When anger becomes a commodity

The film’s irony is ruthless. Beale’s rage, which begins as a genuine expression of human despair, quickly becomes a television concept. His fury is packaged, marketed, and sold. His authenticity turns into another entertainment format. The system he criticizes swallows him whole.

Here lies perhaps the film’s most prophetic dimension. Today, anger is one of the most profitable resources in existence. Algorithms reward whatever provokes strong emotions. Rage spreads faster than reflection. Outrage is currency.

What was a cynical vision of the future in Network has become everyday reality. Every social platform is filled with modern-day Howard Beales: people shouting their frustration, their fear, their fury. The difference is that today it is no longer just a TV network exploiting them — it is a system in which we all voluntarily participate, one that rewards our most extreme emotions with visibility.

We express our anger. But we rarely achieve change.

“I’m a human being — my life has value”

The most powerful moment in the speech is not the iconic outburst itself. It is the line just before it:
“I’m a human being, god damn it! My life has value!”

That is where the anger finds its moral center. This is not about hatred. It is about dignity.

Nearly fifty years later, that feeling is perhaps more threatened than ever. In a world where people are reduced to data points, clicks, likes, followers, and productivity metrics, the reminder of one’s intrinsic worth becomes almost radical. We are constantly measured — by performance, visibility, efficiency. And when we can no longer keep up with the measurements, we begin to feel replaceable.

Howard Beale’s cry is therefore not only an expression of anger. It is an attempt to reclaim his humanity in a system that has turned him into a function.

And isn’t that exactly where many of us find ourselves today?

The permanent crisis as background noise

Beale describes a world in which the news reports murder, violence, and disaster every night until it feels as if that is simply how the world is supposed to be. A normalization of chaos. When everything is a crisis, nothing is a crisis anymore — it becomes background noise.

In our time, this has accelerated beyond what the filmmakers could have imagined. We live in a permanent state of alarm. Climate crisis. Wars. Pandemics. Economic collapses. Political breakdowns. Technological threats. All in real time, in our pockets, twenty-four hours a day.

The result is paradoxical: the more we are exposed to the world’s suffering, the less capable we become of responding to it. Not because we are cold, but because we are overwhelmed. We protect ourselves by shutting down.

This is where Beale’s call gains its real power. He does not say: solve the problems. He says: wake up. Feel something again. Get angry — not to destroy, but to reconnect with the fact that you are alive.

Anger as the first step — but not the last

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Beale’s speech is that he is not advocating violence, revolution, or riots. He openly admits that he does not know what to do about inflation, unemployment, or the crises of the world. All he knows is that the first step is to stop being apathetic.

Anger is not the goal. It is the starting point.

This distinction matters deeply today, in a time when anger often becomes an end in itself. We rage in comment sections. We rage in feeds. We rage in talk shows and podcasts. But that rage rarely turns into anything constructive. It circulates, echoes, intensifies — and often leaves us more exhausted than before.

Network reminds us of something we have nearly forgotten: anger can be a sign that something inside us is still alive. But if it is not followed by action, reflection, and responsibility, it becomes just another segment in the entertainment machine.

From television windows to digital windows

When Beale urges people to open their windows and shout their frustration into the night, it is a powerful image. A collective moment of human connection through anger. Today, we have replaced physical windows with digital ones.

We no longer shout into the night — we post.

And the difference is greater than it seems. When people in the film lean out of their windows, it is an act of presence. Bodies in space. Voices in air. A shared moment in time. Today, we shout into systems that filter, sort, and optimize our cries for maximum impact — often not for change, but for engagement.

This does not mean digital voices are worthless. But it does mean we must understand that every expression of anger today is also raw material for someone else’s business model.

Howard Beale became a product. Today, we all risk becoming one.

A speech for our time — though written for another

What is remarkable about Network is that it does not feel dated. It feels as if it has been waiting for us — for our age of algorithms, polarization, and permanent crisis.

And perhaps that is exactly why it resonates so strongly. Because it does not only criticize society — it confronts our role within it.

We can continue to ask the world to leave us alone in our living rooms, with our screens and our comforts. Or we can do what Beale is really calling for: stop being silent consumers of chaos and start becoming active participants in our own lives.

Not by shouting louder than everyone else. But by taking our anger seriously as a signal that something must change — in ourselves, in our relationships, in our societies.

“My life has value” as an act of resistance

Perhaps the most radical act today is not to be angry, but to refuse to be reduced. To insist that your life is not just a data point, a productivity metric, or a voice in a stream.

When Howard Beale shouts that his life has value, it is an existential manifesto. In our time, when everything revolves around visibility, performance, and constant availability, that same sentence is still explosive.

My life has value — even when I am not producing.
My life has value — even when I am not visible.
My life has value — even when I am not profitable.

This is where Network ultimately meets our time most deeply. Not in its critique of the media, but in its reminder of the human being behind the screen.

A legacy of anger — and responsibility

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” has become a slogan, a meme, a quote often used with a touch of irony. But behind the words remains the same seriousness as in 1976: a human being refusing to be silenced by the indifference of the system.

The question is what we do with that feeling today.

Do we let it become just another moment of entertainment?
Or do we let it become the beginning of something else — a more conscious, more humane way of living in a world that often feels insane?

Howard Beale did not have all the answers. Neither do we. But perhaps he was right about one thing: before we can change the world, we must first dare to feel that something is wrong.

Not to shout into empty windows.
But to reclaim our voice, our dignity — and our humanity.

And maybe that is why a film clip from 1976 still hits at the very heart of our time. The world has changed on the surface. But the feeling inside the human being — of powerlessness, frustration, and a longing for meaning — remains almost the same.

We are still mad as hell.
The only question is what we choose to do with it.