Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:56:40
Twins’ College Fund
- Jaffer Khan’s friend, living in LA, had twins, which doubled the financial burden.
- A casting director approached them, highlighting the lucrative nature of twin babies in acting due to child labor laws.
- Initially resistant, the parents eventually agreed to let their twins act in commercials.
- Six months later, the twins had booked enough commercials to cover their college expenses. Transcript: Frank Capello We have this adorable child. I’m not, I am not condoning it. Um, I had a buddy when we were, when I was living in LA, you know, working class guy had just gotten married, him and his wife having their first kid. Turns out they’re having twins. And he’s just like, Oh fuck, we’re having twins. This is now twice the cost of everything. This is, I, and I saw like, they were like, we’re still excited, but we’re super stressed. And the kids came adorable twin identical twin girls they were out one day casting director it’s la so a casting director at like the fucking cafe that they’re at was like hey just so you Know you have twins twins are incredibly lucrative in the child in the baby acting world because if one of your kids you know goes over time you gotta spare so like, I’m telling you, and They were like, they’re like, No, we really, really don’t want to do it. We really don’t want to do it. We don’t want to get involved in the kid acting world. And eventually they caved. And, and then like, I saw him like six months later.
Time 1:02:50
The Role of the Artist Under Capitalism
- Rivka Rivera discusses the role of arts workers under capitalism as portrayed in The Truman Show.
- The film reveals the ‘sweat labor’ involved in manipulating Truman’s reality, highlighting the behind-the-scenes work of actors and crew.
- Rivera contrasts this with the role of the artist as envisioned by Tony Cade Bambara: ‘to make the revolution irresistible.’
- In The Truman Show, artists instead control and justify the capitalist worldview, exemplified by actors trapped in their roles. Transcript: Rivka Rivera OK, this makes me think of this. This was something that I was super interested in in this rewatch of the movie was the role of the arts worker. So like you’re talking about your comedy friends, like the role of the arts worker under capitalism and what this movie tells us about it, what it starts to explore. So we have this like one of my favorite things because I love a meta universe is the fact that there are actors outside, right, who get hired for this movie to play actors who are playing Characters in the world. You have laura linney playing an actress who’s playing meryl and i just thought that they i love the glimpses we would get of the laborers right like that the the island of labor that this Show is the small population that this show is employing but these are pretty much arts workers right so you have like the behind the scenes the actors and we’ll get glimpses of it of like How much they’re actually like working very very hard laboring to like manipulate truman’s reality but you get to see the sweat labor of that which i appreciate like once the scenes Like there’s the scene where he goes into the elevator and they were there in time and you see them like like rushing to get into hair and makeup and then you as truman’s journey into this World sort of appearing to him we also start to get more of a glimpse of an of that world when he goes to the travel agent and she obviously had to rush there because he’s like getting off Script and she still has her makeup bib on so these things are revealing themselves to us and i’m really interested in… Oh, I didn’t catch that. And there’s lots of little stuff, things like that. I think the person we probably follow the most is Meryl, because she is the one who comes the closest to just breaking when she’s like, when Truman’s going after her, like shaking her To tell him what’s going on. And she’s screaming like, this is unprofessional. She’s basically screaming out for help to her limit without breaking the reality. You know, one of my favorite quotes is Tony Cade Bambara, that the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible. And this film sort of shows us that the role of the artist under capitalism is to control and justify the
Time 1:08:44
Actors Trapped in Truman Show
- Jaffer Khan and his girlfriend discussed the actors’ situations in “The Truman Show.”
- They speculated about the financial motivations and potential exploitation of the actors who play Truman’s family and friends, wondering if there’s any amount of money worth sacrificing one’s own life for a role.
- They imagined the actors being trapped by exploitative contracts, initially signed as starving artists.
- The movie subtly reveals cracks in these actors’ performances over the years, especially for Marlon, Truman’s best friend since childhood, who’s aware of the fabricated reality. Transcript: Jaffer Khan I can see that incredible just me me and my girlfriend just after watching we both loved it and we we kind of came up with our own lore because around these actors because that was a big thing We were talking about is like how much money would be worth it to play a guy’s wife every day and night of your life like is there any amount of money that that would like when do you get to Uh enjoy your life and and we’re also just again just imagining like adding lore to the movie of just like yeah i’m sure they might they must have signed some like very like uh exploitive Contracts early, and there were probably starving artists, and now they’re trapped as well. They show, like you were talking about in the movie, they beautifully show the crack of these actors who have to be around Truman for years. Frank Capello And that’s really interesting, especially with Marlon, the best friend character, because he’s the other person in the world other than Truman that has been there from ostensibly Like he was a child. So he was unwillingly cast as a child actor into this role. So this raises that’s honestly maybe the worst gig, even worse than being Truman, is being Marlon, because he’s been indentured his entire life, but he completely knows that it is all Bullshit. Jaffer Khan Like every single ignorance is bliss thing. He knows.
Time 1:16:33
Ronald Gladden’s Post-Jury Duty Life
- After gaining fame on ‘Jury Duty’, Ronald Gladden’s Instagram became saturated with brand promotions.
- Jaffer Khan and his girlfriend, initially charmed by Gladden’s authenticity, now observe his transformation into a “walking, talking ad.”
- This anecdote highlights the commodification of individuals post-reality TV, where authenticity is exploited for commercial gain.
- Rivka Rivera questions the audience’s complicity in this phenomenon, drawing parallels to ‘The Truman Show’ and questioning the ethics of manufactured reality for entertainment. Transcript: Jaffer Khan But what was interesting is, like, so all of a sudden this guy is famous now and he’s beloved, right? So now he is a famous guy. And, you know, me and my girlfriend both fell in love with this guy. And so we follow him on Instagram. But now on Instagram, he’s just exclusively brand stuff. So he is now just a, his job now is to be an ad. He is a walking, talking ad. And it was like, yeah, this guy, we all love him because he didn’t ask for any of this. We love him because he was truly authentic on television. And when he’s done with that, his the rest, his existence is going to be an ad because he was this authentic guy. Frank Capello Damn. Wow. Rivka Rivera I’m so glad you brought that up. Yeah, that’s a fucking bummer. Yeah. And, like, of course, watching, even as you were saying that, and I’m, like, watching us be like, yeah, but it was good-natured. Like, no. It was. It was. I mean, I know it was, but, like, honestly, like, are we not being the Truman Show audience? Like, they all thought that was good-natured. Oh, for sure. Oh, my God. Frank Capello 100%. Rivka Rivera Like, I’m with you. I want to protect that shit, too. I want to, but, like, if we’re really going to really be fucking critical, like, it’s fucked up. None of it was good natured. They lied to him. Like, if we’re straight up about it. He right? It was disingenuous. I’m not willing to let go of jury duty, but they did gaslight a human being. Like, even though he’s like in on the, like that fucks, we were all down to fuck someone up psychologically for our entertainment. And I’m not saying I’m above it. Cause I love that show. I’m just pointing out, like you got me a little fucked up. Cause I’m like, we are that Truman show audience. And they show the way they cut away to the audience. You do feel like none of those people feel like they’re, you know, they’re not like screaming at the TV. They feel like he’s part of their world they literally have the countdown of days like their own world is like in some ways tracked by his life oh yeah because they like count the days down And like there’s a guy sitting in a tub with him he’s like if he goes away again it goes back to that contract we have as an audience and why it’s so hard to imagine the end of capitalism because We are also so deeply in contract like if it’s this hard to even just admit how fucked up jury duty is and