The Importance Of Seaside Seahaven For The Truman Show

The Town of Seaside was planned and built with great attention to detail. (Dutton, 2000). It is a very quaint area, sort of like a village town, constrained by the conditions of its foundation. Robert Davis envisioned on creating a pleasant area in a locale not yet known as a tourist destination. Robert Davis established The Seaside Institute in 1982, whose goals were to organise seminars to coordinate project guidelines and to discuss about the theory and practice of New Urbanism and Smart Growth (Dutton, 2000). The notion of establishing this institute indicates the devotion to the town project and their concern with control over its urban tissue. Architect Leon Krier was welcomed as the project consultant due to his urbanistic style and his building systemising view on New Urbanism. The guidelines applied to the urban plan of Seaside are in reference to the New Urbanism standards, which are based on the ideas of diversification of uses and the proximity of people to the neighbourhood facilities. Over the recent decades, new urban methodologies have delivered numerous books and a large number articles.

The broad correspondences have profiled the development in magazines, papers, and TV. Seaside, Florida, even made it to the big screen as a stage for the movie, The Truman Show. (Grant, 2)The Truman Show is based off a character named Truman Burbank, who is unaware he is the star of a reality television program which is broadcasted live around the world. He is set in an American Suburbs environment, known as the seaside town of Seahaven Island. But in reality, it was actually an enormous built set located near Hollywood. Christof is introduced as the mastermind behind the Truman Show, the show’s creator as well as the executive producer. While scanning for an area to shoot The Truman Show, the director, Peter Weir chose the Seaside development in Florida because he believed the town “looked fake” (Goldberger 42). Weir was able to transform the real Seaside into a fictional Seahaven with minimal change; as a result, Seahaven provides the setting for the “television program” show, a setting fundamentally identical to the architecturally trend-setting Florida development. Seaside’s Architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk envisioned the place as a perfect combination of urban and suburban benefits, similar to Christof in the movie. However unlike Christof, Duany and Plater-Zyberk present their New Urbanist beliefs for individuals to either take in or reject. There was no such decision in Christof’s Seahaven, he intended Seahaven as “the way the world should be” just for Truman.

Seaside, of course, is no solution for the fast suburbanisation of America, but the New Urbanist concepts designed in Seaside have grabbed hold in similar communities-planned and reestablished all through the country. In regards to beliefs of New Urbanism as portrayed by Krier, and defined by Fulton (1996), the question ceaselessly arises regarding whether these types of communities will pull in adequate quantities of homeowners to make the idea feasible and functional. Seaside, for example, though broadly viewed as the earliest large-scale implementation of New Urbanist ideals, has become increasingly “a place to visit” than a place to live (Patton). Weir’s Seahaven was said created to obscure the boundaries between stage sets and practical design, yet places a cinematic fantasyland before both sets of audience members those who watch “The Truman Show” on television, and those who view The Truman Show on the big screen (Kates, 2000).

In creating a “Truman-centric” universe that simultaneously intrigues and instructs his audience, Christof not only attempts to sell Truman as a product, but he also sells the place as a product. It’s not just the controlled set that makes Truman appealing, but the wish-fulfilment that the set, Seahaven, asks the audience to buy into an Ozzie and Harriet and Brady Bunch world where urban security meets neighbourhood convenience and congeniality. David Denby, a film critic, suggests that “if the Saturday Evening Post of the fifties had fornicated with The Donna Reed Show, Seahaven might be the result. Yet the members of the viewing audience are so wrapped up in Seahaven’s utterly bland existence on TV that they forget to live their own lives” (101). And those people watching Truman’s life on TV can become consumed with his every emotion and action because they know Truman is safe the utopian facade of Seahaven ensures that Truman will never have to confront the unpredictable, dangerous “outside” world they inhabit.