Reel Reflections

Before Reality TV: “The Truman Show” and “Pleasantville”

DaveGreiser

Since I first began writing for DreamSeeker Magazine, the use of commercial films in churches has risen dramatically. A glance across the Internet (especially the blogosphere) reveals a wide array of Christian “theologians” of film, Christian film critics, not to mention Christian cultural commentators and critics. There are whole books on preaching that explain how preachers might use films as the subject matter for theological reflection in their sermons.

My original intention for this column was not to write movie reviews—much less sermons built on movies—but to comment on those films that contributed to the dialogue Western culture seems to be having about God and meaning. I was (and am) fascinated by the way “secular” culture continues telling, reshaping, appreciating, and often subverting the biblical narrative.

But how fair is it to apply theological questions to a movie? Am I reaching for what isn’t there when I try to observe theological themes in a film? Am I guilty of a misuse of the art?

In preparing to teach a sophomore-level theology course recently, I revisited these questions as I watched two of the films that first excited me about the potential of relating theology to film, “The Truman Show” and “Pleasantville,” which were released just over ten years ago. Both films won excellent critical reviews and were widely praised for their perceptive social commentaries and cultural critique. I would argue that both films, in telling their stories, knowingly applied symbols and concepts from the Christian narrative. For those who haven’t seen these films, here’s a short synopsis of both.

"The Truman Show”: Truman Burbank is a resident of Seahaven Island, a sunshiny community with sunshiny people where Truman lives with his attractive wife, his faithful friends, and his comfortable job. Truman’s world is for the most part utterly predictable. The same people say and do the same things, at the same times, day after day.

What Truman has not discovered is that, from the moment of his birth, his entire life has been the subject of a 24/7 TV show. Everyone on Seahaven Island, except Truman, is an actor in on the secret. For several decades, a large and loyal TV viewership has watched Truman’s every move and empathized with his every crisis. Truman’s entire story—indeed, the whole world he inhabits—is the creation of the studio director Christoph (too heavyhanded?) who directs that world from a control room outside the giant biosphere that is Seahaven Island. 

“Pleasantville”: In Pleasantville, life is also ideal. It never rains. The basketball team always wins (and never misses a shot!), parents and teens get along, everyone has friends, the fire department spends its time getting cats out of trees, and, oh yes, no one knows about sex.

Pleasantville, you have probably guessed, is a fictional setting for a black-and-white 1950s TV sitcom. In Pleasantville, there is no creator per se, but there is a strange TV repairman who controls the lives of the characters from outside the TV world. This repairman chooses to allow two teenagers from the 1990s—one of whom prefers the fictional Pleasantville to his own sadly fragmented life—to enter the show through the use of a TV remote control that has “a little more oomph.”

In both films, dramatic tension is carried by the viewer’s awareness that in these fictional worlds, some characters have knowledge and some do not. Tension mounts as the characters who do not know they are being manipulated slowly begin to gain awareness as they exercise free will. In both films, the god-like character behind the scenes exercises a certain amount of power over the actors, but neither has “sovereign” control. As the characters in the stories gain knowledge of their situations they gain power, and power—specifically the power to choose—holds dangers as well as promises.

The power of choice is a double-edged sword. In a “perfect world” life is safe, predictable, and happy. It is also, the films suggest, boring and less than truly human. “Pleasantville” illustrates this through the juxtaposition of black and white and color. In Pleasantville, life without choice is literally black and white. As characters discover that they can change their world, black and white gives way to color. One person gives another an apple (a bit obvious?) and voila! Color. A couple experience sex, and in that “knowledge” they take on color. Even the passion of an angry outburst causes a town leader to become “colored.”

In “The Truman Show,” Truman is left with only one real choice; Will he leave the perfect world Christof has designed, or will he choose freedom and leave? Which is better; the idyllic world of the creator, or a world of Truman’s own making outside the biosphere?

By now you get the idea that both films use biblical imagery to explore and critique traditionally Christian ways of thinking. In both films choice and self expression are the supreme values. They imply optimism about human nature that suggests that, left to themselves, humans will make the better choice more often than not. Free choice trumps submission to the will of any ultimate being. Indeed, it’s a good thing that the first couple ate the fruit.

The films also suggest that perfection, as commonly understood, is highly overrated. A meaningful life consists of more than the least painful black-and-white path through life to death. A major character in “Pleasantville” suggests, “There are so many things that are so much better, like silly, or sexy, or dangerous, or brief.”

A higher kind of perfection is to be found in a world in which all people freely seek unlimited self expression and self fulfillment—life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. As it turns out, the solution the films find for their characters’ dilemmas are thoroughly American—and modern.

But again, is it legitimate to apply theological categories and Christian values to the discussion of popular films? A quick and incomplete answer would be: not to all films.

However, in a culture in which Christian memory continues to be part of the common experience; in a world in which the Bible and biblical imagery continues to turn up in art, even unintentionally; in that world, it would be wrong for Christian thinkers and artists not to join the conversation.

—Dave Greiser, Hesston, Kansas, watches films and teaches theology and pastoral ministry at Hesston College.