https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/05/network-a-populist-classic/
1. There are two ways to watch a movie. You can look AT it, or you can look THROUGH it. Children and childish mentalities take things at face value. People who know better try to see the real face behind the facade, the mask. Of course, on some level, unmasking art/entertainment is ultimately futile because the face behind the mask is just another mask, and another face behind that mask is yet another mask. It's like those movie-within-a-movie conundrums: When we realize the movie we are watching is actually a movie-being-made-within-the-movie, the movie crew on screen is being shot by yet another movie crew behind the camera. So, no matter how many movie-within-a-movie tricks the movie pulls, there is always one more camera that remains outside the purview of the movie's space. That final/hidden camera can be revealed by directing it straight at a mirror, but that would hardly make for a movie.
Our paradoxical relation to arts/entertainment suggests much about the nature of the mind. People seek out art/entertainment for escape, illusion, magic, myth, and/or the narrative. Reality is so complex, confusing, chaotic, and multi-faceted that it's impossible to process and absorb all of it. Indeed, even without art/entertainment, the human mind selects, edits, simplifies, and even fabricates to produce versions of memories, possibilities, and dreams that it desires or finds justifying. Then, it's no wonder so many people have been drawn to storytelling, theater, and of course movies. Not because what those narrative forms offer is closer to reality but closer to how the mind works. Even the minds of non-creative people are always undergoing processes of selection, simplification, and fabrication. It indicates everyone is a 'liar' in a sense, but he/she just can't help it as the human mind can never process or accept the full truth. So, everyone holds onto his/her 'truth'. This would suggest the relativity of truth but not necessarily the equality of relativity, i.e. while every 'truth' may not be the whole truth, some people's versions of the truth are closer to reality than those of others are, especially as some people are ashamed of willfully speaking untruths while others are most anxious about exposing truths about themselves.
On the one hand, the myth-narrative-seeking part of our minds draw us to the fiction of art/entertainment. Fiction is especially appealing because the artist, conscious of what the audience wants, can bend the story and outcome to desired ends. (Also, just like Greek statues represented the ideals with which Greeks wanted to identify — the average Greek hardly resembled those near-perfect forms — , movie 'stars' serve as idols who add beauty and glamour even to 'ordinary' roles about regular folks. Joan Crawford plays 'every woman' in MILDRED PIERCE, but she is JOAN CRAWFORD after all.) No wonder most stories have happy endings or at least meaningful endings — even tragedies are comforting in that they acknowledge and lament the sorrows of characters when, if anything, actual reality is just part of a cold and uncaring universe.
Children are content with this aspect of story-telling as their minds are mush and don't know any better. But due to superstition, ignorance, and/or simpleminded 'innocence' in a provincial community OR due to stupidity, vulgarity, and/or infantilism in a decadent order(such as our globo-homo world), it's often the case that adults are childlike in succumbing under the Narrative spell. Whether it's all those adults who uncritically get their worldview from 'woke' Netflix TV shows or 'mainstream news'(which really should be called JSM, or Jewish Supremacist Media), they are such easy(and willing) suckers of the simpleminded Narrative, be it hysteria about 'white supremacy' or Russia Collusion nonsense. But then, there are 'white nationalist' types who cling to the 'Hitler did nothing wrong' narrative or still admire Donald Trump as some kind of heroic 'populist' when he's really a two-bit charlatan blowhard.
There is much talk of 'left' vs 'right', but possibly an even more useful dichotomy is the trusting/gullible vs skeptical/critical. On both the so-called 'left' and 'right', there are the trusting suckers. Among the 'right', they swallowed the stuff about WMD and 'Muh Israel'. Among the 'left', they swallowed the Russia Collusion Hoax and 'Trump is literally Hitler'. Only a minority of those on the 'right' were skeptical of GOP claims, and only a minority of those on the 'left'(like Aaron Mate and Matt Taibbi) questioned the veracity of Russia Collusion narrative. The skeptics on both 'left' and 'right' have deep underlying ideological differences, but what they have in common is the unwillingness to blindly trust authority or swallow the official narrative. George Orwell stood out because he was a skeptical leftist who, when push came to shove, sought the factual truth & personal meaning over the Official Truth & Political Expediency. But for every Orwell, there were surely 100 or even 1000 party hacks.
In contrast, there is a kind of mindset that puts on X-ray glasses and tries to look (all the way)THROUGH the narrative. Such an approach considers all works of art/entertainment to be expressions of power or an agenda. It is committed to showing how any piece of art or entertainment functions essentially as a socio-political tool or instrument, consciously or unconsciously on the part of the artist or entertainer(who too is a cultural-political product of the world around him). It could be a junky piece of entertainment or serious work of art, but it cannot exist independently of the 'politics' of power: Every idea is intrinsically political as it posits its favored view of how things should be, or every idea is molded or exploited by the Power, EVEN IF it runs counter to the basic nature of the ruling Power. (Christianity was the Reigning Idea among powerful men of Western Civilization who hardly obeyed Jesus in their ruthless lust for power and greed... though one wonders if the West was about good men forced to be bad[sometimes] or bad men compelled or inspired to be good[sometimes] — while most men prefer the good over the bad, they cannot be good all the time to maintain order in a dangerous world, and even bad men come to realize the universality of badness will engulf & destroy them as well if everyone acts like a gangster, i.e. bad men can thrive only as parasites of good men, just like big bad wolves rely on the existence of good gentle sheep; if even sheep turned into wolves, there would only be wolves killing wolves, which is why even bad wolves must ensure an order in which the goodness of sheep is encouraged, if only for the purpose of feeding on the sheep.)
A pop culture rendition of this take on arts/culture was in THEY LIVE by John Carpenter, the movie where a special pair of glasses reveal the real truth behind the official truth. And of course, there is the meme of the 'red pill' in THE MATRIX. (Unfortunately, both works show that even truth-seeking is as often illusory or delusional as the Official Story. According to John Carpenter, modern capitalism wants people to lead traditional family-centered lifestyles, and THE MATRIX was made by a pair of brothers whose 'higher sense of reality' eventually led them to becoming a pair of 'sisters'.) This approach can be illuminating but also lead one down the path of madness. Jean-Luc Godard grew increasingly neurotic and obsessed as he sought to deconstruct cinema from within. He became allergic to creativity because his radical critical sensibility came to regard poetics and narrative as comforting 'bourgeois' lies. Pier Paolo Pasolini's later worthless films are the result of the creative mind being undermined by a critical one. It takes a truly gifted, subtle, playful, and/or twisted mentality to pull it off, as with Luis Bunuel, Alain Resnais, David Mamet, David Lynch, Kon Ichikawa, and David Cronenberg. But generally, creativity and criticality neutralize one another as the former is about putting things together whereas the latter is about taking them apart. Bunuel's seemingly effortless juggling of both modes partly owed to his surrealist background, a sensibility that approached art and life like dream and consciousness. He managed to slip in and out between the realms. 'Duochotomy' was his thing.
Though the skeptical/speculative mindset is ideally for boring through falsehood to get to the truth, it has itself been turned into a tool of power by (intellectual)Critical Theory and (popular)Sensual Hysterics. But then, who would have thought Franz Kafka's critique of power as mystery cult would serve as blueprint for Jewish Power as a devious form of oppression by obfuscation. Youtube and other Jewish-controlled social platforms seem willfully Kafkaesque in devising ever more vague and ambiguous 'terms of service' to purge and erase voices they don't like, and the deplatformed are often left in the dark as to what exactly they did wrong. But then, maybe Orson Welles was onto something when he said Joseph K. in THE TRIAL isn't merely a passive-victim figure but an assertive and aggressive one. Though Welles said this in sympathy with Jews(especially in light of what happened in the Shoah), it implies that Joseph K. would love to turn the tables and do everything the Power does(and then some) when the likes of him get the chance.
So much of academic 'deconstruction' is about unraveling and dismantling one kind of 'narrative' — the 'white-male Euro-centric patriarchal hetero-normative blah blah — as the WRONG kind of power, but it is totally invested in propping and protecting the myths of certain other groups, especially Jews, blacks, and homos. But an agenda that is committed to exposing only one kind of narrative while 'empowering' other kinds cannot be for the higher truth. If anything, it too merely serves as a tool of the Agenda.
If evil and injustice is found only in People A while only good things must be said of People B, then the only permissible truth becomes as follows: Even the Truths of People A are 'false', whereas even the Lies of People B are 'true'. The current West is under this kind of spell, which is why white people are 'bad' even when they do good — remove all those portraits of great white male scientists and doctors because such displays are 'triggering' even though those men made tremendous contributions to humanity — , whereas blacks are 'good' even when they do so much bad as the main perpetrators of violent acts all across America, e.g. BLM nonsense that had so many PC idiots believing(or wanting so desperately to believe) that angelic and innocent blacks are being murdered wholesale by 'racist' white cops... or is there a kind of nihilism afoot among the Negrophiles as if to imply that blacks are so cool, badass, and awesome as athletes, rappers, and gangstas that they cannot be judged by lame 'white' rules, i.e. lions, as kings of the jungle, have license to treat other animals as they see fit? Of course, Jews get the same red carpet treatment. So, if Jews want to sanction Russia, destroy Iran, wreak havoc on Syria, and crush Palestinians, well, just let them and cheer them on because they are 'made men' and above the rules that apply only to the rest of humanity. They are the god-men among the human species.
