Theological Film Review: The Truman Show

The Truman Show (1998), directed by Peter Weir, is the story of a man, Truman Burbank, who does not know that he is the main character in a reality television show. Truman was raised in the town of Seahaven and has had an ordinary life, as it seems. He went through primary school, fell in love, got married, found a career; a beacon of heteronormativity. However, Truman’s world is built on a soundstage that is full of cameras and microphones that Truman is unable to perceive, at least at first. Things start to become unraveled for Truman when a stage lamp falls form the “sky” and crashes outside of Truman’s home. From there Truman begins to question the reality of the society that he’s in and starts to raise questions about the world around him; questions that his “neighbors” do not take lightly. In the end, Truman discovers that his whole life has been a farce and that his world is simply a dome that is controlled by a Cartesian demon-like controller named Christof. At “the end of the world”, which is just the wall of the sound stage dome, Truman bids Christof farewell and walks out of the fantasy world and into reality.

At its heart, The Truman Show evokes questions of reality and illusion, as well as, voyeurism and the use of fear to gain power and control. The editing of this film is one of great detail that gives the audience just slightly more information than Truman Burbank that gives the viewer the sensation that they are really watching the fictional The Truman Show. Many scenes were edited to include characters that were unknown to Truman, such as the police-like editors who drove around in vans cleaning up the show form the inside. Or scenes where the audience is

privileged to more information because the editing leaves spaces where the audience can see (e.g. around corners) that Truman cannot. And the musical score was fantastic at provoking visceral reactions that highlighted the anxiety of Truman’s flashbacks. A real cultural issue that the film speaks to is the individual’s need to search for meaning outside of community. This virtue lies at the heart of the deep suspicion that our society has towards both religious and educational institutions. At the climax of the movie, Christof tells Truman that there is no more or less truth outside of the bubble that Christof made for him. His words are striking in two ways, one, it neglects the fact that the truth that Truman has experienced in the dome was fashioned by Christof. Everything from the people Truman met, or did not meet, to the fears that kept him on the island; they were all created by Christof. Which begs the question of whether or not we can call something the “truth” when it has been so purposefully tampered with? And second, how do we go about finding the truth within ourselves when we realize that we have such limited power over the events that form our experiences? These two questions, whether consciously asked or not, are pervasive in the wider culture and are often asked by Christian young adults.

In Christian communities that identify with the Reformed Tradition these questions linger around doctrines of God’s sovereignty and election (predestination). Reformed Christians have a heritage that speaks to God’s ultimate authority or God’s sovereignty. This theological principle can be traced back to the reformer John Calvin and the context in which he pursued his writing. In Calvin’s time, the Roman Catholic Church was the sole judicatory in issues of faith and authority. And those who followed Calvin desired some confirmation that their separation from the Roman Catholic Church did not incur damnation on them. Calvin’s response to his followers was that only God has the authority to condemn souls to hell or bless them with the beatific

vision. Taken to its logical end, Calvin presumed that God must then elect (predestine) some souls to heaven and others to hell. Therefore, the Reformed tradition has deep theological inquiries that involve a God with ultimate authority and the people of God who have, at best, questionable authority. So how do Christians in the family of Reformed traditions begin to understand reality and community with a God who is all sovereign? In the work, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, Jurgan Moltmann discusses the topic from the point of view of the Calvinist theologian Karl Barth’s work on open universalism.1 In this point of view God first determines God’s self before that of human beings and God’s determination of himself as creator, sustainer and redeemer of humanity leads God.2 Barth tells us that, in Christ, God took the rejection from sin upon God’s self and is now committed to a plan for the world before the creation took place and is therefore predetermined.3 To drive this point home, Moltmann notes that the doctrine of universal salvation is one that, faithful to the Reformed position, is entirely dependent on God. He writes, “If salvation and damnation were the results of human faith or unfaith, God would be dispensable.”4 In this universal understanding of soteriology we find that God is both beneficent and communally focused. The Truman Show is a good stepping off point for teens and young adults to begin thinking more imaginatively about these topics. A group can begin talking about the similarities and difference between Christof and God in ways that critically analyze church teaching.

1 Jürgen Moltmann, The coming of God: Christian eschatology (London, UK: SCM Press, 2005). 248 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 249-250 4 Ibid. 245

Bibliography The Truman Show. directed by Peter Weir. United States: 1998, Hollywood. CA: Paramount Pictures, Amazon Video. Moltmann, Jürgen. The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology. London, UK: SCM Press, 2005