On Monday, January 7, we'll be watching The Truman Show in class. At 14 years old now, The Truman Show has aged well and still offers insightful commentary on our society, with the burgeoning of reality TV shows and surveillance culture.
Here's a link to a review by Drew Trotter for Ransom Fellowship. The film received excellent critical reviews at the time it came out, which attests to the power of its satire, but here's a great review from the Chicago Reader that is a bit harder on the film (in a really good way) as it explores what it means if we ourselves are part of Truman's audience. Is the world of Truman's audience even worthy of redemption?
Also, here's a link to an article from the New York Times Magazine that relates to The Truman Show in an interesting way by commenting on our feelings about the deaths of reality TV show stars. The article is from a series, called "These American Lives," that appeared in the magazine on the extraordinary lives of ordinary people who died in 2011. Students in the class should note that this article is required reading for Monday, January 7.
Finally, here's a trailer for The Truman Show:
No comments:
Post a Comment