I watched this late last night and thought it poignant to consider the legacy of Howard Beale. Now, everyone is on
tv it seems, whether through blogs or actual videos or podcasts. You name it. What does this movie have to say to us now over 30 years after its dark vision? Spoilers ahead.
Howard Beale had three separate visions. In the first, he freaks out on air and screams bullshit over and over. Then a spirit comes to him and wants him as a soldier in a war for an extremely idealistic democracy. His rallying cry is: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." This impotent expression of rage inspires the nation. Then Mr. Jensen, the powerful suit, implants the idea that nations and causes do not exist. Democracy does not exist. All there is is the ebb and flow of currency. The audience is less interested in this message as it sacrifices the individualism that had originally awoken their own ire.
The problem is that the real complexities of life in the 20th century were painfully complex. The nation was paralyzed with ambiguities. When Howard Beale freaked out, everyone felt validated in their own latent freak out. It felt good to just go raving mad. What other reaction could there be to such a predicament?
Jensen injected Beale with his own brand of madness. The results were the same confusion that everyone felt before.
What about now? This was a "trenchant satire" of network TV. Beale at one point goes ranting for everyone to shut off their "tubes." Yet now, everyone is on television. Can we even think of shutting off our YouTube? Has this amounted to something that Beale could not have predicted? Or was Paddy Chayefsky's satire not nearly trenchant enough? It does feel dated. But Beale is still relevant. Who hasn't wanted to scream out their windows at the world? Who hasn't done it in a blog or an email or a forum?
What Beale wanted to preserve most of all was that gorgeous American individuality. What he despised was the culture of consumption that seemed to have pacified it. The two have somehow merged in the 21st century. We express our individuality through the character of what we buy and sell. We have fulfilled Jensen's vision somehow along the way.
There's a lot to mull over here. I recommend it to everyone wrestling with the cultural impact of the internet.