Good Afternoon, Good Evening, and Good Night: The Truman Show as Media Criticism

The media's impact on our lives in the past half decade has become a popular thematic centerpiece for feature films and television programs. Using cultural studies as a framework, this article explores the fascination that entertainment producers have with the role the media play in our lives through an analysis of the much heralded film, The Truman Show. Critics and moviegoers have congratulated the producers of films like The Truman Show for taking a critical look at the power of the media. The author contends, however, that they have not earned our plaudits. Films like Truman are created by entertainment companies as a means to exploit, and at the same time dissipate, our desire to engage in genuine media criticism. In the end, the power of the media is affirmed rather than challenged. In the spirit of Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, these films and television programs co-opt our enchantment (and disenchantment) with the media and sell it back to us.