SPOOKY: The 1976 Movie 'Network' Predicted YouTube And 'Two And A Half Men'

BusinessInsider ^ | 15 Feb 2012 | JIM EDWARDS

[shove_it]

If you've ever seen the 1976 movie Network, you'll know the unforgettable scene in which TV news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) has a mental breakdown while on-air.

Ignoring the teleprompter, he breaks into one of the greatest soliloquies of American cinema, a wandering but coherent rant about the banks, crime and unemployment.

Finally, he urges his viewers to throw open their windows and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"

Today, Network feels as fresh and vital as it did 36 years ago, and not just because Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight won Oscars for acting in it.

It's because the movie predicts everything about modern media in the 21st Century—from reality TV and YouTube to Glenn Beck and the tabloid news format. And it did so 20 years before the internet even existed.

It's spooky how much the movie got right about the direction of the news business specifically, and the media generally...

[shove_it]

We know him as Glenn Beck.

Chuckle, good call.

[Hatteras]

So Conchata Ferrell from 2-1/2 Men was in the movie Network which translates into the movie somehow is responsible or influenced the making of 2-1/2 Men?

Maybe it's just me but there seems to be a few more than usual interesting (read: questionable) posts here this morning.

Obama was a CIA plant and now Berta was the mad-genius behind Charlie Sheen?

[freedumb2003]

>>Hell, even “The Walking Dead” has a new gay couple. <<

So, they eat each other? ;)

I have never seen TWD, which places it with Friends, Seinfeld, How I met your Mother, Breaking Bad and many other cultural icons.

[a fool in paradise]

The Loud family’s reality drama aired on PBS in 1973.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Family

[a fool in paradise]

Glenn Beck, a pop radio zoo crew member who 'got series'

[Huntress]

Is this the scene you’re referring to? It’s my favorite one from Network.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AObkT7wJ108

[minnesota_bound]

#13 that speech could have been given by the Bush’s, Soros, Clintons, McCain, Boehner, McConnell, etc etc or as some call them here the uniparty.

[Buckeye McFrog]

In a similar way the 1990 Christian Slater film Pump Up The Volume eerily presaged young people's coming obsession with spewing their emotions stream-of-consciousness style on Twitter and Facebook.

[freedumb2003]

>>And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.<<

Everyone will be Green Bay Packers fans?

;) :)

[Yaelle]

Network was quite a movie, but this article was strung together with bits of wire and hype. It’s a full on click bait article.

[NorthMountain]

[freedumb2003]

You are a member of the vast ecumenical holding company.

I am a Packer backer for years but don’t have the share dangit.

[al_c]

Was, as in ... she’s not anymore. Didn’t mean she was dead. Sorry about that.

[shove_it]

Agreed. I just searched for a recent article about “Network” and this was the best I could find. It struck me, after seeing the movie again after all those years, how well it fits the narrative today from the liberal media and the hypocrisy of The Regime to try to stifle what little truth that comes from talk radio and the internet with its “net neutrality” tyranny.

[Yaelle]

I agree. I just saw this movie for the first time 3 years ago. It was great.

The media IS DEFINITELY the message. Marshall McLuhan got that part right.