The fact that so many academics, especially Jewish ones, are so obsessively 'deconstructive' of certain narratives while being protective of others suggests there isn't much in the way of integrity or consistency among intellectuals and scholars. Of course, the general pattern is 'Jews lead and goyim follow', i.e. if you want to know what most goyim are 'thinking', just go to the source that is the Jewish mind/mouth... just like all of the Nile River can be traced back to its source up high in the mountains. Most goy thought is just lower-river streams that ultimately flow from the Jewish Mind-Mountain-Lake. If Jews say 'homophobia bad', goyim say it too. If Jews say 'tranny men are women', goyim are soon nodding along... and even so-called 'conservatives' either agree or dare not oppose the New Normal Narrative because... it flows from the Holy Jewish Mind.
In this sense, DUCK SOUP was more prophetic than satirical. We laugh at the movie as the goyim are led by the nose by the Jews, but the very same thing is happening all around in our world but no one seems to get the joke. What are Iraq War, Russia Collusion Hoax, and Sodomania but DUCK SOUP writ large and done straight(at least for the craven and/or dimwit goyim as surely the Jews are laughing behind closed doors). The Jewish Way is less concerned with truth or justice than power. It doesn't 'deconstruct' or invalidate all official narratives for a clearer understanding of the truth but selectively targets certain narratives to better serve other official or favored narratives. Some Jews admit to this but justify it on grounds of justice, i.e. sure, they do indeed push certain narratives and myths but in order to lend aid to the oppressed, under-represented, and unheard. But for the most part, the real motive is power. After all, if Jews are opposed to all forms of racial discrimination, why did they focus on the American South and South Africa but not on the Zionist treatment of Palestinians?
Both Afrikaners and Zionists understood one thing. The only way to maintain a successful form of identity-centered imperialist colonization is by apartheid if genocide is not an option. Genocide is the most effective tool of imperialism as the histories of the US and Australia show. Remove the native population wholesale and replace them with newcomers, the settlers and immigrants. The other way is by race-mixing, what the Spanish carried out in the New World, which is why the descendants still get to rule what is called Latin America. But Afrikaners and Jews didn't want to race mix with the natives, respectively blacks and Palestinians/Arabs. Then, the ONLY way they could build stable colonies was by apartheid, especially true in West Bank where Jews have been a minority like whites in South Africa. But if Zionists understood this all too well, why didn't they acknowledge the same need among white Afrikaners in South Africa, especially in light of the fact that South Africa and Israel were close allies? In retrospect, Israel and South Africa were more like pimp-and-whore than partners-in-crime as Afrikaners bent over backwards for Jews, whereas Jews only halfheartedly supported South Africa(not least because Israel was so bereft of friends), all the while working behind the scenes to undermine white rule by using ANC to forge a new alliance of black politics and Jewish capital? The lesson to be learned is the alliance between the white right and Zionism is bound to be futile because white good faith will suffer from Jewish bad faith — whites promise and deliver to Jews whereas Jews only pretend to promise and don't deliver to whites; indeed, the 'ultra-right' Jewish wing exists not to pressure other Jews to make good with whites but to give false hope to the White Right that Jewish Power will eventually be pro-white, at least on condition that whites praise Jews to high heaven and support Israel 100%. (Saudi Arabia seems to be the new 'ally' of Israel.) If Jews are serious about justice, they should have been just as strongly opposed to Zionist treatment of Palestinians. Israel should have been pressured to produce its own DeKlerk who'd offer peace by letting Arabs gain political control of Israel/Palestine. But the very Jews who made such shrill noises about South African apartheid did everything to pressure the US to support Zionism 100%. And why did Jews especially care about blacks or pretend to? Because they profited greatly from blacks in music and sports. Moreover, blacks, as the biggest and most vocal minority in the US, could be used to exploit 'white guilt', thereby robbing whites of pride, autonomy, & agency and rendering them ever apologetic & servile to Jews(and their allies such as blacks and homos). So, Jewish skepticism is ultimately really just for show. It's like what Kevin MacDonald said of Noam Chomsky.
Granted, all sides are hypocritical in selectively targeting falsehoods. Every side has myths to bust and myths to protect. Russia hasn't been fully honest about WWII and still clings to many myths, just like US and Japan do about the Pacific War albeit for different reasons. The CCP of China justifies its rule on Maoist myths. Still, because Jews are the most powerful people in the world and the most vocal in self-righteous indignation, their hypocrisy rings louder. When Jews endlessly invoke the Shoah while acting like Judeo-Nazis, they've taken hypocrisy to a whole new level. And they are utterly shameless in this, just like Ron Jeremy sucking his own dic*. Take Adam Schiff and his Portnoy-Politics.
That said, everyone would do better if they learned to look THROUGH than merely look AT the movie... just like everyone needs to read between the lines. NETWORK as a movie that is merely looked-at is an utterly dishonest movie. Arabs and the US media indeed! Granted, the movie came out when the world was reeling from the Oil Shock when Arab Sheiks were riding high and when the Cold War was still on, with the Soviet Union backing several Arab nations against Israel. It was a time when OPEC really did shake the world, not least because Arabs were furious with US backing of Israel in the 1973 War. It was a time when the Arabs still felt confident to launch a war against Israel(though it was largely to regain territory stolen by Israel in the 1967 war). That said, the movie's notion that US media are unduly controlled by Arabs sounds like something from Alex Jones. (Sidney Lumet's political drama POWER with Richard Gere also has something about the Ay-rabs, though the most outrageous anti-Arab movie is surely William Friedkin's RULES OF ENGAGEMENT that could properly be called genocidalist.) So, if we're dealing with the movie that is only looked-at, NETWORK is a steaming pile of manure.
However, as a movie that is looked-through, NETWORK is paradoxically all the more 'honest' and revealing for its very dishonesty. After all, had NETWORK been candid about Jewish control of the media, it would have been just a mundane fact. It is precisely because it deflects our view from the truth that the movie isn't just about but of the Power. And this Power, though willing to support the production of a stinging satire, also used it as attire to dress up the truth. Indeed, NETWORK is more 'shatire' than satire. It is shtick-satire, one purporting to go out on a limb to tell it like it is, all the while turning our gaze from the actual truth as to who really controls the media and why. But for those who see THROUGH the movie, this very act of deception makes the work all the more revealing and 'honest' about the true nature of Jewish Power, i.e. we can't rely on it to be straight with us. It's like a psychologist can find a lot of truths in the lies of the patients. If anything, the lies may be more revealing than the truths as to their mentality.
There needs to be a project, especially among the dissident right, to spread the art of looking-through something. Don't just see what is on the screen but always ask yourself (1) who controls the media and entertainment (2) what is their worldview and self-perception (3) what is their agenda (4) how do they feel about most people and do they regard most people as their fellow brethren or members of the Other (5) what narratives and tropes have they developed over the years to mold the minds of the mostly childlike masses who only know how to look AT movies and TV (6) am I watching like a gullible child or a thinking adult?
One reason why many in the dissident right are more astute about Hollywood movies and TV is because they understand who controls those industries, and furthermore, they know the nature of the Power behind them. If so many 'woke' folks uncritically soak up PC slop served by the entertainment industry(and educational institutions), those on the dissident right are more likely to have X-ray glasses that see through the programming.
That said, people generally lose their sense of criticality when they see something that confirms their biases. So, in Fascist Italy, Mussolini's minions were likely mindless in their adulation and absorption of official propaganda whereas the dissident Marxists were some of the most penetrating critics of the use of propaganda. And the Frankfurt School reached its intellectual apex when the Left was still operating in the margins of the capitalist system. Some of the best criticism of arts and entertainment in the 20th century were produced by Jews and leftists who, at the time, felt alienated from the capitalist order for ideological or tribal reasons. Instead of swallowing the Official Narratives and Prevailing Mores whole hog, Jews chose to look behind the curtain, lift up the dress, and unzip the fly to reveal and expose what White/Christian Society is really about. (Back then, many Jews were on the Real Left, which is no longer the case as the current 'left' is all about celebration of globo-homo glitterati who serve Wall Street and Las Vegas. Also, if most Jews are affluent and privileged today, the class divide within the Jewish community was much wider back then, and many poor and less fortunate Jews felt betrayed by the Jewish Rich who seemed like a bunch of Wasp-wanna-be's, a bunch of Uncle Shloms.) It suggests that if the 'white nationalist' right had control of media and entertainment, it might churn out its own brand of 'woke' myths that so many of its minions might slobber up mindlessly whereas the left(and Jews) might make the most interesting critics of culture.
2. One problem with NETWORK is the tonal inconsistency. Take the assassination plot, which would have worked in the vein of absurdism or black comedy, and there are moments in the movie that come close to political parody or hallucination. After all, the Howard Beale Show is, even in our decrepit times, too outlandish for TV. It belongs in something like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM by Darren Aronofsky that teeters between reality and fantasy throughout. In contrast, there is too much that seems real, believable, and plausible in NETWORK for the more outlandish moments to work(and vice versa). Schumacher(William Holden)'s middle age crisis is in keeping with 70s dramatic realism, and the movie establishes from the beginning that it's about an industry of cold(and rational) calculation. So, the ludicrous assassination plot at the end is hard to swallow, especially as it's peddled as a 'business' decision, pure and simple. To put forth that level of sinister conspiratorial paranoia, the work has to be in the mode of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, PARALLAX VIEW, NIGHT MOVES, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, KILLER ELITE, BLOW OUT, or THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. Those works map out alt-reality landscapes of such convoluted anxieties that anything is possible. They fit right in with the paranoid fantasy genre. But there is too much of the human story and cold business angle in NETWORK to make the assassination plot even faintly credible. It's self-defeating to establish a somewhat believable world and then conclude with an ending that makes no real-world sense whatsoever. Of course, there were plenty of real killers then as now. But the idea of people in a corporate office just hatching a plot out of the blue to hire radicals to kill a TV personality? THE GODFATHER PART II just barely made the assassination of Hyman Roth believable, but the ending of NETWORK is unearned, especially in light of what came before. I understand Paddy Chayefsky wanted Beale to be 'crucified' on air — he wanted to end it with a bang, a big bang — , but he couldn't have conceived of a more unconvincing scenario. The corporate murder in MICHAEL CLAYTON was believable because a woman of ambition with so much at stake felt compelled to go over the edge to save her company and her future. She went rogue, and she acted outside company policy. But would it have been believable if a bunch of corporate execs sat around and decided to hire assassins to take out the whistle-blower? Duvall's Hackett is supposed to be as cold and calculating as they come, yet he hatches a hare-brained plot that is utterly reckless and stupid? And Dunaway's Christensen is there in the office just nodding along? Can anyone imagine execs and managers at CNN, FOX, or NBC sitting around the office hatching a plot to hire killers to take out a TV show host?
