Social Change :: Network (1976)

Network. A satirical look at the corrupt, exploitative nature of national news channels. The film features Howard Beale, a washed-up anchorman with nothing to live for. Howard gets fired from his fictional news station, UBS, and reveals (on the air) that he is going to kill himself during his final broadcast (on the air). The network executives debate on whether or not to cut Howard immediately; on the one hand they can’t show that on live TV, but on the other hand their view count is beginning to shoot up.
They wind up allowing Howard to stay through his last broadcast, and his final days at the station are nothing short of chaos. In one evening show he addresses the audience directly to tell them that things suck, the world sucks, and the only thing that anyone can do to fix that is to “get mad.” He implores them to open their windows and shout into the world
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!
Soon after, Howard is presented with his own show as the station’s ratings are skyrocketing now. His new show is completely unscripted, allowing him to be the “mad prophet of the airwaves.”


UBS is using his delusions to get more shares, more viewers, more money. Does it work?
In the beginning, yes. But as soon as the ratings begin to dip, the network executives hire a militant organization to assassinate Howard on the air as a way to end the show with a bang.
Spoilers. Skip to the next section.
The final shot of the film shows Howard’s dead body on the set floor. A narrator says that this movie was “the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.”

Yes, it’s ridiculous. However, the exploitative nature of UBS in the film is fairly indicative of the present-day 24-hour news networks. I’m upset that this amazing, prophetic film hasn’t caught on more. I think it’s something everyone should watch. It is slow in some points, but the message is important, especially today.
I also think it’s interesting how this film is meant to be absurd by 1976 standards (it is meant to be satirical). From the standpoint of a writer during that time, none of this would ever happen. However, with the advent of privatized news networks that are owned by larger companies (for example, GE owning NBC, AT&T effectively owning Warner which owns Turner which owns CNN, etc.) it doesn’t seem so absurd. The goal is not to tell people what the truth is. The goal is to make money for the station and bring in viewers. And, a crazed madman on a news channel acting as a prophet is not unheard of. Hell, that pretty much describes Alex Jones.
The world needs more movies like this. Something to rile people up, to get them to start giving a damn about something. This film accomplished that for me, and I want something similar to surface soon. Why? Because I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore.


This was written for Jake Dugard’s Design Criticism class at Louisiana Tech University in October of 2018. It has been mildly revised for this publication.
