How Jim Carrey’s film The Truman Show fueled a psychiatric delusion
It was a movie that eerily predicted the modern world of mass surveillance and social media, where millions document their daily lives on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Released 25 years ago today, The Truman Show starred Jim Carrey as the eponymous Truman Burbank, whose entire life was a fiction designed to entertain millions of people around the world.
The film, directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol, grossed more than $264 million worldwide. garnered three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay and Director.
But it also eventually gave its name to a psychological delusion in which patients — of whom there were hundreds — believe themselves, like Truman, to be the subject of a TV show.
One sufferer killed his father and sister believing they were revealing his life to the world as part of a game show, another allegedly assaulted a toddler and his mother while thinking he should “get off the Truman Show.”
Released 25 years ago today, The Truman Show told the story of a small-town insurance salesman whose every move was watched by millions around the world. Above: Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank
In the film, Truman’s every move from the moment of his birth is documented by 5,000 cameras placed all over his hometown of Seahaven Island, which is effectively a giant TV studio.
Everyone in Seahaven, including his wife Meryl – played by Laura Linney – is an actor.
As his life as an insurance salesman unfolds on screens 24 hours a day, a loyal viewership of 1.5 billion people around the world watches.
In what becomes his catchphrase, he cheerfully says to his friends and neighbors, “In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.”
Truman eventually begins to suspect his life is a fiction after a series of clues emerge, including the moment a lighting rig falls from the “sky.”
He decides to flee the made-up world, much to the anger of the show’s creator, Christof, who is played by Ed Harris.
In the film, Truman’s every move from birth has been documented by 5,000 cameras placed all over his hometown of Seahaven Island, which is effectively a giant TV studio. Everyone in Seahaven, including his wife Meryl – played by Laura Linney (left) – is an actor
While his life as an insurance salesman plays out on screens 24 hours a day, 1.5 billion viewers watch him worldwide
Truman eventually begins to suspect his life is a fiction after a series of clues emerge, including the moment a lighting rig falls from the “sky.”
Jim Carrey is seen as Truman Burbank waving to neighbors in his hometown
When the movie came out, reality television was still in its infancy. The hugely successful Big Brother, originally a Dutch creation, premiered in 1999.
The show saw ordinary people sharing a home for several weeks as television cameras documented their every move.
From then on, the reality genre would become a global phenomenon, with shows like The Only Way is Essex and Keeping Up with the Kardashians proving to be extremely popular.
The Truman Show also basically foresaw both the mass surveillance and widespread use of social media in the modern world.
With the former, millions of CCTV cameras keep a close eye on ordinary citizens in Britain and elsewhere.
In the latest document, millions document every detail of their lives on Instagram and TikTok, for example.
And although the film was released towards the end of the 20th century, its premise went back thousands of years to the Allegory of the Cave by the Greek philosopher Plato.
In it, Plato depicted a group of people who had spent their entire lives chained to the wall of a cave.
The shadows they see projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire eventually get a name.
And while they are not a reflection of reality, the shadows are real to them.
Christof evokes this feeling when he says: ‘We accept the reality of the world that is presented to us. It’s that simple.’
Truman syndrome was initially named and documented by siblings, Dr. Joel Gold and his brother Ian.
It often affects successful people, who may end up believing that they are being filmed all the time and that the world is not real to them.
In 2009, Australian man Anthony Waterlow killed his father and sister because he believed they were broadcasting his life to the world as part of a game show to kill him or convince him to kill himself.
When examined by a psychologist, he specifically mentioned The Truman Show.
Truman decides to flee the made-up world, much to the anger of the show’s creator, Christof (above), who is played by Ed Harris
Laura Linney plays Truman’s wife Meryl as she shows her husband a potato peeler she just bought, all the while promoting it to millions
Truman suspects his world to be fiction and eventually breaks free from the fantasy world
Truman’s best friend Louis Coltrane, played by Noah Emmerich, is also an actor
And in 2007, psychiatrist William Johns III allegedly assaulted a 2-year-old and his mother in New York City after he left his Florida home because he had to “get away from the Truman Show” that he believed was filming him in his residence.
The condition was named and documented by expert Dr Joel Gold and his brother Ian.
In an article in the journal Cognitive Neuropsychiatry they described it as: ‘…a new delusion, mainly persecutive in form, in which the patient believes that he is being filmed and that the films are broadcast for the amusement of others.
“We describe a series of patients who presented with a delusional system according to which they were the subject of something resembling a reality TV show…”
They investigated the lives of five patients who believed they were the focus of a secret TV show.
A patient walked into a federal building in New York City and demanded to see “the warden.”
He said he had to come to Manhattan because he believed the 2001 World Trade Center attacks were faked for the TV show filmed around him.
The man said he had to see for himself whether the Twin Towers were still standing. If they weren’t, he said, that would be the last proof that he was the reluctant star of a reality TV show.
Another was convinced that his every move was being secretly filmed for a TV match.
A third believed everything – the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed – was part of a fake staged world in which he was the involuntary star.
In August 2008, another magazine article recounted how a 26-year-old mailman “felt like the world was a little unreal, like he was the eponymous hero” on The Truman Show.
The reviews for the film itself were mostly positive.
Christopher Tookey wrote in the Daily Mail in 1998: ‘The film works well as a surreal nightmare, in the vein of the TV series The Prisoner, or the horror classic Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
Carrey is seen as Truman alongside his wife and ‘mother’, who is played by Holland Taylor
The show airs 24 hours a day, so viewers can even tune in to watch Truman sleep
“It’s convincing as a celebrity nightmare, of what the world could be like if it really revolved around you and no one acted normal in front of you.”
Famed American critic Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars, added, “I enjoyed “The Truman Show” at its level of comedy and drama; I loved Truman the same way I loved Forrest Gump – because he was a good man, honest and easy going.
But the underlying ideas made the movie more than just entertainment.
‘Like ‘Gattaca’, the previous film written by Niccol, it portrays the new values that technology imposes on humanity.
“Because we can engineer genetics, because we can broadcast real lives — of course we have to, right? But are these good things to do?
“The irony is that the people who will ultimately answer that question are the ones produced by the process.”