Now, it's true that the kind of people who run US industry and institutions are as sick, demented, and vile as they come. Yes, they are cold-blooded sociopaths who are capable of anything if they could get away with it. US government is run by goons who go about sabotaging nations and killing countless people around the world. And US media are run by Zionists and their stooges who push the Judeo-Nazi Narrative. That's all true, but can anyone imagine members of the media industry in an office agreeing to hire radical nutjobs to actually take out a TV personality? They are sick and vile, but they're not crazy. Also, why would radicals agree to the assassination? They'll just end up in jail or dead. Why would they serve corporate capitalists? Chayevsky wanted a big loud ending but hadn't the skill, imagination, or energy to come up with something halfway convincing. Thus, the assassination in NETWORK is as unsatisfying as the one in APOCALYPSE NOW.
3. The 1970s were a legendary period in American Cinema, but there were some titles I simply didn't care to watch. CABARET(dir. Bob Fosse) and NETWORK were among them. I finally forced myself to watch CABARET after reading T. Lynch's review, and yes, it is terrible, and my suspicions had been correct all along. I tried watching NETWORK about 15 yrs ago but gave up because of the phoniness. As John Simon wrote in his review(available in compilation REVERSE ANGLE), "Purporting to dispense wittily devastating inside information, this crude film really panders to whatever is smug and pseudosophisticated in an audience of self-appointed insiders; their smart-alecky laughter was not inspiring to hear." Indeed, one wonders about a satire of TV media that was actually embraced by media people. It's like Robert Altman's THE PLAYER was embraced by Hollywood as a love letter(and THE GODFATHER was beloved by gangsters, SCARFACE was the fave of thugs, WALL STREET only inspired more greed, and WOLF OF WALL STREET turned Jordan Belfort into a folk hero). Besides, I'm sure the media people loved being associated with radical chic, GODFATHER-like intrigue, glam girl Faye Dunaway, legendary movie star William Holden, and Hollywood in general. Because of this review by T. Lynch, I made myself watch the whole thing, and all in all, it seems a well-made lousy movie, and the blame really goes to Chayefsky than Lumet, a capable director who was only as good as the material at hand. Lumet wasn't a great director, but he made two great films: DOG DAY AFTERNOON and PRINCE OF THE CITY and some good ones, especially SERPICO and VERDICT. If bad directors can't even serve good material and if very great directors can redeem even bad material into something of worth, Lumet had enough talent to make a good movie out of good material. NETWORK is akin to one of Lumet's worst films: THE PAWNBROKER. Both are miserable imaginations of over-zealous Jewish writers who fancy themselves as important artists. As such, both received more plaudits than they really deserved. THE PAWNBROKER imitated European Art Cinema and grappled with the Holocaust in heavy-duty manner. It was so pregnant with significance and meaning. And the symbolism, like when a butterfly is caught in a net when the Nazis come to get the Jews! It was Bergman 101. Though NETWORK is different in tone, it too is the product of an over-ambitious and over-arching Jewish personality with BIG things to say. There's more noise than nose for truth, but the generally middlebrow American cultural sensibility usually fell for such tripe. (BROADCAST NEWS was also much celebrated for much the same reason. Highbrow critics were less enthralled than the middlebrow ones for obvious reasons. If a critic traverses Olympian heights in search of the very best, he won't be much impressed by the likes of NETWORK or ANNIE HALL. Middle of the mountain isn't impressive to ones at the top. But for the regular 'mainstream' reviewer who's required to watch all the flotsam in the valley, something halfway up the mountain seems truly special.)
Is NETWORK populist? Actually, its thrust is closer to anti-populism as the public is presented as a bunch of dummies. In a way, it's a darker version of MEET JOHN DOE, just like THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST is a darker version of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. If George Bailey opts for Bedford Falls after a tour of Pottersville, Jesus chooses to be crucified in Pottersville after an idyll in Bedford Falls. In a way, NETWORK turns MEET JOHN DOE on its head, though, to be sure, there is an anti-populist strain in Frank Capra's movie as well. Even though Gary Cooper's John Doe comes to connect with good ordinary folks of Americana, there is also the disturbing sense that all these people, though decent and well-meaning, are so childlike, naive, gullible, i.e. easy to manipulate. Uh-shucks is for the suckers. Goodness makes people trusting, and that trust can be exploited by unscrupulous men. (The Trust Culture of Scandinavia certainly turned people there into putty in Jewish Hands.) Though the movie does end on a triumphant note with 'John Doe' even stirring the heart of a rich 'crypto-fascist' fatso, one of the most striking scenes is the big rally near the end when the very people who'd idolized John Doe suddenly want him destroyed. (It seems the Power was adept at pulling 'Charlottesville' back then too.) MEET JOHN DOE is about a hoax that turns real through the power of the heart. The woman who created the fiction of 'John Doe' really falls in love with him, and the hoodwinked public comes to see him as a savior. And 'John Doe', who agreed to the stunt for the money and comes to regret it undergoes a transformation where he really becomes John Doe, a kind of modern-day christ... just like the thief in Akira Kurosawa's KAGEMUSHA really comes to believe in the myth of the Takeda Clan. Even if the cult of Doe was a hoax, the Message remains true and may redeem a nation with love and trust. In that sense, MEET JOHN DOE is genuinely populist.
One of the problems of NETWORK is the pomo-like confusion of tones and styles. Both Chayefsky and Lumet came of age before the 60s and yet were mindful of the profound changes and capitalized on them. Thus, NETWORK feels somewhat like a New Hollywood movie along those of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and William Friedkin. But despite the F-words and sexual material, the basic formula(and it is a formula) owes to Old Hollywood flicks like HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Dunaway's performance is essentially a throwback to Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell. She is aping others than creating her own character(much like she did in the role of Joan Crawford in MOMMIE DEAREST but at least that was intentional), but then, what could she do with Chayevsky's script laden with caricatures who endlessly speechify than converse? William Holden's Schumacher is a tad more realistic, but his farewell speech to her is a rehash of similar moments in so many other movies. (He talks about changing times and fading of traditional sense of honor and all that, but it sounds more generational than cultural. The father played by Melvyn Douglas said much the same thing in HUD where Paul Newman was the titular anti-hero. There's a similar mourning in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. However, in CHINATOWN, it is the old man who is the nihilist capable of anything.) At least George Peppard had a cat to entice Holly Golightly with in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. Chayevsky turned the stuff of screwball comedy into nuts-and-bolt satire. It's too old-fashioned and formulaic for New Hollywood, and too brash & vulgar for old time's sake. But perhaps, that accounted for the movie's success. It had something for everyone, for the young and hip as for the old and in need of hip-replacement. Another movie of that same year, ROCKY, did a better job of updating Hollywood formula back into relevance. To be sure, both owed their success to the fairy-tale element of underdog myth. The white palooka from Philadelphia fights the black champion and goes the distance. An aging newsman being forced into retirement gets a second wind and becomes a national sensation. ROCKY understood itself to be updated formula that fused THE CHAMP with ON THE WATERFRONT and SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME with some gritty 70s realism.
In contrast, NETWORK goes for significance and meaning, but it actually has far less to say than something like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST or TAXI DRIVER. One reason was Chayefsky's unwillingness to go all in. There is too much of the ideologue, hack professional, entertainer, and charlatan to push the vision and its implications all the way through. Agree or disagree with Ken Kesey or Paul Schrader, they really dug deep to create Randle McMurphy and Travis Bickle. Even if one despaired of their takes on humanity, one couldn't help feeling they were true to themselves. With Chayefsky, there was always the sense that he was writing for effect. Instead of exploring his own creative space as a sacrosanct reserve of art, he was too mindful of how it would go over with the audience; his sensibility, closer to that of a sitcom writer than a visionary, was hardly distinguishable from the very culture he lambastes in the screenplay. As such, he was closer to talented hacks like Aaron Sorkin, David Simon, and Steve Zaillian. NETWORK feels like a work of a baseball pitcher or door-to-door salesman than an artist. There's too much strategizing, which undermines the integrity of the satire. What use is a satire that panders and peddles? It's like snake-oil sold as antidote to snake-oil. Chayevsky is as manipulative with the audience as Jensen(Ned Beatty) is with Beale in the movie.
