Network

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

There's a reason this speech is #19 on the American Film Institute's list of the best movie quotes of all time. This speech is rather novel in comparison to other movie speeches, as it is delivered by a television personality on live broadcast. As a result, there is no particular character or set of characters that it is meant for, and it might just as well be addressed to the film audience as it is to the audience in the film.

Often has it been said that the television is a propaganda machine illustrating the fact that if anything is said often enough and loudly enough, it will be believed. Repetition, then, is both the act and the counteract in this case, as the character delivering the speech uses it in protest of the current state of affairs, as portrayed through media propaganda. By repeating the phrase, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore," he successfully drives home the point of his fury at the lack of efficacy of the general populace.

It must be remembered, however, that this speech is the collective ramblings of a half-crazed maniac, Howard Beale, who is broadcast only for shock value. Still, the exploitation of his words by the institution he wishes to destroy only makes his diatribe all the more poignant. Indeed, what starts out as an impassioned, but articulate speech on the dire state of world affairs gradually descends into an incoherent tirade, repeating the same sentence. This repetition is equally powerful when used in this way, as it apparently overtakes Beale himself and becomes him. The character is the phrase and the phrase is the character, an attitude which is never really dropped for the remainder of the film.