Pursuit For Power

The pursuit for ultimate power is also a main issue related in the film. This topic is first recognized at the start of the film with Howard Beale. Howard is first shown on the screen while the narrator reads off his past accolades as a news anchor, which lets the viewer know that he was once a big shot. This gives reasoning as to why Howard mentally collapses on air. Howard come the realization that his power to talk to millions of people every night has quickly vanished, so he beings to show a side of him that television has never seen before. Though Howard’s initial freak out was due to him loosing the power he once had, he comes to realize what the television station was doing to the public, which is feed them propaganda. He begins to preach to the …show more content…
Diane’s pursuit for power is a little different than Howard’s. Diane is a smart and savvy woman, who will do anything to make it the top of the company, and at the top of the ratings. She exploits Howards mental breakdown to get herself noticed, which works. Diane also abuses her relationship with Max, which leads her to become the head programmer at UBS. Diane is obsessed with ratings, and the struggle of becoming the best. Diane “Articulates the popular rage” which is how she obtains so many viewers and followers of her program. She continues to feed the public exactly what they think they want to hear, as long as it gets the ratings. This pursuit of power by the characters in the film goes along with the Marxist assumption of how economic conditions determine social relations. Diane doesn’t care about anything but herself, money, and power, and she proves that when she asserted the idea to kill Howard Beale when he wasn’t worth anything anymore. Howard, on the other hand, loses his power, and mentally collapses to try and regain