The Use of Realıty in Narratıves from the Truman Show to the Westworld

Abstract

The Truman Show, as a 1998 film, set a touchstone in the world of cinema by telling the desperate situation of an individual who was lost in the reality built by the media and his realization of this, which led him to try to push the boundaries of fiction. Nowadays, narratives are challenging ways and limits of producing alternative reality instead of seeking and questioning reality itself. Making the preferred world more real by producing the desired reality in new media such as virtual-hyper-simulation-simulacra has become the main goal. Interactive video games, digital theater performances, virtual reality generating tools and equipment have become integral elements of this new reality. In the Truman Show, the disappointment of the hero who realizes that he is a puppet of a fictionalized world has been replaced by heroes who demand a new and more perfect reality that is fictional. What is needed is not “reality” but more “virtual reality.” Instead of seeing this as a denial of reality, they perceive it as a preference for their own story since the world is already fictionalized. In today's TV series like Westworld, characters that have no hope of reality and prefer virtual reality are becoming widespread. In this study, the concepts of simulation and simulacra that construct virtual and augmented reality will be examined in company with theoretical and conceptual literature with the help of the film Truman Show and TV series Westworld.