C’lenna Mack
19 June 2015
Phil 3900
Network
Entertainers are sometimes viewed as being on a higher level than others are. Being a part
of the media can begin to consume someone’s identity and create someone they do not even
recognize. Your happiness is defined upon the increase and decrease in ratings. This can cause
someone’s happiness to fluctuate uncontrollably. The film, Network, describes the relationship
between entertainment and information, profit making and truth telling. This relationship also
leads to, “exploitation and (sometimes self-) dehumanization of the characters and the
implications for both personal and collective happiness” (Santas, 2015).
The idea of self- dehumanization is displayed in the public broadcast of suicide from a
newscaster, Howard Beale. He explains how the show’s ratings have declined, which has
resulted to the ending of the show and that he wanted to end his life. The shows producer
allowed him to make another broadcast although he was advised against this. Diana, the
programming executive, uses the idea of broadcasting Beale’s angry rant as a stepping-stone to
produce more risky shows. She was motivated by getting high ratings at all cost.
Howard Beale begins to exploit himself for collective happiness. He felt that he was
spreading his opinion/ the truth to the people that needed to hear it. However, Diana and other
network workers are willing to risk the dehumanization of themselves and Beale in the pursuit of
personal happiness.
Television presents entertaining subjects but they present everything as if they are all
entertaining, such as crime, suicide, individual’s personal lives, etc. Howard Beale is being used
as a ratings mule. As long as his “mad man” show is a hit, they will exploit him. They try to
make his show seems as if it is entertainment, when there is something emotionally and
psychology wrong with him. He makes comments about killing himself, talking to a faceless
voice and change in appearance/ speech. He begins to preach to his audience that they should get
mad and start shouting, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gone take this anymore”.
The Howard Beale show began to skyrocket and Diana begins to find more shows to
exploit. Public understanding of politics, news, education, religion, science, sports, etc. is shaped
by the biases of television. Howard then states that the news is an amusement park. They will tell
you anything and lie. They will do anything that the television tells them to do. He begins to tell
the audience to stop watching the television, they need to turn f the television and stop depend
upon it for facts.
The four arguments of eliminating television align with the issues displayed in, Network
by Beale. The argument states, eliminate personal knowledge, points of comparisons, separate
people from each other, unify experience, occupy the mind, encourage drug use, centralize
knowledge, and redefine happiness. The arguments displayed in the film were pointed out by
Beale.This eliminates personal knowledge by broadcasting false information and structuring the
shows that are produced. The networks occupy he mind and fill it with misconceptions.
Redefines happiness by displaying to people what should make them happy, by creating false
realities. Beale wanted to reveal the truth.
Since the beginning of television, it has been an issue with creating false perception.
Entertainment can lead to the exploitation and dehumanization of our self and others. The need
for ratings can make a person degrade himself or herself and others just to advance themselves
and humiliate others. Prouder such as Diana, will go beyond limits just to raise show ratings. The
media displays everything as entertaining, even if there is nothing entertaining about the subject
matter. Beale begins to express his viewers that the government is poisoning our minds and that
television should be turned off. The lies and the construction of happiness made by the media
should be ignored.