Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 3
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology…we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
- Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Leah Cooper
“…if one knows the ground (real or imaginary) on which something was constructed, one can have better access to the construction itself”
Yve-Alain Bois
Truman Burbank is the world’s most famous reality television star. He is watched by millions. Since he was in utero, his entire life has been filmed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Truman lives in the halcyon town of Seahaven. He has a good job in the insurance industry. He is married to a lovely woman. He has good friends and good neighbours.
Truman is living the American dream; he is a free man in a free country.
His life is idyllic.
And then, one morning, at the age of thirty, he is nearly struck by an object that falls from the sky.
The object is a theatrical light, falling from the morning sky. The morning sky, an artificial one, that rises over his hometown of Seahaven. Seahaven, not a town but rather a set , built under a giant dome near Los Angeles. Truman’s loving wife is an actor; his friends are actors, the homeless man on a bench, an actor. The only real thing in Truman’s life is Truman. The only one not ‘acting’ is Truman.
Truman’s ‘world’ is a constructed reality; a construction that Truman is oblivious to.
According to Geertz ideology is “…an ordered system of complex cultural symbols. These symbols (act) as representations of reality and (provide) the maps without which individuals and groups (can) not orientate themselves with respect to their society.” (Freeden)
Truman is clueless and uncomprehending of the system he function within. His feeling of freedom is counterfeit. He feels ‘free’ because he has no knowledge with which to ‘articulate his unfreedom’.
In ‘reality’ he is as confined as an animal in a zoo.
By becoming aware of the framework in which he exists he is able to begin to make free choices.
Bois, Yve-Alain, Painting as Model, 'Resisting Blackmail', M.I.T Press, 1990, 1993.
Freeden, Michael. Ideology: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Volume 1, Issue 3
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology…we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
- Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Leah Cooper
“…if one knows the ground (real or imaginary) on which something was constructed, one can have better access to the construction itself”
Yve-Alain Bois
Truman Burbank is the world’s most famous reality television star. He is watched by millions. Since he was in utero, his entire life has been filmed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Truman lives in the halcyon town of Seahaven. He has a good job in the insurance industry. He is married to a lovely woman. He has good friends and good neighbours.
Truman is living the American dream; he is a free man in a free country.
His life is idyllic.
And then, one morning, at the age of thirty, he is nearly struck by an object that falls from the sky.
The object is a theatrical light, falling from the morning sky. The morning sky, an artificial one, that rises over his hometown of Seahaven. Seahaven, not a town but rather a set , built under a giant dome near Los Angeles. Truman’s loving wife is an actor; his friends are actors, the homeless man on a bench, an actor. The only real thing in Truman’s life is Truman. The only one not ‘acting’ is Truman.
Truman’s ‘world’ is a constructed reality; a construction that Truman is oblivious to.
According to Geertz ideology is “…an ordered system of complex cultural symbols. These symbols (act) as representations of reality and (provide) the maps without which individuals and groups (can) not orientate themselves with respect to their society.” (Freeden)
Truman is clueless and uncomprehending of the system he function within. His feeling of freedom is counterfeit. He feels ‘free’ because he has no knowledge with which to ‘articulate his unfreedom’.
In ‘reality’ he is as confined as an animal in a zoo.
By becoming aware of the framework in which he exists he is able to begin to make free choices.
Bois, Yve-Alain, Painting as Model, 'Resisting Blackmail', M.I.T Press, 1990, 1993.
Freeden, Michael. Ideology: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2003.
