Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:15:16 -0500 From: Ian Robert Douglas <Ian_Robert_Douglas-AT-Brown.edu> Subject: Too true to be good Dear colleagues, I'd be interested in Foucauldian first reactions to Peter Weir's _The Truman Show_, starring Jim Carrey, released in North America this weekend, and already grossing over 20 million dollars. It is reported to have achieved the highest ratings ever at FlickPicks, The Moviegoers' Website (http://www.flickpicks.com/pr), surpassing previous record holder, James Cameron's _Titanic_. As you might have picked up, the subject of the movie is ' Truman Burbank' (played by Carrey), a man whose life is being broadcast as a 24-hour TV show without his knowledge. I have to say I'm stunned by the film. Alongside the likes of _A Clockwork Orange_, and _They Live_ it stands in my mind as the best depiction of biopolitics and biopower I've yet seen. Baudrillard fans will also love it. I'm rather worried by the whole thing. I'm not sure what the function of this film will be. On the one hand I'm breathtaken by the possible effect of placing a man like Carrey in this almost entirely serious role. People are going there expecting to see _Dumb and Dumber_, and being confronted by satire, social commentary, refusal, awakening, liberation, rejection, the enticement of critique etc. Lurking around the theatre in NYC where I saw it, most people's reactions seemed to be of surprize and slight confusion; not at all agressive, but typical of someone whose system of meanings has been subtlely dislodged, and who is coming to terms with the notion of a past perhaps lived under questionable assumptions. I left almost naively thinking I'd witnessed 'an event'. On the other hand I'm disturbed; for how could such a movie be made, and does it not fit perfectly within the generalised criticism of social existence long prepared since the birth of reason; only half-jokingly employed in the works of Foucault (well aware as he was of the risks), already belying Baudrillard's accusation ('Foucault can only draw such an admirable picture since he works at the confines of an area now in the process of collapsing entirely.'), and making Carrey - and the audience - 'dinosaurs' (cf. _Oublier Foucault_) of the already obsolete 'age of biopower'? The film is an amazing, breathtaking, representation of the pastoral State; of the defeat of populations; of the humiliation of everyday people by the everyday apparatus of disciplinary society. But how did I find myself one body among thousands, packing out cinemas with multiple showings? Why is it selling, becoming part of the mainstream? For sure some people 'missed it'; laughing in the wrong places, or laughing because they needed to. But it is actually a film with very few laughs; quite skillfully playing down the typical corporation/media explanation (though its written into the script), Ed Harris's handling of the interview scene indicative of the deeper location of power in this story. What is presented is a view of authority just as likely 'the State'. As a result, it's not as simple a film to dismiss as Richard Donner's farcical, _Conspiracy Theory_. It forces, and suceeds, and I'm not sure where its going. The most important thing we could do is work out the nature and location, and uses of critique. sincerely, _____________________________________________________ Ian Robert Douglas, Visiting Lecturer & Fulbright Fellow Watson Institute of International Studies, Brown University, Box 1831, 130 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02912 tel: 401 863-2420 fax: 401 863-2192 "The powerful imagination creates the event" Michel de Montaigne
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