Exercise - Book Report/Review Example

Reflection: The Truman Show To what extent should we have control over our built environments? It is necessary to have control over our built environment. This is essential to avoid the routines of life and live a real life that is not defined with social constructs. The picture perfect town ofSeahaven depicts that challenges occur even in a built environment. Media manipulation creates an unreal world, as seen in the Truman Show. The built environment makes people lose a sense of genuine reality, and this is especially true even for other reality shows.

Despite the appeal of Seahaven, in terms of safety and protection from outside influences, Truman physically and symbolically seeks to break out of the utopian world. There is need for control over our built environments because, in most cases, control and privacy are much more important than a safe and stable built environment. To what extent should design discourage choice, randomness – even disorder – in the name of ‘perfection’?Design discourages choice, randomness, and even disorder in the name of perfection.

In the Truman Show, the design of the built environment creates a sense of perfection that does not support reality. The world is full of challenges and imperfections, which Truman experiences in his daily existence, but fails to experience the same in the built environment. Perfection puts a price on everything and puts one in a position where they have to sell themselves for material gain, for instance money or fame. It creates a consumer society in which everything, including human values, is for sale.

The utopian world results from crime-free environment in which there is social and financial equality. In consequence, there is no disorder in the society. Even so, the CCTV surveillance in the normal world does not discourage disorder in the society. His false and manipulated environment, in the name of perfection, is similar shows some similarities to the real world. Despite all this, Truman lives a normal life in his built environment. He accepts the world he is in, only until the time he realizes it is all stage-managed and illusory.