Revisiting The Movie NETWORK In The Era of Fox News

I recently had a nagging desire to watch the movie NETWORK, a wonderful work of movie fiction origninally released in 1975 that won multiple academy awards in 1976. The movie tells of a failing newcaster's descent into madness. In fact, the term, "I'm mad as hell and can't take it anymore" is the notable comment in this madness. It's a comment that during the Corvid pandemic makes as much sense today as it did then during our first gasoline crisis in the mid '70'. The best actor award went to Peter Finch, playing Howard Beale, as a newscaster who is fired as his ratings are falling. Finch was given his award after his death. 

Beale was considered a mandarin of news casting. However, as his ratings fell, his fourth place network decided they needed "younger" blood, and Beale who had become a childless widower, took to drinking and became less and less a presence. At the news of his dismissal, two weeks hence, he goes on the evening news and states "next Tuesday I will commit suicide right here on the news." As you can imagine the ratings go up and everyone wants to see the "suicide." Sensing rising fortunes, the network instead decides to keep him on and as he rants and raves, ratings climb higher and higher. 

I believe this sinister movie, a movie that should be shown again today, has three parts. It portrays corporate greed, making money at any price, secondly, creating social tensions and finally capitalism run amok. The fact that Rupert Murdock, who founded FOX News in 1986, used, I believe, Paddy Chayefsky's tongue-in-checck script as a blueprint has been noted by Chayefsky as well. 

FOX News was the highest rated free network in the 18-49 demographic from 2004-2012 and again in 2020. Millions tune in to watch Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others espose their fictions and blatant untruths nightly. It was a faithful news outlet for former President Trump and is for his minions today.

Faye Dunaway's character, Diana, as VP of programing wants control of news. She is fended off by Max (William Holden), the current News VP who has been told he has the back of the network President. However, the CBC Holding company that now owns the network, one among many, wants it to grow so it can sell it to an even wealthier owner in the middle east. This of course is a reflection for oil crisis in 1975 when the Saudi's were in ascendence and petro dollars ruled the day.

Beale is given his own news spot and news has becomes a circus sideshow along with a soothsayer and other silly segments of the "news hour." Beale is given to his madness and often collapses in a faint after his latest "vision."

This plays well, until it doesn't. When he urges his followers who are "mad as hell and won't take it anymore"to turn their TV's OFF, he is summoned by Arthur Jensen (Warren Beatty) the CEO to a special boardroom for a "discussion." Sitting at one end of a loooong table, ala Putin and Macron is their recent discussions over the Ukraine war, Beatty gives the performance of a lifetime! Roaring out to Beale:

    "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature Mr. Beale...that is the atomic and subatomic 

    and galactic structure of thing's today! And, YOU WILL ATONE!"

Beale atones but soon looses his edge and ratings drop. Since Jensen forbids his removal from the stage others conspire to get rid of him before profits drop! Their solution is to kill him ... on the air by hiring a radical group they have given voice to (today's Hannity, Ingrahm and Carlson?) who assassinate Beale live as he's broadcasting on the air.

When I saw this 47 years ago, I thought it was a funny but cynical look at TV broadcasting. The broadcasters of the day were generally respected and Walter Cronkite was the first newscaster to admit we had lost the Viet Nam war. This was all before much cable, the Internet, even cell phones. Those all arrived later. News was generally on the three networks and available in the daily newspapers, and on radio of the day. In a word, NETWORK was a work of comedy.

Secondly, NETWORK is about the social tensions of the day, tensions that still remain today. Max fell in love with Diana leaving his wife of 25 years. Ultimately he realizes Diana has no capacity for love and that his wife, who truly does love him, has been shattered forever. Corporate greed has, if nothing else, become even more predatory and we are yet unable to staunch it's march. American companies had begun their forward march to foreign locales using the term Global Economy as their crutch. The only people who profited were the CEO's and management. No one was asking for cheaper prices. Manufacturing moved notably to China where labor costs were lower and America's millions lost their middle class, blue collar jobs in the search for cheaper labor. In my outdoor manufacturing days, I noted that when Brown-Jordan, a high end outdoor casual furniture maker, moved to Mexico, their prices in fact went up, not down and the quality suffered. 

And finally it shows Capitalism run amok. In order to make more and more money, more value, a newer generation driven by none other than greed, attacks an older generation that wanted order, dignity and responsibility first, before profits. I am not so naive not to understand to succeed AND survive you need profits but to attain them at all costs, well, that was not the way I, and for the most part, we were raised. In my generation, a house was your home, not a profit center as Millennials and such believe. Here, the newer generation IS clamoring for more and more profits. They can see only one way out ... eliminating Beale in the most sensational way possible, as assassination on the air. Ratings are ALL!

And isn't that what we are seeing today? While we are not seeing literal murders, FOX leads the pack in dissemination of false news, even as they claim it's not. They all force us to ask Socrates' eternal question - "What is truth?" We ask today, what is news and "false" news?

NETWORK forces us to consider many factors in how we allow information to enter our lives. TV hasn't quite the impact it once had. Today, social media governs our lives and allows anyone to express what they think and feel. In a sense we are all Howard Beals and are mad as hell and can't and won't take it anymore. However this freedom also demands the question, Can we have too much freedom? Can we allow an 18 year-old with a grudge, real or imagined, to buy an assault rifle and murder 19 10-year-olds and their teachers without any accountability? Can we allow hate speech to spread that has consequences be allowed to flourish without any consequences? I think not. For a jolly good time watch NETWORK and see what it asks you about reality. I think you'll be glad you did.