I rewatched The Truman Show this week. I’m a little embarrassed that the “Truman” pun went over my head until I started writing about this, but here we are.

The show takes place in our lil society where the public has gotten to a point of being so jaded with our traditional forms of entertainment, that the most popular show on TV is just about some guy living his life.

The guy in question, Truman Burbank, isn’t aware that he’s on TV. He isn’t aware that he is always being watched, and he isn’t aware that the small town he’s lived in his entire life is fake. It is a set, and all of the people he interacts with are paid actors. As far as he is aware, he’s just a normal guy living a normal life.

The “director” explains as the movie begins that the potential draw of this format for viewers is the fact that Truman is not an actor. He is living as authentic a life as he can while unknowingly being at the mercy of producers who are focused on the show’s ratings.

The audience is captivated; they are witnessing a real human doing real things in a fake world. The issue here is hypocrisy.

Truman, throughout the movie, keeps getting hints that his world is fake. Eventually the movie ends with him finally earning his freedom from the enormous set that was constructed for him.

But before all of this occurs, the movie introduces Truman with him talking to himself in the bathroom mirror. These scenes aren’t highlighted with reactions from the audience as the movie progresses, which leads me to believe that the audience isn’t aware of the significance of these moments.

The whole point of the show is that they’re supposedly watching a man who isn’t acting, but that’s not true. He isn’t aware that his life is being broadcast across the world, but he’s a normal human like any of us. He may not know that the people he is interacting with are actors with loosely scripted dialogue, but as a human being, he has naturally developed his own script. A code with which to help him navigate being social and dealing with other people.

The truly authentic moments in the whole show are these brief minutes he spends with himself being goofy in the mirror. Dang if that isn’t relatable, eh?

---

The Hawthorne effect is the tendency for people to behave differently than they normally would when they are aware they’re being watched. I feel like too much of my life has been lived in this state of mind: “what will other people think?“

Having important, close people in your life telling you that you’re “weird” will tend to cultivate a shrinking of your self expression. If this has happened your entire life, it can eventually shrink you into nothing.

You try to avoid standing out because the attention you’re used to receiving is negative and critical of your self-image. You stop voicing your opinion if it’s different than the group.

Hell is other people. They don’t like it when you’re different. The only safe place to be is alone.

I am moving away from this being my truth. I am trying to be less affected by the gaze of others because, ultimately, it doesn’t fugging matter. I can’t control how people see me, and there are so-goddamn-many other people, it would be fruitless to even try to please everyone.

I am here to be exactly who I am. I encourage you to be exactly who you are, too.