The rage. The ever increasing rage that has been increasing across the world over the last decade. The rage increased its speed after the 2016 US presidential election and truly accelerated in 2020 at the start of the pandemic and hasn’t let up since then. Certain politicians, media, TV hosts encourage this rage and profit off it. Some of these politicians take that most fascist of approaches where they tell their fans that only they can solve all the problems of society, problems which are always the other party's fault. A lot of TV networks have long dispensed with news. Instead, they fill their air time with angry hosts giving out opinions and asking people to get angry, get very angry. Yet, this angry TV host first appeared in a scripted film, almost three decades ago.
Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976) is a brilliantly acted, scripted and directed film. The film is labeled a satire yet given the rage of last few years, the film can be considered a documentary of our times. Over the last decade, certain TV networks have constantly ensured that their hosts are always ANGRY and promoted rage. The blueprint for these shows and their methods can be found in Lumet’s film which shows how an upcoming TV show programmer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) wants to program a show with Howard Beale (Peter Finch) for the sole reason that she believes Howard’s on-air anger will get their TV network more viewers and improve their market share. As Howard continues to let loose his anger on the show, people tune in and Diana is proven right. Things take a turn when Howard directs his anger at the wrong people thereby threatening a corporate deal. Howard is put in his place by the TV exec Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) who explains how the world works and Howard’s place in it. Of course, Arthur Jensen uses anger, immense anger, to get his message across thereby even scaring Howard. Jensen's anger is also in keeping with our times in showing that free speech is acceptable only when it is used against one's opponents.