NETWORK fans populism on the surface but is deeply hostile to the masses, or the goy masses. Unlike John Doe who was a mere fabrication of a lady reporter, Peter Finch's transformation as Howard Beale(for whom TV becomes the Beaming Bush) is real enough. He heard a 'voice', and he breaks down and rises from the ashes. He really means it, and he's the author of his own madness. Unlike Barbara Stanwyck's character in MEET JOHN DOE, Dunaway's Christensen did not invent the New Howard Beale. Still, she has something in common with Stanwyck's character in that she's eager to capitalize on the Beale phenomenon as her ticket up the corporate ladder. Also, she's hooked to the sensationalism of celebrity culture. The key difference between is that Stanwyck's character, despite all the cynicism and vanity, does have a heart and soul. She invests what she knew of her own father into John Doe and falls in love with 'him' and feels affection for all the lives he touches. She becomes a true believer. She is 'saved'.
Christensen is truly a soulless creature. There is nothing outside the career. In a way, she's more monstrous than Dominique Francon in THE FOUNTAINHEAD. At the very least, despite her elitism and snobbery, Francon did believe in something and was willing to die for it. For her, Howard Roark is the ideal man, the visionary and artist and a stud to boot. For him and what he stands for, she is willing to go to any length. So, her monstrosity is not without mythic overtones and redemptive qualities. In contrast, Christensen believes in nothing but the business and the buzz. Despite her drive and energy, she is truly a petty person, and in that sense, she isn't even truly monstrous, which would at least be a recognizable quantity. Monstrosity at least has the power of passion. She is driven but passionless. She is like a machine with pistons than a woman with a heart, even a wicked heart. As such, she is amoral than immoral, cold-blooded than evil. Stanwyck's character ultimately confirms populist sentimentalism. Dunaway's character negates it.
As for Peter Finch's Beale, he is the opposite of Gary Cooper's Doe. Doe begins as a faker who agreed to the stunt for fast money but transforms into a genuine hero of the people. Even when the people reject him as a fraud, he sticks with the mission with personal pride to keep the populist flame alive. It's like the cast-out thief in KAGEMUSHA continues to deeply care for the clan even after he's exposed and expelled from it. Doe goes from a mildly corruptible nobody to a genuine man of the people with iron resolve, a man who cannot be bought. In contrast, the New Howard Beale begins as a genuine article who is 'mad as hell' and means every word to virtually a corporate mouthpiece that might as well be a sockpuppet of Ned Beatty's Arthur Jensen.
To be sure, the sudden transformation in Beale isn't the result of corruption or coercion but manipulation and quasi-hypnosis. It could be that Jensen doesn't really believe his own words. What really matters is he senses where Beale is coming from: A 'spiritual' space, and therefore, he knows he cannot win over Beale with reasoned argument, data & statistics, or a friendly plea. And Beale cannot be bought. He knows that Beale is in the mode of John the Baptist, the one calling out from the wilderness. Or maybe Beale even feels like a christ figure. One cannot reason with such a person. One cannot change him with threats as he believes he's on a 'mission from god'(like the Blues Brothers). The ONLY way to reach him is by convincing him that an even higher 'spiritual' authority is speaking to him. And this is what Jensen pulls off so masterfully. He knows he has to take 'possession' of Beale's soul like the Devil with the girl Regan in THE EXORCIST. He understands Beale is a 'modern-day prophet' who hears voices. Then, he must be the bigger Voice and lay out his agenda as a kind of worldwide jeremiad. And this is what wins Beale over. He isn't consciously but subconsciously corrupted. Beale thinks he heard the voice of god when, in fact, all Jensen did is pull off a quasi-televangelist shtick. (Perhaps, one of the problems of the movie is Too Many Characters as they undermine the subjectivity that is so palpable at times. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM works better because it's limited to a handful of characters caught in tailspins of their own fantasies. Same goes for TAXI DRIVER, which is mostly Travis Bickle and his madness. In contrast, the intensifying subjective weirdness of Beale is constantly undercut by more mundane matters of other characters. Indeed, the assassination plot at the end might have worked as a paranoid fantasy of Beale who's overcome with persecution complex. But we are supposed to believe something that loony was decided by cold calculating operators inside a corporate office.
Anyway, NETWORK seems less a work about populism than about prophetism. Other than people screaming out the windows, "I'm mad as hell, I can't take it anymore", there's hardly anything about the People in the movie. If anything, the people themselves must be the problem because, like hopeless fools glued to their tellies in TRUMAN SHOW, they can't turn off the tube even after Beale urged them to. Indeed, even their anti-TV 'liberation' and 'resistance' must come by way of TV. They can't think of anything to say on their own and can only repeat the mantra heard on TV, and it's something so trite as "I'm mad as hell, I can't take it anymore." Now, what would people in NY be mad about in the 1970s? There was black crime. Despite problems of terrorism and radicalism, the the vast majority of daily horrors in NY came from street thugs and the like. But NETWORK won't touch that nerve and confess that so many Jewish Liberals & Leftists were mugged by reality(which they finally reversed with anti-black Stop-and-Frisk & Section 8 policies in New York and other cities). NETWORK won't admit that most NYers were mad-as-hell about black crime, just like the THE EXORCIST focused public attention on a satanic fantasy than the horrors of black crime in Washington D.C. that was the real horror show of America. But as Americans feared being labeled 'racist', they had to direct their fear of blacks into something else. There was also family breakdown, rampant drug use, city life coarsened by the spread of porn theaters & strip clubs, much of it thanks to the work of Jewish lawyers. In other words, the hell that so many people seem so angry about in the movie was created by themselves(though, to be sure, corruption of the masses was hastened and encouraged from above, esp the Jews). At any rate, no one forced Schumacher to leave his wife and hurt her in the worst way. So, the movie seems to be implying that, even though the elites may be up to no good, the problem is largely with people who themselves are petty, selfish, short-sighted, vain, irresponsible, and/or always eager to blame the Other. Before they are mad at the world, they should be mad at themselves.
The problem for a Leftist Jew like Chayefksy was he was too smart to know the problem wasn't only with the Big Fish, but he was too ideological to admit leftist bankruptcy in regards to People Power, he was too Jewish(an identity that is intrinsically tribal-supremacist) to feel genuine connection with the masses(mostly dimwit goyim), and he was too stuck-up & devious to admit what was truly bothering him.
One part of Jewishness is extremely elitist and disdains the goy masses, the angry mobs with pitchforks. After all, Jews historically collaborated with European kings and noblemen in the 'exploitation' and 'oppression' of the masses. But the Jewish consciousness as outcast or outsider led to the rise of radical politics among many of the Tribesmen, and this shaped the other side of Jewishness. Prior to NETWORK, Chayefksy's main claim to fame was for MARTY, which won Best Picture Oscar and praise from French critics who valued it as a counterpoint to Hollywood of glamour. But the film was quickly forgotten as a humdrum American take on neo-realism. It was an earnest story of little people, the lonely people, with small but genuine dignity. One might say it belonged to the leftist-humanist school, and yet something was a bit off. Overly simplistic and even condescending, as if such 'little people' needed a man like Chayefsky as their cultural agent and spokesman. Ultimately, they came across less as real people than reheated leftover from Popular Front conceits. It was like Barton Fink's very conscious but rather disingenuous commitment to the People, the Little Guys. Does he really want to hear their stories or does he want to tell them what their stories should be?
Also, Jews and populism don't really mix, at least in a goy majority society. After all, the history of populism in Europe hasn't been good for Jews. Usually, it was about pitchfork-wielding peasants and commoners screaming "We are mad as hell, we are not gonna take it anymore." They were angry with the kings, noblemen, and Jews, but when things got too hot, the goy elites conveniently used Jews as scapegoats for all the problems(just like Jews today scapegoat everyone but themselves for the problems of Globalism). Populism meant Jewish ghettos being attacked or Jews being hounded out of yet another kingdom or province. Jews feared the mob like Frankenstein did. Therefore, one side of Jewishness has been eager to snuff out any sign of populism. This was evident in Jewish alarmism over Donald Trump and his America First crowd. Many Jews hallucinated Hitler and Pogroms.
But Jews are nothing if not clever, and they know it's safer to hedge their bets. While one side of Jewishness attacks & denounces populism, mass politics, & cult of people power, another side of Jewishness has tried to usurp & appropriate such for their own purposes. (Consider how both OCCUPY WALL STREET and the TEA PARTY were led astray by the Jewish 'left' and the Jewish 'right'.) The grandest manifestation of such strategy was Jewish involvement with communism. Historically, People Power meant the masses rising up and attacking the rich and/or members of the 'alien' community, notably the Jews. Then, what if Jews were to lead a mass movement and gain control of mass rage by directing popular fury at the rich? While communism was bound to hurt all rich folks, Jews and goyim, at the very least it would open paths for Jews to advance themselves as rulers, intellectuals, managers, and commissars. And even though communists could attack the rich, they could not attack people for being Jewish, and that was a huge advantage. This tension within the Jew that is both anti-populist and pro-populist is at the heart of Coen Brothers' BARTON FINK. On the one hand, Fink is eager to befriend and persuade the big hulking goy played by John Houseman that they are on the same team. The big boy is one of The People, and he, Barton Fink, is for the People. But in a way, his desperation to win over the big hulking goy betrays fear and anxiety. It's like a lion and a lion-tamer. Unless the lion-tamer can persuade the lion that they are on the same team, the lion may devour him. And a similar tension is felt throughout NETWORK. On one level, Chayefsky seems to be speaking for the People against the corporate elites, but on another level, he seems to be fuming with repressed contempt for the dumb, stupid, and childish masses who not only can be so easily manipulated but demand to be served a steady diet of Manichean fairy-tales of heroes and villains.
