The Florida Panhandle Really Was the Perfect Place to Shoot The Truman Show (1998)

Reader, I’m writing to you this week from Florida! It seems like everyone in the South, if not America at large, has a complicated relationship with Florida. And I’m no exception.

My mother has owned a condo in Miramar Beach since before I was born. It’s nothing outlandish—two bedrooms, one bathroom, about 10 minutes from the beach by foot—but it’s a luxury we’ve always enjoyed. Between annual family vacations, weekend getaways with my high school and college friends, and the solo writing retreats I’ve been doing for the last decade or so, I’ve probably spent about a year of my life in this condo. I’m not even a beach person, really, but I appreciate having somewhere to go.¹

During those family vacations, my parents often took my sister and I on day trips along Scenic Highway 30A to the “master-planned community” of Seaside where we’d spend several hours in the “nicer” part of the Panhandle. Browsing the aisles of Sundog Books, picking up premium groceries at the Modica Market, lunch at Bud & Alley’s, dinner at the Red Bar. And of course the whitest sand and the bluest water you’ve ever seen. Our little place near Destin was pretty good, but Seaside was the place we always dreamed about.

One Seaside excursion stands out in my mind though. When we visited in the spring of 1997, there were signs all over the place notifying pedestrians that something called “The Truman Show” was being shot throughout the town.² Suddenly, the place where we’d been going for years was a movie set.

A year later, when The Truman Show hit theaters (and made lots of money), it was a pretty neat experience to see Jim Carrey—one of the biggest movie stars in the world at the time—traversing the streets and shops that were familiar to me. Sure, I was 12 years old and too young to understand some of its themes, but I loved it all the same.

Now I fully understand why Seaside was chosen as the shooting location.

The Truman Show is set on a soundstage in Los Angeles, but they never reference California at all. It’s as if Truman’s island hometown of Seahaven has no statehood at all, existing in its own little world. This is reinforced by the local newspaper stories (“The Best Place on Earth: Seahaven Voted Planet’s Top Town”) and even the street signs (“You Are Now Leaving Seahaven. Are You Sure it’s a Good Idea?”).³ This all feels very Florida to me. It’s as if its geography has become its collective mindset. They’re far from the other 47 landlocked states in more ways than one.

Also very on brand for the Sunshine State: They seem to have missed the point of the film. Or the Seasiders did at least. An article from 30A.com invites us to “Step into the picture-perfect town that inspired The Truman Show!” as if the plot doesn’t revolve around Truman’s attempts to escape from the island. If that doesn’t sound out of touch enough, consider that disgraced former congressman Matt Gaetz grew up not just in Seaside but in the actual house chosen for Truman’s home.

Despite (or maybe because of) my complicated feelings about Florida—a place I enjoy visiting, but only for a little while—it’s become one of my favorite cinematic locations. I like to call it “Floridacore,” a term that may have been trademarked elsewhere.⁴ I don’t think films like Spring Breakers, Zola, The Florida Project, Crawl, or even Magic Mike would work as well (or at all) if they were set anywhere else.⁵ There’s a scuzziness, a griminess, an undiluted weirdness to it all, like the entire state has been left out in the sun too long (because it has).

But Floridacore goes both ways, and The Truman Show is the perfect example of that. Some parts of Florida are terrifying, whether it’s the humans or the alligators that pose the biggest threat. Other parts are eerie for the opposite reason. They’re too clean, too safe, too “picture-perfect.” As if it’s all a veneer and they’re covering something up. Seaside felt idyllic when I was a child, but places like that make me feel a bit uneasy nowadays.

Safety and cleanliness aren’t bad things, of course. But there’s something I love about imperfect places. They’re more interesting. They have more character. They have more history. Birmingham—or any city in Alabama—will never be voted the planet’s top town, of course. But after a week in the sun, I’ll be glad to be home.

The Truman Show is now streaming on Kanopy and Hoopla, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.

1. Have I always been not a beach person by nature? Or have nearly 40 years of regular beach trips spoiled me and turned me into a person who prefers lakes and mountains and cities? Who’s to say?

2. Knowing what I now know about filmmaking, I’m not sure these signs explicitly stated “The Truman Show: A Paramount Pictures Production” or anything like that. But if it wasn’t explicit, it was pretty easy to figure out. I mean, Jim Carrey was there.

3. This sign reminds me a lot of a real one that I pass every time I cross back over the Alabama state line: “Hurry Back to the Free State of Florida.” What’s so free about your state, guys?

4. Against Me! is also Floridacore, but in a different way.

5. I am very excited about Reptilia! Speaking of Kirsten Dunst and Florida, though, I have to plug the very underrated series On Becoming a God in Central Florida. A tragic casualty of COVID-19. (Oscar winner Daniel Scheinert directed an episode!)