Was Gaetz ever allowed out of the house? Could he have been the inspiration of the movie? It would explain a lot about him.
As an aside, after The Truman Show, a movie called EdTV (Matthew M a Jenna Elfman) was made that was virtually the same theme. One day a friend and I were going out to lunch at the Century City Mall. It wasn't unusual to see people there offering opportunities to go to movie screenings. This one was. It was on the Wednesday before the Friday EdTV was supposed to open. I guess the previous previews got such bad feedback that they were trying see if the re-cuts were any better 48 hours before release. Needless to say, I used this knowledge not to see the film