The quotes I've posted down below are from a movie called Network that was released in 1976. Network is a film about a TV network that cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor's ravings and revelations about the media for its own profit. It is an Academy Award winning film and #66 on the AFI's 100 Movies list.
Why am I'm bothering to post this you ask? Good question and I promise that if you take 5 minutes to read this you'll find an even better answer. Read these quotes and think about what was going on in America in the 1970's. War with Veitnam, high gas prices, threats of and an eventual gas shortage, fear of Communist Russia, political corruption, a slumping economy and a rise in crime across the nation.
Now think about the world we live in today. War with Afganistan and Iraq, high gas prices, threats and fears of an impending gas shortage, fear of Islamic Extremist Terrorists, political corruption, a slumping economy and a country rife with crime. Then ask yourself this question, How much have things really changed? But more importantly ask yourself why they haven't.
Consider how relevent these issues and these quotes are in our world some 32 years after.
Quotes from Network:
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! 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, GODDAMNIT! 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!!" I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!"
"All human beings are becoming humanoids. All over the world, not just in America. We're just getting there faster since we're the most advanced country."
"Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park."
"The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've fucked themselves limp, and nothing helps."
"You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE (the media) are the illusion."
"...because at the bottom of all our terrified souls we know that democracy is a dying giant; a sick, sick, dying, decaying political concept riding in it's final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, most powerful, most advance country in the world, light years ahead of any country, and I don't mean the communists are going to take over the world because the communists are deader than we are. What is finished, is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourish of every individual in it; it's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished; it's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals, it's a nation of two-hundred some-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-that-white steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods."
"Look, we've got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks. Now, maybe they'll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, hijacking 747s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors. We'd open each week's segment with their authentic footage, hire a couple of writers to write a story behind that footage, and we've got ourselves a series."
"I watched your 6 o'clock news today; it's straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, brutal crime, sports, children with incurable diseases, and lost puppies. So, I don't think I'll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you're right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us. Look, all I'm saying is if you're going to hustle, at least do it right."
"I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals."
"Lou?... Lou... Lou!... YOU'RE his freaking agent, Lou! I AM COUNTING ON YOU TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO THE LUNATIC! NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT DYING DEMOCRACY AND DEHUMANIZATION!... Our share stock is shrinking, and we're doomed for! ANOTHER COUPLE OF WEEKS OF THIS AND THE SPONSORS WILL BE BAILING OUT!..."
And finally, perhaps my favorite and the most honest, direct and accurate quote regarding the media:
"We'll tell you anything you want to hear, we lie like hell."
