“Whereas before culture in the form of capitalism had alienated men and women from their nature, and nature in general, now that self-same creative, autonomous nature has been brought within the framework of capitalism, making capitalism more palatable. Even so, as I argue below, this enveloping of nature by culture requires “family” to remain, somehow, outside this envelopment of artistic autonomy; family grounds the illusion of artistic autonomy. How then does family work to buttress the claim to artistic autonomy? How are family and (or as) “nature” used to ground the “illusion” of autonomy in the complex worlds of Christof, the auteur, and Truman? These are the essential questions I address in what follows.”