"We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true!"

"We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear."

Mad As Hell

With Reporter/Commentator Tim Watts

Why 'Network' Was An Important Film

"You’re never gonna get any truth from us.

The 1976 movie Network is an Oscar winning film that took an inside look at corporate network television and the influence that it has upon today's society, revealing the corrupting influence of corporate ownership and the power of big money. Network shows the media for what it is.

 

Character Howard Beale is the news anchorman that we all yearn for, someone willing to forgo the corporate rules and for once, finally tell it like it is to the American people.

 

For many, the speeches from Beale have become as iconic as those of Morpheus or Neo from The Matrix' or that of 'V' in V for Vendetta - literal rallying cries for an oppressed people in search of hope. Arguably, no message may be as powerful as that of news anchor Howard Beale, who wanted people to wake up and see the injustice in the world, saying "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

 

The movie highlighted the unscrupulous nature of corporate network news, but it also exposed the uncomfortable fallibility of humans who become too trusting of an agenda driven media, one that serves the wealthy powers that be.

 

We'll tell you anything you wanna hear.

We lie like hell."

-Howard Beale on network news