In a way, the 60s undid the Jewish hope for populism. In the new order, Jews chose Pop-Culturalism instead. For populism to work, the masses need some dignity, which is what the characters in MARTY have. They aren't refined or sophisticated folks, but they have a sense of norms, limits, and responsibilities. They have self-restraint and can find joy in small things in life. But to have such a society, ultra-libertinism must be kept in check. Also, young ones must respect the elders. It must be a society of middle class values, one where blacks seek freedom on grounds that they want to be a credit to their race. Both MARTY and RAISIN IN THE SUN belong in this school. But the 60s happened, and Jews played a big role in it. It was about liberation from all restraints, and it was an exciting decade... but also a destructive, degrading, and demented one. Immature youth culture came to define the new American values, blacks got shameless in their craziness, drug use & sexual wantonness spread to the working class, and so on.
Rich people can afford nice things and put on sophisticated airs; they have a sense of self-worth. In contrast, the ONLY advantage the have-nots and have-lesses possess is morality and dignity. It's what the Joad Family has in THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Pa Joad doesn't have an ass tattoo, and Ma Joad doesn't have green hair and a nose ring. And the kids don't emulate skanks. The 60s and early 70s were a time of great prosperity, more choice, and more possibilities for everyone; and those were good things. But all that sudden wealth and freedom led to so many bad choices among many people. Working class youths aspired to be like drug-addled rock stars. Hardcore pornography was legalized and even made their rounds in small towns. People were surely having more fun, and things were more 'groovy' and 'far out', but the Little People were robbed of the one advantage they used to have over the rich: Quiet dignity and moral commitment to family, church, and country. Fast forward to today, and we have the elites putting on airs and denouncing the masses as a 'basket of deplorables'. A basket, like they're pieces of bread gone bad or something. The rich got the credentials and connections, the sophistication(even if just the faux kind) and the right kind of education that bestows badge of 'progressivism' to the initiated — Chelsea Clinton feels morally superior because she knows exactly what to pontificate about, such as globo-homo. In the past, the have-nots and have-lesses at least stood firm on their morals and dignity, but after generations of Rock-Sex-Drug culture, Howard Stern & Jerry Springer, and Porn & Party mentality to define the New Populism, the lower orders don't even have that. There was a time when even Smarties had a grudging respect for the Martys of the world, but Marty became Farty-Party. Without pride and dignity, it doesn't matter that globalism has turned Farty-Party into an economic martyr because no one cares about 'deplorables' and 'white trash' lacking in dignity. Born in 1923, Chayevsky belonged to the so-called Greatest Generation, and so, the formative influences would have been marked by the Popular Front, Great Depression, and World War II. As a radical, he would have been excited by changes in the 60s but also alienated by the rampant hedonism and devil-may-care nihilism. One wonders if ALTERED STATES, his last major work, was a commentary on how 60s adventurism in sex, drugs, and authenticity(the fusion of science and spirituality) crashed and burned, leaving an entire generation scorched with the realization that breaking through the other side only led to chaos and neo-primitivism.
What NETWORK and ALTERED STATES have in common is the theme of neo-prophetism, and it seems the core message of NETWORK has less to do with populism than prophetism. Even though the JEW isn't mentioned — to be sure, certain individuals who fill the office space as extras seem a bit Jewish or 'ethnic' — , Chayevsky surely knew that Jewish Culture & History have been defined by obsession with prophets and profits, and NETWORK seems like a Leftist Jewish twist on Ayn Rand's profit-prophet dynamics. Chayevsky, unlike Rand, was highly critical of the fusion yet also fascinated by it as the source of Jewish Power. Throughout history, materiality and spirituality were often at odds. The Old Testament is filled with Jewish Prophets denouncing Jewish profiteers who only care about greed and vanity. And history of Christianity is rife with examples of the Faithful denouncing the decadence and profligacy of sin and vice. Ideas centered on spirituality cannot see eye to eye with ideas centered on materialism. And yet, spiritual institutions aren't independent of the Power, and most actual power in history was defined by gold and sword. The rich and powerful patronized and built the temples and churches. They made generous donations. And by connections and influence, they often decided who reached the top of the spiritual order. So, whether it was Herod & the Rabbis who made a pact with the Roman occupiers, Early Christians who forged an unholy alliance with the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church that grew cozy with the rich, the Russian Church that became an arm of Tsarist power, the Wahhabi sect that cut a deal with the sleazy Saudi Royal Family, or current spineless Christianity that serves globo-homo or Zionism, there have been so many examples of the spiritual sector succumbing to materialist power or being infiltrated by 'satanic' forces.
One thing for sure, even as the power of religion ebbed in the late modern era, one thing that Jews understood all too well was that even secular ideas have the most potency when presented in a prophetic manner. After all, Karl Marx wasn't just another economic philosopher or moral critic but a far-seeing visionary prophet. Sigmund Freud played prophet of human nature, sexuality, and psychology. Like Joseph, he was an interpreter of dreams. Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman understood that capitalism had to be sold not merely as the most efficient and productive economic system but the very fulfillment of man's freedom and emancipation. Make profit prophetic. As a Leftist Jew, Chayevsky stood against Jewish pro-capitalists, but ideology is often secondary to identity. Subconsciously or privately/covertly, there could very well have been a side of him that was tantalized and encouraged by the rise of Jewish Power via capitalism and enterprise. With NETWORK, he seems almost spellbound by what he opposes on the ideological level. Besides, Jensen's vision of the new global order is essentially Trotskyism-as-capitalism. NETWORK came out just when Neocons, former leftist Jews obsessed with Zionism and Jewish identity, were emerging as a force. Since then, virtually all Jews have become 'Neocons'. After all, so-called 'liberal' Democratic Jews are just as fanatical in their support of Zionism, Wars for Israel, erasure of remaining Palestine, 'new cold war with Russia', and Wall Street. Whether it's hardcore Neocons or Liberal Zionists(who are Neocons by another name), they are now utterly invested in the Deep State, Censorship(or Censchwarzship), and the Tribe getting even richer & more powerful. ACLU used to be a free speech outfit, but now, it functions much like SPLC and ADL as the legal arm of Zionist Supremacism.
But then, the refusal to admit it could better serve what one ostensibly opposes. After all, it is foolish to openly declare one's ambitions of power and wealth. It's smarter to speak of justice and accuse OTHERS of greed & avarice while working tirelessly under the table to ensure that most wealth and power accrue to your side. In this sense, the strain of Jewish Leftism in the US eventually came to serve as a moral cover for Jewish capitalism. If Jews had spoken honestly of money, money, money and power/privilege, many goyim might have come to regard Jews as greedy and arrogant. It was smarter to use Jewish Leftism as a front to create the impression that Jews are all about equality, justice, and fairness — usually by depicting non-Jews, especially Wasps, as the face of wealth and privilege — while doing everything to increase Jewish accumulation of wealth, influence, and control. Indeed, the impression of Hollywood as a 'leftist' industry has given moral cover to its greed, hedonism, wantonism, and racial supremacism(as Hollywood has been one of the biggest financiers of Zionist destruction of Palestine and the premier propaganda factory that made most Americans associate Arabs/Muslims with 'muzzie terrorists' who deserve to be blown away by gung ho Americans.) And the Jewish-controlled Antifa is really a para-military arm of Jewish Capital. If Antifa is truly communist, it should see capitalism as the main enemy, not least because Classic Communism argued fascism is just a tool of the bourgeoisie. But notice how Antifa does the bidding of Jewish Capitalists in attacking those dissident groups who call for liberation from Jewish Globalist Supremacism. In a sense, NETWORK is a progenitor of SOCIAL NETWORK. Both are about the Tribal Network of Jews. On the surface, SOCIAL NETWORK seems a criticism of Mark Zuckerberg as a selfish and egotistical Jew, but Aaron Sorkin really meant it as kudos to the Jewish Way of Power: Zuck, like Michael Corleone, has brass balls to make it happen. In contrast, the Winklevoss twins are presented as over-privileged Wasps who spend most of their days rowing and socializing. And the Nice Jew played by Adam Garfield is presented as weak like Fredo.
If we look beneath the surface of NETWORK, it could be Chayefsky was really exploring the possibility that Jews need to fuse profits and prophets to bring about Capitalist Trotskyism. Indeed, one reason why Leon Trotsky was for internationalism had to do with the Jewish Network, the other reason being he thought Russians were too lazy for communism and only Germany-gone-communist would ensure the victory of Marxism-Leninism. At any rate, unlike Josef Stalin who lacked links to World Jewry, Trotsky had those links, and therefore, he needed the Soviet Union to be 'internationalist' so that Jewish communists in Russia could coordinate a global plot with Jewish capitalists. When he was exiled from Russia, he found support among Jews around the world, even capitalist ones.
4. The Covid-19 'pandemic' hysteria is becoming more and more like the scene in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND where the government stages mass deaths of sheep and birds to spread fears about nerve gas leakage. Those scenes have been scrubbed off Youtube, by the way. I think 'Trevor Lynch'(or Greg Johnson) being pro-Covid hysteria has more to do his worldview than stats & data. The Politics of Fear of the Other is very much in tune with his us-vs-them view of things. Also, 'Lynch' is essentially anti-democratic — he has little use for populism except as a tool to thrust his side into power — and elitist/authoritarian. National Socialism was in large measure a cult of health. Health, hygiene, and sanity versus germs, filth, and infestation by the Other. His contrarian review of CABARET suggested as much. He regarded the Hitler Youth celebration with patriotic song as an expression of all that is good, normal, and healthy. He loathed the world of the cabaret as filthy, degenerate, sick, and infectious. Though 'Lynch' and Richard Spencer don't get along, they seem to be on the same page on this. For Spencer, statism as war against Covid is a form of Carl-Schmittism. As for myself, there's too much of BAD NEWS BEARS and Mike Royko columns as formative influences to take this panic/hysteria too seriously.
