueville’s writings in Democracy in America about the dissatisfaction and troubles the American Dream can bring through Truman’s path to escaping his life in Seahaven.

Despite his perfect life, Truman experiences immense dissatisfaction and a need to escape this life he has been placed into. This is as a result of Truman’s insistent feeling about the world around him not seeming quite right and his obsession with his lost love Sylvia. Tocqueville describes seeing “men placed in the happiest condition that exists in the world; it seemed to me that a sort of cloud habitually covered their features; they appeared to me grave and sad almost even in their pleasures” (Tocqueville 511). Truman’s life is the epitome of the American Dream, which is supposed to guarantee happiness, but his life has been anything but happy for Truman as he has aged and becomes more skeptical. This life for Truman is orchestrated by the show’s creator Cristof. Cristof’s vision for Truman is a perfect life to be viewed by millions of people, which is successful as a result of people’s obsession with the American Dream and the ability to live vicariously through Truman.

However, Cristof’s vision for Truman ultimately fails, because the American Dream does not take into consideration that happiness looks different for every individual. To one person, the American Dream may simply look like not living paycheck to paycheck. To another person, the American Dream may look like making seven figures yearly. For Truman, the American Dream simply looks like escaping to Fiji to be with Sylvia. Truman does not want the life of a desk job, a suburban home, and a picturesque wife that Cristof wrongly assumed would satisfy Truman for his entire life. Cristof’s vision for Truman did not account for individuality or how shallow the dream was; Cristof’s vision only accounted for what would sell to the shows millions of viewers. As a result, Cristof’s vision fails and Truman leaves Seahaven and that cloud of sadness, referenced by Tocqueville, behind.

Furthermore, Cristof’s God-like role in the American Dream and his insistence on controlling every aspect of Truman’s life begins Truman’s desire to escape after Cristof’s removal of Sylvia from the show. According to Christianity, when God created the Earth, he created it with a utopia in mind, which is similar to Cristof’s approach to Seahaven. Cristof created this utopia separate from the perverse world outside. However, Cristof’s world ultimately becomes corrupt and falls apart when Truman begins to realize the truth and acts on his free will, similar to how God’s plan for Earth fell apart when sin came into the world through Adam and Eve when Eve acted on her free will and ate from the “forbidden fruit”. The “forbidden fruit” came from the Tree of Knowledge. Once Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the two could no longer remain in the Garden of Eden due to their new knowledge and disrespect towards God. When Truman begins to realize the truth about his surroundings, he can no longer remain in his Eden, which is Seahaven. Cristof’s possession of material goods “is permitted by religion and mortality” (Tocqueville 509) through his position as the creator of this separate world. Tocqueville elaborates, “to these one’s heart, one’s imagination, one’s life are delivered without reserve; and in striving to seize them, one loses sight of the more precious goods that make the glory and the greatness of the human species” (Tocqueville 509). Through Cristof’s pursuit of his vision, he has lost sight of such precious goods.

One of the “precious goods” that makes the human species great is love, which Truman is deprived of by Cristof. Truman becomes enamored of a woman on the show named Sylvia, who ultimately tries to reveal the truth about the show and his life to Truman. Sylvia is removed from the show by Cristof immediately to supposedly go with her father to Fiji, and Truman is left confused and heartbroken for years. Cristof’s removal of Sylvia and his attempt to play God rob Truman of the love he feels for Sylvia. Despite having been given this ideal life, Truman finds himself desiring a different life, one with Sylvia. Tocqueville describes men who “dream constantly of the goods they do not have” (Tocqueville 511), which is the case for Truman and the “precious good” Cristof has taken from his life. Throughout the movie, Truman spends time cutting out pieces of women from magazines to construct a representation of what he remembers Sylvia looks like. Truman even still owns Sylvia’s sweater, which he can be seen breathing into in one of the scenes where he is reminiscing about his time with Sylvia. Truman is repeatedly tripping over his past, because his past included Sylvia. His obsession with what once was and what is now not is a primary source for his dissatisfaction with his life in Seahaven. However, the American Dream does not include a sequence where the protagonist flees to Fiji to be with a lost love. Cristof’s removal of Sylvia to keep the show in line with the American Dream sparks Truman’s obsession that he simply cannot let go of, which creates this inner turmoil for Truman that creates his need to leave.

