“What Else Is On?” The Real Meaning Behind The Truman Show’s Final Line Explained

As one viewer nonchalantly asks, “What else is on?” the final line of The Truman Show highlights a key message in the movie. The 1998 drama stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, a man who’s born and raised in the fictional harbor town of Seahaven, entirely oblivious to the fact that his life is being broadcast as a television show around the world 24/7. When strange things, like a light falling from the sky, or an irate former cast member hijacking the “set” force him to question the nature of his reality, he begins a desperate quest for answers and by the end of The Truman Show, freedom.

Ed Harris plays Christoff, the creator of “The Truman Show,” who guilt trips Truman into remaining in the only world he’s ever known, but Truman refuses to be part of the simulation. After nearly dying when Christoff uses the weather program to generate a storm strong enough to capsize his boat, Truman makes it to the periphery of the set, and with a bow, walks through the exit and into the real world. Viewers, who had previously been glued to their TV sets to see if Truman would make it now abruptly move on from something they’ve watched for 30 years, highlighting the flippant nature of the public consumer.

The Truman Show’s Final Line Shows Humanity’s Short Attention Span

Despite the fact that viewers had laughed, cried, and related to Truman for decades, they clearly had short attention spans when it came to finding something else to watch. The moment that Truman no longer provided them with entertainment they were willing to move on to the next stimulating show, after years of prioritizing being voyeurs to Truman’s life rather than valuing the genuine human experiences that were all Truman ever wanted to attain for himself. The final line of The Truman Show epitomizes how fickle consumers can be, especially if something is no longer novel.

Even if nothing exists exactly like The Truman Show, reality TV, and live-streaming platforms have been changing broadcasting for the last several decades. Today these types of programming explore similar concepts, often drastically blurring the lines between a person’s public and private life. With so much content available 24/7, there’s a lot of competition for viewers’ attention, and it’s exactly the sort of circumstances that would give rise to an idea like The Truman Show in real life.

The Truman Show’s Final Line Proves The World Didn’t Really Care About Truman

While there were some viewers who protested the treatment of Truman, most viewers had spent a large portion of their lives connecting to Truman as he shared his first kiss, got his first job, and a series of other milestones, but the final line in The Truman Show proves they didn’t really care about him. To them, Truman wasn’t really a person but a commodity, so it didn’t matter to them if he ever found out that he was the main character in a television show. As long as he was keeping them company and making them forget about their own problems, anything that was happening to Truman was acceptable.

The true meaning of The Truman Show successfully showcases what happens when reality is manipulated for the sake of content. It raises questions about privacy as well as the ethics of entertainment and the lengths that are gone to in order to maintain primetime programming. Christoff tried to make it sound like Truman was a part of something altruistic and artistic that provided value to millions, but Truman was exploited for the sake of one man’s god-like vision and never afforded the agency to choose how he was a part of it.

The Truman Show’s Final Line Hints History Will Repeat Itself

Given how flippantly everyone is to change the channel after just seeing and hearing something as extraordinary as everything Christoff is admitting on camera, as well as Truman escaping prison to come in contact with the world for the first time, The Truman Show suggests that more than likely history will repeat itself as viewers become attached to one program for a time and then move on. This cycle of obsolescence reduces even the most amazing and fascinating of human accomplishments into something mundane and banal. Christoff bragged about the achievement that The Truman Show was and yet the moment it was over, viewers tuned out.

The Truman Show’s final line does an excellent job of distilling the issues that surround trying to capture lightning in a bottle with a gimmick. It ensures attention for as long as it proves fascinating, but the second it’s no longer a novelty, consumers are ready to move on to the next big thing. The same remains true with the never-ending barrage of new content being released by streaming platforms, with each one endeavoring to find its version of The Truman Show and getting strong viewing numbers for 30 years until the cycle repeats itself.