on the air—unaware (10. 788)

An modern retelling of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a clinical delusion, and perhaps contributing to audience acceptance of the pivot towards reality television that came about due to the last Hollywood Writers’ strike, as our faithful chronicler informs, the collaboration between Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol, The Truman Show, went into general release on this day in 1998. Starring Jim Carrey as a man who leads a seemingly normal life, Truman Burbank is unaware that his whole life has been the subject of a long-running tv programme with a cast of supporting actors, who further the plot and product-placement. Once the protagonist’s love interest run counter to the arc-of-narrative, a “Free Truman” campaign is started by activists in the real world and in parallel Truman begins to suspect the nature of this simulation and panopticon. The film’s community of Seahaven was shot in the planned-community of Seaside, Florida with the family residence depicted in the movie the home of state senator Don Gaetz, congressional representative Matt Gaetz, and his step-brother, Palmer Freeman Luckey, entrepreneur and inventor of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset offered at a price-point for everyone.