Would it violate any laws to raise someone from birth believing they were living in a city which was actually a completely artificial construction and airing it as a big reality show without that persons knowledge?
Airing a show with you on it without your knowledge would be a big problem. It might not matter if you were nearly unrecognizable or completely unimportant (i.e., Manhattan-in-the background-shot), but if they were using you as an actual figure without your knowledge it would be.
Second, people cannot legally belong to or be raised by corporations.
I believe the movie mentioned in the opener that it took an act of Congress or something to permit it.
It would likely not only take an Act of Congress, but a Constitutional amendment to allow a “Truman Show” situation. Such a person being brought up is being denied rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. I would imagine the Full Faith and Credit Clause is being violated also.
Also a law passed to just keep Truman in his own little world could be considered a bill of attainder. He is being punished without a trial.
Does Truman get to vote in presidential elections? Does his vote count?
Never watched the movie so I don’t know all the specifics of the scenario, but IRL a parent or legal guardian could consent to the use of their minor child’s image. Once the person attained the age of majority that consent would no longer be binding and the person him- or herself would have to consent.
Certainly as the law exists now a corporation could not own a person but corporations have at least some “human rights” under the US Constitution. It doesn’t seem like too great a stretch of the law that a corporation could be awarded custody of a person.
I’d say that it would be a huge stretch. Corporations are not people. They have “virtual personhood,” which means that they are treated as a single entity for most legal purposes (taxes, contracts, lawsuits). But a corporation is not a human being, and they can’t do things like marry or adopt children.
If they’re allowing an entertainment company to raise a child like that, then Truman must be living in some sort of Orwellian nightmare future.
Just FTR, there was a show on SpikeTV that came as close as you probably could, legally. It was called the Joe Schmo Show, and it was rigged so that this one guy would automatically win. He knew he was on a “reality show,” he just didn’t know that it was all planned around him, and everyone else’s part was more or less scripted.
Joe Schmo, knowing that he was to be on a show, and presumably having signed contracts with a thousand clauses carefuly specifying liabilities, was in the exact opposite of the situation in the Truman Show and much less close than an average episode of Candid Camera.
Privatized orphanage? Not marry no, but adopt seems reasonable.
Are there private orphanages? I mean in movies you will see where someone will leave a bundle in front of a church and then all the nuns raise the child and such. But thinking over what I know of the legal system, a child without parents will be raised by the state until adopted or 18. Though I have no idea of whether the various institutions for raising children are public or private. And it does not seem likely that a church would just be allowed to raise the child (unless a particular nun officially adopted the baby?)
This is something I really know nothing about outside of movies and Andrew Vachss. 
Imprisonment, child abuse (the lies they tell him to manipulate him into staying, the lies they tell him about his father etc). Ain’t no way.
I would think that the storm that gets whipped up at the end to scare Truman into coming back could be construed as a murder attempt or at least battery.
True, but the movie itself made clear that Christof wasn’t acting rationally by that point and even the people around him thought he was going too far. That scene is a bit tangental to the OP’s main thrust.
Back to the topic, I can’t think of any legal way around all of the issues raised in this thread. Even if you assume that it somehow becomes legally possible for corporations to adopt people, you still have to deal with the lies and outright manipulation the corporation perpetrated throughout Truman’s lifetime. Broadcasting his image and making a profit without his knowledge or consent is the least of their crimes.
As others have said, I don’t think this could be done legally. When the star/victim of the show was a minor, his parents would have the legal power to contract on his behalf (or waive legal rights), and they could theoretically agree to let their child be on such a show. However, every state has a government agency charged with protecting children from abuse, and they typically have the power to remove a child from his parents’ custody if he is being seriously mistreated. My guess is that a “Truman Show” scenario would prompt a sufficient outcry for the government to intervene and get the child off the show.
Even if that didn’t happen, I don’t see how you could continue the charade once the child became an adult. At that point, the parents would no longer be able to enter into contracts or waive rights on behalf of their child, so the premise of the show would presumably be illegal without the consent of the “star.” And, I don’t see how you could get that consent without spilling the beans and spoiling the premise.
I thought there was an ((apparently)) unsecessfull real life Truman show… TODD TV or something??
Might you be thinking of “Ed TV” which was another movie with similar themes to “The Truman Show”?
Even if a child’s parents gave consent for the kid to be in this kind of show (or the kid was adopted by a corporation), there are child labor laws that stipulate how late at night children under a certain age can be working (I don’t know if there are rules specifically for TV, but I remember it came up during the trial over the deaths that occurred during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie).
Just wondering: If I were to set up my own version of the Truman Show by rigging up my (currently hypothetical) child’s room with hidden cameras and broadcasting it 24/7 on local-access cable, would I be in violation of any of these laws?
How are you going to pay for this broadcast? How are you going to make sure the child doesn’t start walking around his/her room in various states of undress that will appeal to a rather creepy part of society?
If I saw such a thing on a local cable-access channel, I would call my local County authorities to have your child taken from you.
Until relatively late in the movie, there was very little evidence of actual “abuse” in the show. From what we can gather, the producers had him lead a fairly “normal” life. Absent the actual deception bit itself, I don’t think anything the producers did can really fall under abuse.
Aren’t there child labor laws that prevent child actors working more than a couple of hours at a time (which is why twins are often used in a single role, to effectively double the amount of time you can film for)? Don’t those same laws prevent infants under the age of 12 days working at all? I don’t know if filming their everyday life would fall under the catagory of “work” or not, but it seems likely that these laws would certainly interfer.
In regards to EdTV, it’s not really like the Truman show at all. It’s more of a Big Brother type show but without the controlled enviroment - Ed agrees to have cameras follow his every move.
If I were kept in an artificial world against my will (through deception) and not allowed to choose my own friends and career, and I found out what was going on, I think there would be one monster civil rights suit being filed.