Network, from 1976, has a reputation for being eerily prescient, depicting reality television and news-as-spectacle long before it reached its modern form.
I finally watched Network for the first time last week, and it is chock full of memorable quotes, including this news patter that starts the story rolling:
Howard Beale: I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks’ time because of poor ratings. Since this show is the only thing I had going for me in my life, I’ve decided to kill myself. I’m going to blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. So tune in next Tuesday. That should give the public relations people a week to promote the show. You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 share, easy.
Beale — who later says, “This is not a psychotic breakdown; it’s a cleansing moment of clarity” — goes on to earn his own show, where he “articulates the rage” being felt by common Americans:
I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot — I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.You’ve got to say, “I’m a human being, God damn it! My life has value!” So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!“
Some of the easiest targets of satire come from the TV programming department:
Barbara: These are those four outlines submitted by Universal for an hour series. You needn’t bother to read them; I’ll tell them to you.The first one is set at a large Eastern law school, presumably Harvard. The series is irresistibly entitled “The New Lawyers.” The running characters are a crusty-but-benign ex-Supreme Court justice, presumably Oliver Wendell Holmes by way of Dr. Zorba; there’s a beautiful girl graduate student; and the local district attorney who is brilliant and sometimes cuts corners.
The second one is called “The Amazon Squad.” The running characters include a crusty-but-benign police lieutenant who’s always getting heat from the commissioner; a hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective who thinks women belong in the kitchen; and the brilliant and beautiful young girl cop who’s fighting the feminist battle on the force.
Up next is another one of those investigative reporter shows. A crusty-but-benign managing editor who’s always gett…
[Diana cuts her off]