More Pols335: Network (1976)

Posted On 2021-07-26

Weird- here’s another one where I remember doing the writing more than I remember the actual film.

• How are ratings portrayed as significant, and do you think your viewing practices affect a network’s decisions?

Ratings are both a cash equivalent and a measure of professional stature in the broadcast media world. Superficially the holder of the most viewers is the winner of a popularity contest; they are the industry leader. Tactically, the more viewers a network has, the more it can charge for the placement of advertisements and the more profits it can create. To speak generally, ratings do very much affect network programming and networks are always in a process of evaluating the merits of programming changes. This is less of a limitation on speech than it used to be since the rise of the internet and hundreds of digital cable channels, but the shunting of voices was at one point a valid concern. For my specific part, I think I’ve dropped far enough off of the broadcast radar to be of little value to network executives. Game of Thrones? I hear it was a good show. Big Bang Theory? I think I may have seen an episode once in an airport.

• Can you connect the story in NETWORK to today’s reality programming, how?

Reality is chaotic and often unstable. There have been occasions where chaotic and unstable people have been positioned in places more suited to benefit network margins than individual health. This is only partly attributable to network inhumanity; the suits uptown are only giving the people more of what they’re demanding. The thespians of Jersey Shore, any number of Kardashians or Real Housewives, even Anthony Bourdain- these are people who are/were not well, and facets of their illness are being staged for profit. 

• What do you think about the depiction of gender dynamics in this film, and what are the ways that Faye Dunaway’s character is (or is not) feminist?

A common gender dynamic has been developing over several films this summer. I don’t know if these directors are paying homage to one another, if their writers were being derivative, or if there’s some shared Freudian zeitgeist that simply sees women as manipulative taskmasters. Throughout this film there is a seeming liberalization of gender dynamics- Lauren Hobbs is a strong and independent figure for racial equality, and Dunaway takes the “independent schemer” role even further than her predecessors with her more forward sexuality. It’s difficult to parse fidelity to feminism though considering the level of satire. Hobbs defends racial principle as enthusiastically as she negotiates contract terms, and Dunaway is seemingly brought halfway to climax just by the thrill of her achievement. Both of these women are very much feminists and very much not, which makes them as complex a reflection of feminism as any actual woman. Feminism does not mean constant and complete independence, just the freedom to be able to make the choice. (There’s no reason why modern independent women can’t have daddy issues or be gun-toting terrorists, after all.) Beyond that there’s the distortion created by the male perspective in the film. For all that Faye Dunaway is the very model of a modern Majorette, William Holden gets to stand on some good-guy moral high ground after abandoning his wife for a good time. If the image of feminism is unclear in the film, perhaps it’s because the filmmakers are unclear as to what feminism looks like.

• Think about how a-film-about-television narrativizes television differently than how we usually see television, and to what effect.

We are used to seeing television in a specific way. It’s a box or a screen that entertains, informs, and sells, and we fancy ourselves knowledgeable about distinguishing which is which. Films about television (or even television shows about television, like Newsroom or Murphy Brown) seek to pull back the curtain in a dramatic way to reveal some secret about whomever is pulling the levers. The message and effect are similar to film’s earlier use of print newsrooms as a stage- that the messenger may have an agenda other than altruism.

• Is television hopelessly a “vast wasteland”? Do you believe television is a medium that can be used for social change (if not “liberation”)?

A benefit to the technology’s ability to carry hundreds of channels is that the medium can be a vast wasteland of social change. Audiences don’t have to choose between the two, they have the convenience of moral certitude from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Wallace, Cardi B, or the ‘network’ formally known as NRA TV. While individuals within the process may be inclined to act for some genuine benefit of their audience, their individual intent is undone somewhat by the many shades of “right” that someone can be in our subjective reality.

• What is the significance of the film ending with commercials along with Beale’s murder?

On one hand, Beale was a creation, a network commodity to be bought and sold. He was a product of value, and his broadcasts were ultimately commercials to promote the network’s profit-generating interests. On another level, the film presents the dehumanization of people. Only two staffers in that broadcast booth caught Beale’s promised suicide, despite his speaking to all of them through a microphone. The man’s life was an afterthought until there were commercial prospects. His eventual murder is business as usual to an industry that has made it business as usual. His death came on the same air that gloried in the violence of the racial activists out West. Singling out his end for special treatment or reverence would have been the more unrealistic avenue.

• What is the significance of Lumet shooting Beale with the camera into the lights during his on-air speech?

While addressing his faithful on the Network News Hour, Beale is lit in differing ways depending on the message he carries. He stands in stark contrast when speaking for himself, holding court from within a few spotlights, backed by stained glass, or facing into the lights. He is standing alone with his truth, and facing down the glare of the mere studio lights. Later when his message is subverted by Ned Beatty’s corporatism, he is lit in league with his stage and the audience. His message has lost its singular truth, it’s singular ability to stand out in the dark- lost as well is Beale’s ability to stand out in the darkness and outshine the light.