Satire is dead when nothing succeeds like excess

I've always thought "1984" was the most prophetic novel ever written. It was just a few years ahead of its time.

Now, I've discovered 1976's movie "Network" is the most prophetic movie ever made. I thought it was supposed to be satire when Peter Finch's character, news anchor Howard Beale, went stark, raving mad on camera. (For a clip, visit www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/Satire_is_dead_when_nothing_exceeds_like_excess__video_proof.html.)

But satire is dead when prime time reality is far more outrageous than anything Paddy Chayefsky could have imagined.

Satirical criticism of social foibles, such as excessive volubility and feigned emotionality, can no longer succeed with excess, because no one can exceed the excessiveness we witness on so-called television news programs every day.

In fact, Chayefsky thought the movie was pretty much true to life back in 1976. In an interview with Time that year he was quoted as saying:

"People say to me: 'Jesus, you moved into some pretty surreal satire.' I say: 'No, I still write realistic stuff. It's the world that's gone nuts, not me. It's the world that's turned into a satire.' We never lied. Everything in the movie is true -- with some extensions. It's very hard to describe simply and realistically what is going on without being grotesque. I think the movie is right now."

The writer, who worked in television in the 1950s, said it was all about the ratings, anything to get the ratings.

But in today's anything-goes, ratings-mad television market, character Beale's mad-as-hell-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-this-anymore rant pales next to some of the over-the-top rhetoric spewing from the anchors of cable television news/commentary programs.

Frankly, some of the words Chayefsky put in Beale's mouth then ring true today:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be."

Madness is just what we are getting on our televisions today. Take MSNBC uberanchor Keith Olbermann, who makes Finch's character seem downright sedate compared to Olbermann's glib and perpetually angry mien.

Take this screaming monologue from a year ago in which Olbermann tells the president of the United States to "shut the hell up":

"When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at ...

"When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation ...

"When somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead ...

"This advice, Mr. Bush:

"Shut the hell up!"

Not to be outdone, Fox News now has two fulminating and frothing barkers of excessive opinion, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck.

Here's a recent sample from the voluble Beck:

"This is real. On tonight's show I'm going to just tie some of these things together. How the government is moving to nationalize banks, is setting salary caps for bailed out companies' executives, the dangers of the union card check, the move toward universal health care, including SCHIP to insure kids, and much more.

"And you might say, 'Oh that's crazy talk.' But I'm going to show you how these things happening today line up with some of the goings-on in history's worst socialist, fascist countries."

And who can forget MSNBC's Chris Matthews saying of listening to Barack Obama speak: "I felt this thrill going up my leg."

Satire is dead, at least when the target is television "news."

Thomas Mitchell is editor of the Review-Journal and writes on the role of the press and access to public information. He may be contacted at 383-0261 or via email at tmitchell@reviewjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/tmitchell.