It's interesting that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND came out a year after NETWORK. What both have in common is the Jewish obsession with the power of Prophecy. Jews have a rich and deep heritage, but they were never just about tradition. What kept their identity alive and vital was the sense of the Future. From the ancient Jewish Prophets to Asimov/Kubrick/Spielberg, there is this obsession with the Power and Destiny. Whether it's FOUNDATION, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, the Jewish mind is defiantly far-seeking. The prophetic mindset is both defiant/rebellious and authoritarian/tyrannical — Ayn Rand's hero Howard Roark is not only defiant but adamant that everything be done HIS way. Both Beale of NETWORK and Roy of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS have this quality. Beale heard a 'voice'. He thinks it's the voice of 'god'. Roy was struck by the 'light', and he has to go find his own Sinai to receive the message. And nothing will stand in their way. So, while most people in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS trust the government and submit to being relocated en masse by buses and trains, Roy is ballsy and scrambles for Devil's Tower. Moses would have done no less. This defiant and 'radical' aspect of the Jewish character made them difficult, nasty, and hostile, but it also led to them to greatness as greatness often comes from the Man of Truth with the balls to say NO to the established order & official truisms and stake out his own Truth Turf as the first colony of the Empire of New Truth.
But even the defiant cannot defy everything. He defies the world of men to better serve the word of God. So, even as Roy tells human power(that stands in his way) to take it and shove it, he offers himself to superior extraterrestrials with awesome powers. Likewise, the ever-defiant Beale becomes putty in the hands of Jensen who knows how to deliver a message with divine overtones to the messianically inclined. (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is about a Jewish Neo-Prophet saying YES to the ultimate power, whereas STAR WARS is about an 'Aryan' hero saying NO to the ultimate power. Jewish Mind conceives of the ultimate power to be on the side of Jews and says Yes. The 'liberal-Aryan' mind conceives of the ultimate power to be 'nazi-like' and says No.) 'Trevor Lynch' seems quite fascinated with the theme of prophetism, though his 'Aryan' biases prefer the hero(the self-sacrificing man of action) over the prophet who, with god-complex, claims to have figured it all out. The hero is essentially physical, and that means he must be hale and healthy to fulfill his adventure and quest. The prophet is a man of the mind and can be old, ugly, wizened, and unkempt. Greeks loved heroes above all, Jews revered prophets. It's telling that 'Trevor Lynch' likes WISE BLOOD and AD ASTRA. The former is about a would-be-prophet as lunatic, and in AD ASTRA, the son as hero goes to save his father, the false prophet.
It's now close to 50 yrs since NETWORK and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS came out, and what is most striking is how Jews fear defiance in the Current Year. Not long ago, there was a movie called DEFIANCE(dir. Edward Zwick) but it was, predictably enough, about Jewish resistance fighters during World War II, a movie made in deference to the Jewish Narrative. In the current discourse, the last thing Jews want is real defiance and controversy. They much prefer deference and consensus(as, of course, defined by themselves). Even when CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was made, there was a distinction between State and Science in the Jewish political consciousness. There's a sense in the movie that the state is being heavy-handed in dealing with the crisis. While it is serving a scientific project, it revels in authoritarianism and tyranny. The train scene is like an allusion to the Shoah. In contrast, the scientists are presented in a favorable light. They are shown as well-meaning seekers of truth filled with empathy(and even poetic sentimentality). The scientific crew is headed by character played by Francois Truffaut, the half-Jewish French film-director. This distinction between Wise Science and Bully State seems a reflection of Jewish Narrative on the Manhattan Project: Wise Jews come up with the science, but the Big State takes the technology and uses it for the military-industrial complex. Back then, the state was still ruled by Wasps, and the US military was seen as a hotbed of right-wing ideology. And because many Jews after WWII still regarded the USSR as an empire of Jews(along with Stalin), especially as it was even more supportive of Zionism than the US was, the idea of Wasps and US military taking the Jewish-made Bomb to use against the Soviet Union was ghastly to the Jews. The Jew vs Goy tension in the Manhattan Project was dramatized in FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY(dir. Rolande Joffe).
But that was then, this is now. Today, Jews control not only the media, academia, and other such institutions but Wall Street, the US state, the deep state, intelligence agencies, and the military. While goyim still manage most of those institutions, managers are appointed and follow orders from men on top, and those big goy politicians are tools of Jewish Power. So, if in 1976 and 1977, there was still the Jewish cult of Defiance against the State and Military, there isn't any more.
After all, Jews, 'liberal' and 'neocon', were more than happy to let Obama and Hillary serve as shills of the Empire of Judea. And even 'liberal' Jews have been most shrill when Trump expressed a desire to draw down US imperialist presence in places like Syria, reduce hostilities with North Korea, or come to terms with Russia. The election of Trump made the Jews even more supportive and protective of the Deep State, the Military-Industrial Complex, the FBI-CIA-NSA matrix, and media as industrial-propaganda as counterbalance against White National Liberation from Jewish Supremacist Power. Trump, though a phony, won the election as the voice of defiance against the Establishment, and Jews across the board hate him for that.
From the Jewish POV, the defiant power of prophecy should belong to Jews alone. So, Jews cheer on guys like Roy in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS who thumbs his nose at the Power and goes searching for his own Truth. When the Roys of the world decide to play prophet, Jews cheer them on. But what's good for Roy isn't good for Goy.
To be sure, Jewish Power eventually comes to fear the Roys of the world as well. Why? Because the true Jewish Prophets have far-encompassing visions beyond temporal power and advantages. As such, they may challenge and threaten the world of power and privilege the Jews have carved out for themselves. Jesus was hated by the Jewish establishment because He threatened the compromise that Jews had achieved with the Romans: Judea would be part of the Roman Empire, but the Romans would allow the Jewish elites to grow richer as members of the new order. But Jesus had other ideas. Ironically, it was later the Early Christians(many of whom were heretical Jews) who forged a pact with the Roman Empire... though one wonders if the Romans conquered and tamed Christianity or if Christians conquered and tamed the Roman Empire in this unholy union.
5. The matter of the Arabs and the Media is the one of the movie's main weaknesses either on empirical or moral grounds. Chayefsky was either wrong with the facts or just lying. But there's another way to approach it: NETWORK isn't intimating that the Arabs are TAKING OVER the media. Rather, it's saying that the Arabs are willing to invest in the media. So, Jews keep the power but let Arab money come their way. And this isn't far from the reality of the business. A good deal of Japanese money went into Hollywood in the 80s, but Jews kept control. In the past decade, lots of Chinese money has come to Hollywood, but again, Jews dominate Hollywood. NYT was bailed out by Lebanese-Mexican Carlos Slim, but it's still run by Jews.
Such alliances are useful to Jews. They get to kill two birds with one stone. Not only do they receive huge infusions of cash but get to spin the narrative of 'foreign takeover' to distract Americans from the fact that Jewish Power has the controlling stake in media. Of course, Jews don't receive all such investments without consequence. It's been duly noted that NYT used to be anti-illegal-immigration, that is until Slim provided billions. It's also been said that Hollywood featured fewer Chinese villains in movies when it got lots of investment from China(and came to regard the Chinese market as one of the biggest and most lucrative).
NETWORK was made when the world economy was still reeling from the Oil Shock. Prior to OPEC's demands, the low cost of oil had long been a given, like the air. Americans had hardly worried about travel costs. But OPEC's oil war happened immediately following US's aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Suddenly, the world economy was shaken to the core(and there were gasoline lines in the US for awhile). It got so bad that even Japan, a US puppet, made pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel noises to remain in good graces with Arab nations. And with price increases, the Arabs never had it so good. They were suddenly flush with cash and were wooed around the world. Back then, US was not the only superpower, and Israel wasn't as dominant and invincible as it is today. Also, the 'Arabist' wing of US foreign policy still exerted some influence and weighed against one-sided strategy mindlessly in favor of Israel. And European nations weren't, as yet, total lackeys of the US empire.
In a way, NETWORK is more than about the media, which is used as a metaphor for American Power itself. It's like the country music capital in Robert Altman's NASHVILLE stands for Hollywood, Washington, indeed all of US. So, Jensen's talk about courting the Arabs(richer than ever with oil price spikes) conveys the fear among Jews that the then still-ruling Wasp elites may pay less heed to Jews and lean more toward the Arabs. After all, US is all about money, and its Bill of Might is 'money talks, bullshit walks'. Looking back, Jewish fear of Arab money was exaggerated and unfounded, but things did look differently back then.
Another thing. Jensen(Ned Beatty)'s speech isn't about submitting to the Arabs. Rather, it's about courting and using them. He says plenty of US money has gone to Arab nations in oil purchases, so the US must find ways to make that money COME BACK to the US. Make Arabs invest their profits in the US. While Arab money is sure to come with strings attached and exert some influence, it won't take over the US. Media industries that receive Arab money may go easier on certain Arabs(especially the Saudis), but Arab investors will also have to play ball. In a way, making other nations invest in the US is to gain control over them. US buys lots of things from China, but China buys US bonds. US sends China money for goods, but China re-sends the money to the US for investment. In some ways, one might argue China is taking over the US, but in another way, US gains control over China as Chinese wealth is tied to US financial policy.
