The Truman Show Gender Roles

Very few movies that were discussed in this class actually had specific characters that represented God, and therefore very few characters represented a gendered God. Quite a few of the movies used characters that represented images of God, but not God himself. For example, Angelique in All That Jazz was suggested to be representing an angel of God, going through the Catholic judgement process with Joe Gideon (Fosse, 1979). In It’s a Wonderful Life, there are angels that communicate and help George Bailey, but there is no physical God character (Capra, 1946).
The movies The Truman Show and Dogma had actual physical representations of God, one being male and the other female. The depictions of how God might be are also very different, and relate …show more content…
This is one type of God that people can imagine God to be like, but this is not the most helpful way to view God. According to the article Images of God as They Relate to Life Satisfaction and Hopelessness, the gender that people see God as does not relate to their life satisfaction and hopelessness. However, women who view God as controlling, like Christof in The Truman Show, experience more hopelessness than men who view God as controlling, or women who view God as more loving (Steenwyk, S., Atkins, D., Bedics J., Whitley B. E. Jr, …show more content…
Rather, the God in this film is The Voice. Throughout the film The Voice instructs Ray Kinsella to do things like build a baseball field in the middle of a corn field and drive hundreds of miles to meet an old reclusive author. Ray does these things, even though he is ridiculed and they do not make sense to him or anyone else. The Voice is actually not very helpful at all, rather it just tells Ray “If you build it he will come”, and shows him the baseball field. Even though The Voice is not helpful, Ray stills does what it says, because he seems to have faith in The Voice (Robinson,