An update on the Truman show timeline
"He's not a performer, he's a prisoner. Look at him. Look at what you've done to him." -Sylvia, while on phone with the Truman show
For a while now I've been waiting to see what Taylor would do next to get a better grasp on where we are on the Truman show timeline. I don't particularly like predicting (in detail at least) what she's going to do in the future, but I did want to narrow in on what we could expect going forward now that we're on the cusp of the life of a showgirl album being released...
Following the release of the tortured poets department album and the ending of the eras tour, the last significant occurrence in Taylor's career was the announcement that she had finally purchased her masters. From a purely metaphorical perspective, this momentous occasion lines up with the moment Truman was finally reunited with his father—just like the two Taylors were reunited with giant Taylor (her body of work) in the 'anti-hero' music video. These similarities between Taylor and Truman invites us to consider what else Taylor could be fighting for when striving to own all of her own work was always the biggest motive at the forefront of the re-recording process.
(And just to be clear: comparing the sale of Taylor's masters to the Truman show in this way is in no way intended to diminish the significance of her now owning her life's work.)
On the surface, this reunion with his father appears to be what Truman had wanted more than anything else in the world, as it was what he (and the director) had been drawing the audience's attention towards over and over again. But on a deeper level, it was the ultimate bait and switch because it allowed Truman to return his father's ring (that contained a hidden spy camera) without raising suspicion—which ultimately allowed him to escape when everyone had least expected it. Is a similar handover occurring now with Taylor returning to collaborating with Max Martin and Shellback? While quite literally ghosting Jack Antonoff—as see in the bejewelled music video? The request for that change was certainly a domineering conversation amongst many of Taylor's fans following the release of the tortured poets department album.
From the director's perspective, reuniting Truman with his father figure had been his final attempt to prevent Truman from trying to escape. The celebrations that ensued in the control room were further proof that Truman was going to stay—now that he no longer had any reason to leave—and their focus quickly shifted to the show returning to normal in the hopes that Truman would finally procreate with his newest love interest. Sounds familiar right?
The announcement of the life of a showgirl album on the New Heights podcast also marked a similar 'the show must go on' resumption of Taylor's life in the spotlight. With many of the visuals now featuring director Taylor and a focus on Taylor's budding relationship with Travis, the role the director has played in scripting Taylor's life is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
For a while now Luna has been discussing their midnights mayhem theory on bluesky. This theory was originally centred around the first thirteen songs from the midnights album that were announced in the Midnights Mayhem with Me promo, as they were beginning to line up with various themes and events within the New Romantics community each week. It started with lavender haze on the 25th of April—which just happens to be the date mentioned in Taylor Nation's post that first started the alternate timeline theory—and since then it's now evolved to include all of the songs from the various midnights album variants as well. We're currently in karma (feat. Ice Spice) week now and the timeline is due to end shortly with dawn (the til dawn variant) on the 3rd of October, AKA the release date for the life of a showgirl album.
So what does Luna's timeline have to do with the Truman show? Dawn. Or more specifically, the moment the director lost control and used the daylight during the middle of the night in a desperate attempt to try and locate Truman after he had managed to escape. After all, the sun only rises once a day right? Everyone that was out searching for Truman had been left wondering what time it was—not just because it was abnormal for dawn to start in the middle of the night, but because the town of Seahaven was so perfectly orchestrated that everything ran like clockwork—including Truman.
So, if the sudden onset of dawn symbolises the director losing control after Truman had abandoned the script, we're left with one question that still remains unanswered—which is why is it going to end? If reuniting with his father wasn't Truman's ultimate goal, why did he continue with his escape plan when everyone else had just assumed that he would be content enough with his life in Seahaven to stay? The answer to that question is the same reason why there seems to be more to Taylor's fight to owning her own music beyond what meets the eye: freedom, independence and autonomy.
There was something about the in summation poem from the tortured poets department album that signalled that Taylor had reached the end of a chapter within her life, as it felt like the story she'd been telling had come to an end—despite the fact that it still felt a little incomplete. That feeling of discontinuation seems to be linked to the turning point in the Truman show where we start to view Truman's life from the perspective of the director. That peek (peak?) behind the curtain that the life of a showgirl album has in store for us is more than likely to be more of a birds eye view from behind the facade of the moon that conceals the director's control room.
The fourteenth 🎃 anon message that Spade Riddles received last October was potentially the first signal that initially reflected that change in viewpoint. With many examples of what Taylor would've personally experienced within the eras tour, it encapsulated the message that “oftentimes, it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me.” What often goes unnoticed—and what has kept me so enthralled with the connections between Taylor and the Truman show for so long—is the fact that this exact statement also perfectly encapsulates the undertone of Truman's daily greeting.
"Incase I don't see ya (because there will come a time where you won't see me anymore), good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight! Hahaha! Yeah!" -Truman Burbank
With all of the karma door and exit sign motifs that have been a prominent fixture throughout this album rollout, it's becoming difficult to gauge just how far Taylor is willing to go when it comes to completing the Truman show timeline. This album could either be solely focused on director Taylor with more to come in the future, or this era could eventually be completed with Taylor—either physically or metaphorically—walking through the (closet?) door once and for all.
"The best people in life are free." -Taylor Swift
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