Jensen's proposal isn't about surrendering to the Arabs. Rather, it's about a New World Order(dominated by Jews and Anglos) that allows all the world to invest in the US(just like the US invests in all the world). Besides, one advantage is the US can freeze foreign assets anytime. Jensen's spiel is a variation of the Invade/Invite strategy. In order for the US to intrude into the affairs of the Arab/Muslim world, it must open itself to Arabs and Arab money. That way, the US can invade and meddle as 'friends' and 'partners' than as aliens and enemies. Also, if Arabs are to have influence in the US, they must play ball by the American Way.
Now, it would have been closer to the truth if NETWORK had mentioned Jewish Power along with Arab money, but its business angle isn't really about Arab takeover of US media but about how the Power is always willing to cut deals in pay-to-play schemes. Still, Arab money would have been more anxiety-inducing to Jews back then because even Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, was often vocal in its support of the Palestinians. So, Chayefsky's fears about Arab influence weren't totally unwarranted.
But today, Jews don't fear Arab money at all. For one thing, most Arab money is now from Saudis and the Emirates. Saudi Arabia today is virtually an out-and-out ally of Israel, and its money-influence in the US is to vilify Iran, Syria, and Russia, which is fine from the Jewish perspective. But when NETWORK was made, the Shah was still in power, and Saudis weren't in abject fear of a Shia behemoth. And Egypt had yet to strike a deal with Israel and was still ostensibly closer to the USSR. Shah of Iran as US puppet was good for Israel, but it also meant that the Sunni Arabs would direct more of their hostilities against Israel than against Iran. Shah was irreligious whereas Revolutionary Shia Iran took on the role as the True Leader of the Muslim World, a fact that provoked Sunni clergies.
6. DOG DAY AFTERNOON and NETWORK are like day and night, truth and false. Not that DOG DAY AFTERNOON is 100% factual in conveying what REALLY happened with the robbery and its complications. Far from it(though PRINCE OF THE CITY is remarkably faithful to the source material, but then, maybe that accounted for its failure at the box office — people want more dramatic spice). At any rate, even if DDA deviates from certain facts of the actual case, it feels true about the workings of human psychology, media's role as reporter & sensationalist, mob mentality & sensationalism, bumbling ways of local authority, rise & fall of 15 min of fame, tragicomedy of alternative lifestyles, folk heroes being made & unmade, cold power of the state when push comes to shove, and the spirit of the times. Along with Brian De Palma's CARRIE and ROCKY, it was very much a Bicentennial Movie. ROCKY said the dream is still alive, CARRIE said it's a nightmare, and DOG DAY AFTERNOON portrayed the American Myth of rebellion and reinvention as a circus. It went further than ACE IN THE HOLE and A FACE IN THE CROWD in how so much of American History has been Buffalo-Billed.
DDA and NETWORK touch on many of the same themes. They both have zany-mad characters at the center. Al Pacino's Wortzik isn't just a bandit out for loot but a homo-hero who needs cash to finance freako surgery for his homo-tranny 'wife'; it was for 'love'. As the robbery goes badly, he goes in the flaming mode of the urban folk hero. The 60s are over, but bit of the 'radical' spirit lingers in the air as hang-over. The revolution is over, but there are 'retrolutions', like the revival band Beatlemania that fanned mock-hysteria as nostalgia-fest. Different factions of the public project their own hopes and fears onto the robbers who are turned into latter day Robin Hoods; at the very least, it makes for great TV news, and the networks know it.
There was a strain of political thought in the 60s that posited crime is really a form of social revolution. And long before that, outlaws had been romanticized one way or another. Many in the South regarded the Jesse James gang as deliverers of vengeful justice. Italians and Jews looked to mobsters as underworld heroes of their own tribes. Wortzik becomes not just the outlaw-as-hero but the posterboy of 'gay liberation'.
On the one hand, the media are shocked by the crime, but the networks also compete to fan the flames for ratings and possibly ideological sympathy with the homo bandit. We aren't shown the machinations within corporate offices, but the on-location role of media in DDA says everything one needs to know(without all that speechifying in NETWORK) about exploiting violence and terror for ratings. Action speaks louder than words, and what the media actually DO speaks volumes about what kind of people run the industry. One thing for sure, the nonstop coverage of Russia Collusion Hysteria spilled the beans on Jewish control of media and its pathological hatred for Russia and White Populism.
While I loathe just about everyone in DOG DAY AFTERNOON — it's about losers, lunatics, and clowns — , it's true to life and of the urban cross-section of that time in America. It'd make an interesting double bill with CRUISING(dir. William Friedkin), the other Al Pacino film that probes into a deviant subculture. Though I prefer movies about admirable characters, it's a testament to a movie's excellence when it makes detestable characters interesting. Even if sympathy is out of the question, DDA is superb as a work of empathy. Even truer of PRINCE OF THE CITY that humanizes all those deeply flawed characters in law and crime.
The raw meat of DDA is preferable to the processed sausage of NETWORK where all the thinking is done for us. From start to finish, we know every scene of NETWORK is part of a larger message, a dissertation. In contrast, DDA makes us think for ourselves. As it lurches from crime story to comedy to cat-and-mouse game to drama to absurdity to tragedy to just plain reality, it's a bumper car ride with truth. Clashing emotions eventually make us question our earlier responses.
I first watched it second-run in double bill with THE ENFORCER(Clint Eastwood's third Dirty Harry movie), which played first. More people showed up for DDA, and the range of audience responses was informative. It went from cheers for the outcast anti-heroes to sour acceptance of their fate and sad relief that the whole circus could only end that way. Throughout the movie, we realize why we root for rebels and outlaws. They got the balls to do what most of us don't. It's why we are drawn to gangster movies. They don't take lame 9 to 5 jobs but do as they like, like in GOODFELLAS and stupid SOPRANOS. Their motto is, "We are 'bad' as hell and we do as we damn like." This side of us views authority figures as The Man, the Tyranny, the Party Pooper that stands against the Animal House anarchist in each of us that cries out for liberation via the Golden Calf: "Go Away, Moses!" This was very much the appeal of 60s Counterculture Narrative.
But DDA shows why we also need The Man. As fun as the bank robbery caper is in the early part of the movie, there's no getting around the fact that these outlaws pose a threat to people like you and me. And despite all our folkloric thumbing at the nose at The Man, it is He who puts things back in order when things fall apart. In that sense, DDA is a counter-counterculture movie. It lures us with the bait of counterculture conceits but reels us back to reality. In that sense, as different as it was from THE ENFORCER, it has something in common with law-and-order movies of the era. Indeed, the elder FBI agent who finally resolves the crisis is like an old Henry Fonda character. Lumet's first feature film was 12 ANGRY MEN with Henry Fonda as a liberal on a jury, and its message was the over-eagerness of the legal system to convict suspects. In contrast, the Fonda-like character of DDA is a stern(and even ruthless) man of order who acts as one of the few adults in the room. (Sadly, recent revelations have shown that the FBI is now run by clowns.)
Like Beale, Wortzik is a false hero, and yet, they both hint at the kernel of truth that one must be not just mad(as in angry) but mad(as in crazy) to touch upon the truth. Madness is both disturbing but illuminating in Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER, NOSTALGHIA, and THE SACRIFICE. The eccentric guide in STALKER, the agitator in NOSTALGHIA, and the patriarch in THE SACRIFICE are delusional yet possess a kind of purity and 'faith' in their total commitment to the 'truth'. The pop version of this would be Roy in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Something similar, between horror genre and art film, would be THE LAST WAVE by Peter Weir.
Sanity and normality are preferable to insanity and abnormality, but as Michel Foucault and Ken Kesey noted, it's never that simple. While our understanding of the world must be objective(to the extent possible) than relative, what is deemed as 'normal' and 'sane' depends on the prevailing myths, narratives, habits, customs, prejudices, taboos, and norms of a time and place. And for this reason, what is deemed as 'sane' and 'normal' may be so only in relative terms to the social order at hand. Take our own world where homo banners festoon churches. Where the official science says that a Man who says he's a 'woman' is indeed a woman, and that his penis, the male organ, is actually a 'female penis'. The insane has been made 'sane', and so many people believe this. 80% of Americans support 'gay marriage', an idea that would have been considered CRAZY not that long ago. It was 'normal' for the media to push the obviously bogus Russia Collusion Hoax. Blacks commit the most crime, but the Narrative has KKKops hunting down innocent black angels.
Now, there is indeed a Natural Normality and Real Sanity. While foot-binding was once the social norm in China, it was never a Natural Norm. Women's feet do not NATURALLY deform themselves that way. To the extent possible, people should acknowledge and follow natural norms. Tattoos and piercings are not natural norms. Those are 'social norms' of a deranged and degenerate society. (We need a 'regenerate' society.) Now, natural norms need to be balanced. When there is no nature and/or tough lessons/forces to balance natural norms, they must be done artificially. (It's like humans must intervene to reduce the population of deer and rabbits in a forest without natural predators.) In nature, in which humans evolved, food was relatively scarce and people were engaged in physical activities. So, people ate but they also remained slim and healthy. But in a mechanized social order with plenty of food(and lots of junk food), the natural norm of having a big appetite isn't balanced by natural compulsion toward physical activity. Therefore, people must make time to exercise or eat less. Clothes are also part of the natural norm. Animals have protective covering in the form of furs, shells, scales, feathers, and etc. Humans as advanced apes that have lost their fur must make clothing as artificial fur/feather/scale/shell. Humans do have skin, but it's pretty thin, unlike tough hides of pigs and elephants. Also, as it's natural for animals to seek mates by physical display, it's natural for humans to dress attractively. And yet, the norms of sexual attraction and pleasure must also be restrained artificially because humans live in a much safer environment. There used to be diseases and angry patriarchs(and family members) who kept people more sober about sexual choices. But now, with antibiotics, abortion, contraceptives, and permissive mores of a hedonistic society, people can act worse than animals sexually and live on to behave like gross pigs... like this 'Mary Church' creature. When there are no longer natural external forces to limit one's natural internal drives, one must artificially construct those limits. Otherwise, society spirals into piggishness.
