Most people know the phrase "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore." But unless you are of qualifying age for AARP membership, you may not know the origin.
It came from the 1976 movie "Network," a comedy noir with an all-star cast and a delightfully sardonic screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, a noted television playwright of the small screen's pioneer days. "Network" told a tale of the television news business. A fictitious fourth network, UBS, had a news department with ratings in the tank versus ABC, CBS and NBC. Peter Finch, as veteran news anchor Howard Beale, was about to lose his job as part of a revamp of the news department by a program fixer from -- horror of horrors -- the entertainment side of the network.
Arriving late for what was to be his final evening newscast, he delivered an emotional, impromptu sermonette, appealing to a complacent and downtrodden silent majority. He urged viewers across the nation to rise up from their recliners, throw open their windows and shout the "mad as hell" message into the stormy night. It became part of the American lexicon. If the fictitious UBS newscast had a slogan, it could have been a paraphrase of the present-day Fox News tag: "We report. You shout outside."
The audience reaction was immediate and measurable. The overnight ratings skyrocketed. The slightly bonkers news anchor saved his job and became the centerpiece of the program fixer's revamp. The austere evening news became instead "The Howard Beale Show" with a nightly rant from Beale, prognosticators with polls and crystal balls and a studio audience. News in a three-ring circus. Sound familiar?
Forty years after the prescient Chayefsky script, we have Fox News, MSNBC and others on cable plus countless Internet news web sites. May God and Edward R. Murrow's ghost help us, some young adults actually get their news from a site called "Newsy." Newsy? OMG!
So broadcast news is entertainment in the 21st century. Life has imitated art from the last century. The only difference is that in the current day the man who ranted and raved on the living room screen urging us to act upon collective frustrations didn't expect that we'd tune in for the next news show. No. He wanted to be president.
And, in spite of my children's support of the lovable old curmudgeon from Vermont (who is even older than Dad!), and the Democrats' insistence that we follow up the first African-American president with the first woman president (you know, a redux of the "two for one" as said in Bill Clinton's first run), the voters and the Electoral College system ushered in Howard Beale -- uh -- Donald Trump.
Because, as did the fictitious citizens screaming out the windows in "Network," today's actual citizens wanted change and a change-maker.
As a conservative leaning toward center, I wanted to vote Republican. As I did in the last presidential election, I believed that in this era we need a businessman in the White House. But please, was there not someone, somewhere between an all-around-good-guy-yet-milquetoast-establishment Mitt Romney and loose cannon cheerleader Donald Trump?
At least, one could say, you knew what to expect with the Democrats and Hillary Clinton: Eight years of Obama leftovers, with one cup of equivocation added, stirred moderately and microwaved on the "Reheat" cycle. In the end, the latter was the problem for the Democrats.
My 92-year-old mother feared I would vote for the Republican. For the first time in her life she discussed politics with me, at least to the extent of one simple statement spoken last Mother's Day no less.
"I sure hope you aren't going to vote for that man who curses and says bad things about women on television," she lectured. "You have four daughters, Ted!" A long-time Southern Baptist church organist could still lay a guilt trip on the grown son, even in his mid-60s. Truthfully, I had thought such things without her prodding.
Unlike some acquaintances, I did not stay home on Election Day. I made my decision and proudly exercised my right. I may not have been part of the solution, but at least I was determined to fully participate in the problem. And while doing so I strongly suppressed an urge to shout unrestrained at the voting touch screen "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna vote like this anymore!"
Such lack of decorum would have terribly disappointed my dear mother, especially since my polling place is in a church. Instead, I will quietly pray for the best.
Commentary on 12/08/2016