The Mass Media

The turn of the 21st century was thick with movies about the blurred line separating reality from fantasy. The Truman Show (1998) gave us Jim Carrey as an insurance sales agent who discovers that everyone in his life is an actor. He is the unwitting subject of a television program that airs 24 hours a day. In The Matrix (1999), Keanu Reeves finds that his identity and his life are illusions. Like everyone else in the world, Reeves is hard-wired to a giant computer that uses humans as an energy source. The computer supplies people with nutrients to keep them alive and simulated realities to keep them happy. Similar blurring between reality and media-generated illusion is evident in Pleasantville (1998), EdTV (1999) and Nurse Betty (2000).