Sanity, like normality, has its natural form and social form. After all, even in a culturally insane society like the US where 80% are loonily for 'gay marriage', the fact remains most people are naturally sane. So, how can so many naturally sane people fall for something so insane? This is where we stumble upon the paradox of how the naturally normal and sane can be blind to the lunacy around them whereas the naturally abnormal and insane may have, at least to a degree, a clearer grasp of the truth.
What is natural for humans is the desire to be part of a community, to belong, to be liked, to be approved by the power, to feel confirmed and accepted. This psychological and emotional need is so powerful that most people don't ask, "Is it true, is it false?" Their main psychological urge is to feel, "Do I have the right thoughts, right attitudes, the right values to be considered and accepted by the prevailing norms of society?" They are less into "What I think" than "what others think of me". While the West may be more individualist and independent-minded than the East, the independent mindset belongs to a small minority of white folks. Then, the real difference between West and East is less about qualities than percentages. It's not a case of individualist/independent vs communal/collective but 5% individualist in the West vs 1% individualist in the East. So, the vast majority of people in the West are conformist and approval-conscious just like those in the East. Still, there is a slightly larger number of individualists in the West that sometimes made for a critical mass necessary for innovation and breakthroughs, and the achievements of this small minority created the impression that All of the West is about individuality and independence.
Of course, the cult of individualism has so many people in the West fooled that they are 'different', 'radical','rebellious', and/or 'subversive'. But for MOST PEOPLE, the terms of 'defiance' must be defined by others. Even as 'rebels', most people only ape the promoted mode of approved rebellion. So, most hippies were just imitating the Hippie image. Most punks were just imitating punk fashion. Heavy Metal culture was about metal-heads who looked and 'thought' alike. Pussy March was about all these women wearing the same kind of hats and saying the same kind of things. 'Resistance' has been conformity. Mao Zedong said, 'To Rebel Is Justified', but all those Red Guard minions had to be told how to 'rebel' and what to 'rebel' against. If they were true rebels, they would have called out on Mao and his ridiculous cult, but instead, their every act of 'rebellion' was in obeisance to the Great Helmsman.
But then, even defiant individuals feel a need to conform to and be confirmed ultimately by SOMETHING. E Michael Jones, Nick Fuentes, Kevin Michael Grace, Roosh, and Patrick Buchanan have been bolder than most in speaking truth to Power, but they are committed to Catholic Dogma and deny the obvious truth of evolution. Mind abhors absolute independence. Generally, even the defiant want to feel they are defying false gods in the name of the true god. A man who defies all gods as false gods ends up feeling too lonely as his universe would be an absurd and meaningless one.
Anyway, if sanity and normality mean craving for social acceptance and approval, it makes sense why so many sane and normal people are such useless cucks to the dominant power. Whether it's goons in the deep state, hacks in local government, or kids in a high school club, most want to be accepted and liked. As they don't have the means to create their own norms and standards, they succumb and submit to Norms established by the Power. Also, the Power is pretty clever in devising and encouraging approved forms of 'rebellion' and 'defiance' so as to fool the minions and cucks into believing they are 'free'. You got an ass tattoo? You're truly an 'individualist'. You got green hair? You go girl, that is 'empowerment'. Of course, such idiocy poses no threat to the oligarchy and deep state, which is the very reason why the Power markets and promotes all these false 'rebellions' as 'empowerment' and 'liberation'. Those without self-control will be controlled by others. Liberation from self-restraint leads to enslavement to the Power that pushes soma. Liberation has value only in conjunction with heightened personal responsibility. Minus the responsibility that breeds restraint, one turns into a junkie, and the junkie is always the mind-sensory slave of the pusher.
In contrast, people who are naturally abnormal and/or insane are often less sensitive of what others think. Though their genuine insanity and/or abnormality cloud their perception and judgement(as with the eccentrics of Tarkovsky's movies), their relative immunity to social pressure and communal limits(or terms of services) makes them push further and veer off course to think against the grain. Like mutations, most abnormal and/or insane modes of thoughts/perception have no value or are harmful, but there are exceptions.
Most such people are a danger to society(and to themselves), but some have the 'radical will' to break through to the other side. Just like the great artist is usually someone who is psychologically situated between sanity and insanity, between dream consciousness and waking consciousness, it could be that the great prophets and world-shakers have minds somewhere between sanity and insanity. Insane enough to push beyond official norms without concern for what others think BUT sane enough to rationally strategize for power and be a leader of men. Alexander the Great, Jesus, Muhammad, Marx, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao fit the bill. Hitler especially was such a bundle of madness and rational calculation. Stalin had the pathology of a megalomaniac and the diligence of a workaholic bureaucrat. And the anti-hero of COOL HAND LUKE is called a 'world-shaker'. He revels in his defiance even if for no discernible reason.
Anyway, what especially distinguishes DOG DAY AFTERNOON from NETWORK is its dynamic sense of reality shooting off in so many directions. The various characters of DDA have their own agendas, stories, and egos, but reality is bigger and ahead of any of them, all of them. Reality is bigger than any personal take on the world. There is no formula that can encompass and explain everything. The world is not a jigsaw puzzle where everything falls into place under a single gaze and set of fingers. The world is a chaos theory in action. Thus, there is a sense of reality that is larger, louder, crazier, and more multi-faceted than any possible formulation. It's a world that doesn't conform to script.
In contrast, NETWORK, though cinema, is the product of someone who developed his skills in Theater. Everything feels scripted. Everyone is a type, even a cartoon. And everyone is part of a grand formula and spout lines like dummy-puppets. Just like Beale is reduced to being the mouthpiece of Jensen, everyone in the movie is little more Chayefsky's sock-puppet in his grand scheme of things. Even the madness in the movie is too pat, a rhetorical device of a writer who had no interest in Beale as a genuine character of idiosyncratic psychology. As such, what might have worked on stage doesn't work on the screen. The stage is better suited to reduction of human affairs and conditions into theorems. The openness of movie space engulfs too much reality to reduce people into pat stereotypes or mice in a maze, especially if the movie claims to tell it like is about the crazy messy world. Take the black radicals. They are not characters but mere props to drive home a point, a rather cheap one at that, a rather cute way of balancing cynicism with idealism.
7. As to why the Jewish Power element is missing in NETWORK's depiction of US media(even as the movie spins a 'conspiracy theory' about Arab influence), there are three ways to explain this.
A. Chayefsky and Lumet, as Jews, simply lied and didn’t want to deal with the issue of Jewish dominance in TV and media, not least because Hollywood itself has been Jewish-dominated and careful to conceal the truth about Jewish influence.
B. The characters were meant as crypto-Jews. After all, many Jews, especially of Germanic origin, had Anglo-ized their names. I believe Oliver Stone’s father changed his name from ‘Silverstein’. Truly assertive ethnic consciousness emerged from Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe who felt resentment toward Waspy Jews. Granted, there were plenty of angry nasty Jews of Germanic background and plenty of Eastern European Jews who aspired to be accepted by the Anglo Establishment. But the attitude of German Jews in the US was molded when the Jewish population was much smaller(and when whiteness and Christianity were far more confident). If German Jews arrived earlier in the US in trickles, Eastern European Jews washed up in waves along with other ethnics, and they formed their own tribal communities. They were poorer, more radical, more tribal, and more vulgar.
C. The non-Jews in the movie are meant to be shabbos goyim. After all, they are not the uppermost movers and shakers. Beale, like so many newsmen and TV anchors, served as the face and voice of Middle America before losing his marbles. Holden’s Schumacher has a vision of what the news should be, but he can easily be fired, rehired, and fired again. He has powers but only with approval from higher powers. Dunaway’s Christensen is a social climber, and there are plenty such goyesses across the news industry. (Schumacher’s affair with her might have been Chayefsky’s way of touching on Jewish attraction to the blonde ‘Aryan’ in an oblique way.) Duvall’s Hackett is another climber. He’s eager to force changes precisely because only instant success will ensure his worth to the real Power that is never shown. Ruddy is old school and presented as the last of his kind. Besides, despite Jewish domination of Big Media, there was always a good number of non-Jews at upper-management. Jensen seems to be the biggest fish in the movie, but he too seems more a power-broker than the Power itself. So, just like the super-Jew who remains behind the scenes but whose omniscience is always felt in HAIL, CAESAR!(dir. Coen brothers), one could argue that, at least for those in the know, the very visible absence of Jewish Power makes it all the more felt in the movie. It’s like the black hole. It can’t be seen but its power extends all around; indeed, it is black and 'invisible' precisely because its gravitational power is so great. In a way, all those goy characters are mostly cucks, shikses, and shabbos scrambling among themselves to come out on top… to ingratiate themselves to Jewish Power. But then, US politics is hardly different. Most politicians and staff are indeed goyim, and many are ruthless and devious, but they don’t have(or aspire to attain) real power. They are mostly shabbos-goy vain asses who beat up on other goyim to win top-dog spots at the feet of their Jewish Masters. Billy Boy Clinton, Dubya Bush, Obama, Hillary, Trump, Biden, and etc. All ambitious and vain goyim but striving to be top dog to the Power than the Power itself.
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