‘Network’ at 50
Fifty years after its release, ‘Network’ remains a harrowing and prescient vision of the world we live in today.
Directed by Sidney Lumet, ‘Network’ was released in 1976 and has become an undisputed classic of Hollywood cinema. With a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, ‘Network’ is a scathing satire of modern society lampooning mainstream news media and its inexorable ties to corporate interests.
In the five decades since veteran newsreader Howard Beale, portrayed diligently by Australian actor Peter Finch, yelled the immortal line: “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”, few other films have come close to predicting the impactful rise of media conglomerates and the advent of reality television.
The plot of ‘Network’ centres on Howard Beale and his fateful descent as he grapples with forces far beyond his control.
After years serving as the trusted anchor for UBS Evening News, Beale learns he’ll be taken off the air in two weeks due to a decline in ratings. He responds by telling his audience that he will kill himself live on air the following Tuesday.
What follows is a damning depiction of our insatiable taste for the televised misery of others and how easily truth is distorted to form a carefully constructed reality.
Naturally, a record number of viewers tune in to witness Beale follow through on his deadly promise, boosting network ratings and with the help of Diana Christensen played by Faye Dunaway, the opportunistic programming chief for UBS, Beale becomes a national champion for the everyman.
His impassioned diatribes earn him a new gig as host for ‘The Howard Beale Show’ and a reputation as the angry prophet of the airwaves. It is at this crucial juncture that Beale discovers just how far the rabbit hole goes.
Among the film’s most frighteningly relevant scenes is the monologue delivered by Ned Beatty in his role as Arthur Jensen, chairman of Communications Corporation of America (CCA).
After Beale uses his newfound popularity to disrupt a deal between Saudi investors and CCA, he is summoned to a meeting with Jensen, who jovially greets him and welcomes Beale to a private discussion in the boardroom.
Jensen’s initially friendly demeanour evaporates as he draws the boardroom curtains. Darkness fills the room, broken only by the glow of desk lamps, and Jensen menacingly reveals the true natural order of the world.
“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale, and I won’t have it,” he booms from the head of the table.
Just as Beale can no longer bear the injustices and innate unfairness of the world anymore, Jensen cannot tolerate the disruption to what he sees as the immutable machinery of finance. He speaks not as a salesman or a CEO, but like a preacher delivering a hellfire sermon.
For men of Jensen’s ilk – titans of industry and captains of commerce – their work is not a casual vocation, it is religion. His unwavering faith in the glory of the almighty dollar is tantamount to the fanaticism espoused by any ideological extremist. He speaks with biblical reverence for the financial systems that bind and control the world, even demanding that Beale “must atone” for his meddling as if it constituted sin.
Jensen presents a despairingly pragmatic, if not myopic, worldview that is cruelly delineated by dollars and cents, profit and loss.
People don’t matter – profit and popularity are what pays the bills. Nationhood, patriotism, and the pursuit of individual excellence in a free world all become secondary to the primary functions of finance.
“There are no nations, there are no people,” he claims.
“It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things.
“There is no America, there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T, and Dupont, Dow and Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today … the world is a business, Mr Beale, it has been since man crawled out of the primordial slime.”
Beale cowers in his chair, eyes widening under the looming presence of Jensen as morbid realisation overtakes him. Against all odds, Beale finds himself at the mercy of the forces against which he raged. His angry man persona proves to be a valuable commodity to the corporate elite. In the spirit of Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’, Beale is the ideal enemy to be assimilated.
Fifty years later, Jensen’s words still reverberate as we witness again and again corporate greed outweighing the overall good of humankind. The relentless quest for ratings continues as corporate profits surge in spite of soaring human, social, and environmental costs.
Meanwhile, given her success with Beale, Christensen is driven by blind ambition to follow it up with another ratings hit for UBS. She strikes a deal with a terrorist group called the Ecumenical Liberation Army (ELA) to produce a new docudrama series called ‘The Mao Tse-Tung Hour’ for which the ELA will provide footage of their activities.
In this exchange we see how easily Beale’s success and popularity is leveraged by Christensen to advance her career. At the cutthroat executive level, pride and integrity are luxuries few can afford.
At the film’s conclusion, audiences are losing interest in Beale’s angry man ravings and the network’s rating begin to fall once more. To remedy the predicament, Christensen and her fellow executives arrange to have Beale assassinated live on air by the ELA, giving UBS a boost and opening the second season of ‘The Mao Tse-Tung Hour’.
In voiceover, the narrator proclaims: “This was the story of Howard Beale: the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.”
If it Bleeds, It Leads
‘Network’ was released two years after Florida newsreader Christine Chubbuck became the first person to die by suicide during a live television broadcast. On the morning of 15 July 1974, Chubbuck changed the running order of her programme ‘Suncoast Digest’, opening with a report about a shooting at a local restaurant instead of a planned interview.
When the video package about the shooting failed to roll, Chubbuck returned to her script:
“In keeping with the WXLT practice of presenting the most immediate and complete reports of local blood-and-guts news, TV-40 presents what is believed to be a television first. In living colour, an exclusive coverage of an attempted suicide.”
She then drew a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver from her bag and shot herself behind her right ear, slumping forward on the news desk in front of thousands of viewers. There is a misconception that Chubbuck’s suicide inspired Chayefsky to write ‘Network’, but he had already started working on the story prior to her on-air death.
The prospect of seeing someone die or seriously harmed has underpinned the concept of human entertainment for thousands of years. Crowds packed the Colosseum in Ancient Rome to witness brutal combat; they gathered during medieval times for deadly tournaments, and today little has changed. We like to think ourselves morally superior to our ancestors, that we have evolved into a higher form, but we have never lost our insatiable bloodlust.
By 1976, audiences were well-accustomed to televised violence. Horrors of the Vietnam War were broadcast nightly into suburban households, desensitising an entire generation to man’s sadistic nature. ‘Network’ was a harsh reflection of our macabre obsession with the misery of others.
Terrequip are the Regenerative Mining Experts
In the past 50 years, human misery has been commodified, packaged, and marketed to the masses as prime time entertainment.
We see it in the nightly news broadcasts that prescribe a world ruled by violence and fear, complemented with exclusive footage of the suffering that occurs every day. And it’s the underlying premise of every single reality television programme ever produced.
The final act of ‘Network’ posits Howard Beale as a martyr for television, a man who died for his hard-held beliefs. But he was a victim, presented as a sacrifice to the gods of corporate greed in exchange for ratings.
In 2026, ‘Network’ stands as not only a great film but a poignant, if not prophetic, social commentary about the intersection of individualism, mass media, politics, and global economics. One voice can make a difference, given the right platform and support. But at what cost to the self?