Throughout The Truman Show, the obsession with materialism leads to the collapse of the show through its advertising and product placement. The possibility to be like Truman is enticing to many, because Truman is living what is considered to be the American Dream. The viewers of the show watch to live vicariously through Truman, because his life appears to be so ideal. Truman is the shortcut to the American Dream for the show’s viewers. Truman witnesses the awkward advertising moments on the show, and this ignites a sense of uneasiness because he does not understand why products are seemingly being advertised. In one scene, his wife, Meryl, gives a quick spiel about the brand of cocoa powder they use. Truman asks who she is talking to, and this is one of the key moments in Truman’s realization about his reality. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville writes, “the love of material enjoyments must constantly carry Americans along toward disorder in mores, trouble their families, and finally compromise the fate of society itself” (Tocqueville 508). In The Truman Show, the infatuation with material enjoyments literally aided in the compromise of the Seahaven society. The show receives its funding through product placement, and everything that appears on the show is for sale. The need for the show to advertise material enjoyments, such as the cocoa powder, to its viewers leads to Truman’s realization of what his life really has been since he was in his mother’s womb. The American Dream’s obsession with material objects, as predicted by Tocqueville, ultimately cut the fate of the Seahaven society short.

Among all of this negativity, there is another important and necessary perspective in order to see why the American Dream is hollow and brings only trouble. The American Dream focuses on the type of materialism that corrupts hearts and defers sadness. It is hard not to be materialistic, so maybe there is a form of materialism that is acceptable and does not bring the disorder predicted by Tocqueville and as shown by The Truman Show. Tocqueville points out, “Thus there could well be established in the world a sort of honest materialism that does not corrupt souls, but softens them and in the end quietly loosens all their tensions” (Tocqueville 509). Possession does not solely refer to the possession of goods; possession also refers to the possession of emotions. Truman’s materialism is in the form of his love for Sylvia. This is the sort of honest materialism Tocqueville describes; love, among many other emotions, does not corrupt souls. Instead, love often softens the soul and relieves the soul of its tensions. Truman resorts to reminiscing about and fantasizing over Sylvia to get by day-to-day. Truman finds solace in the clippings of fashion magazines, because these clippings bring even a small connection to Sylvia. The type of materialism abundant in the American Dream is not the type of materialism that can bring happiness like love can. Truman does not feel at home in his white picket fence home with the lovely Meryl; Truman feels at home in his thoughts and dreams of Sylvia. The American Dream is looking for happiness in the wrong places, which is why the American Dream has to remain only a dream inside Seahaven and inside Cristof’s mind. Truman slowly realizes what he has to do if he wants to be happy, which is why he was so quick to take his final bow. Truman’s final bow is his goodbye to his life of corrupt materialism in Seahaven to pursue a different life of honest materialism, which is the life he, as an individual, truly wants.

Despite the allure of the American Dream, the dream repeatedly falls flat, and The Truman Show and Democracy in America are two supporting arguments for this. Tocqueville writes about the trouble brought by the dream, and Truman’s life is this trouble in action. The American Dream fails continuously, because it is an objective dream; individuality is not taken into consideration. The “precious goods” of life are left out, leaving the dreamer feeling unfulfilled. Cristof’s plan for Truman was simply a ticking time bomb, and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed for one reason or another. Truman’s attachment to Sylvia was simply the start of an inevitable journey; Truman never would have been able to go his whole life unaware and satisfied. The American Dream is too simple, and humans are too complex. Whether or not a life includes the perfect desk job, the perfect house, and the perfect family, happiness is never a guarantee. Happiness is subject to the dynamic and fluidity that is life; it can go as easily as it can come.