The Truman Show isn't saying anything that media critics haven't
been complaining about for years. It's just saying it in a
different, weirder key. TV has long been an all-purpose target
for just about everything that's wrong with society. A movie
that portrays TV as all-narcotizing and all-corrupt -- that
points out our lives have become indistinguishable from the
shows we watch -- is a tonic for people looking for the easy way
out. Even before its official release, the film has occasioned a
lot of self-righteous posturing. After all, by pointing out the
horrors of the tube, you are also implying that you are not
fully seduced by them.  The film's take on television is rife
with condescension. It's not so much holier-than-thou as holier-
than-them. And yet ironically, in order to be a hit, The Truman
Show needs to connect with the very people to whom it
condescends -- for example, the planned-community, Middle
American folks who look to a place such as Seahaven for refuge.
In general the audiences for Truman,