Modern Media: the Death of Free Thinking?

8 posted on February 8, 2010

POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Culture, Makes You Think, Movies & TV, Videos

I recently stumbled across a video clip from a 1976 movie called Network. The movie is about a news anchor working at a fictional television network Union Broadcasting System (UBS). Peter Finch’s performance won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.

In the movie, news anchor Howard Beale (played by Finch) delivered a speech railing against the media machine he was a part of.

We’ll tell you any sh*t you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know.

You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal.

You do whatever the tube tells you.
You dress like the tube.
You eat like the tube.
You raise your children like the tube.
You even think like the tube.

This is mass madness — you maniacs! In God’s name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.

Here’s the full video of the speech from the movie (note: scattered profanities throughout the clip). Even though this movie was made over 30 years ago it holds frightening relevance to our media-saturated culture today.

Speech from the Movie “Network”

Pretty heavy stuff, isn’t it? While this film was made before the advent of the Internet you could just as easily replace the word “tube” with “the Internet” for an equally challenging rebuke.

What do you think…Has the Internet, blogging and social media made things better? Or are we in even more danger of losing our ability to think for ourselves?

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 7:20 am and is filed under Blog Posts, Culture, Makes You Think, Movies & TV, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Comments

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February 8, 2010

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1 joseph said:

I think for some it is taking the ability to think for themselves. With others it is creating an outlet to share their thoughts which prior to the internet would not have been possible.
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February 8, 2010

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2 Molly said:

I agree with what Joseph said. It is much easier for me to connect to people who think the way I already thought from other parts of the country/world.

I also think that TV hasn’t changed much in 30 years (from the above monologue). I worry what people are gonna do when Oprah goes away
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3 Bill (cycleguy) said:

I don’t know that we are so much in danger of losing the ability to think for ourselves as we in danger of substituting those for personal contact. My .02 worth
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February 8, 2010

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4 Scott Fillmer said:

I just went to see Avatar this weekend so don’t ask me, my reality is already skewed for the next month or two, LOL
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February 8, 2010

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5 Jay said:

It’s a good question. I think many people are wanting to do the “Me too!” thing or they gush over what somebody writes or tweets or whatever more because of who that person is rather than what they wrote.

I won’t name names, but there are Christ-following Twitter and blogging “stars.” These handful of people could tweet or blog the word “Burp” and pretty soon you’d have a number of people re-tweeting and commenting on it’s brilliance. I’m exaggerating but my overall point remains. For many it seems to be easier to just agree than to think about it, add more or in fact, disagree.
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6 Vince said:

As long as the internet stays an open platform it will be, all things considered, a good thing.

net neutrality anyone?
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February 9, 2010

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7 Parke Ladd said:

Yeah, someone much smarter than I once said, “We become like the media which we behold.” I was actually thinking about this exact same thing today. Good thoughts, Brad.