Television has the power to entertain and inform, but it’s a medium driven mainly by what audiences want to watch. Something controversial or provocative, whether a rousing season finale or an important historical event, can easily become a ratings hit. The allure has made television both essential for our understanding of the world and fragile because of how easily it can be manipulated.
With Jimmy Kimmel recently returning to network television and receiving huge ratings after his controversial dismissal, it’s worth the time to examine movies that explore the scandals and morality of the TV industry. Some of these movies are based on real events, and some are so reflective and predictive that they could be mistaken as such.
10
Hairspray
Director John Waters took a swing in a more subversive direction with his comedic musical send-up of the 1960s in Hairspray. Teen Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) has dreams of making it on the most popular teen dance TV show in town. As Tracy rises in the ranks, however, she takes notice of the racial movement and aims to fight back against racism, despite the aggressive bully tactics of the snotty Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick).
Hairspray has a compelling nature beyond being the only PG-rated film from shock-master John Waters, whose films usually garnered adult ratings. The movie showcases the intersection of entertainment and politics, merging the two elements into an intoxicating cocktail of darkly comedic stabs at 1960s culture and the musical joy of inspiring outsiders. In addition to an unforgettable performance by drag queen Divine as Tracy’s mother, this was such a marvelous comedy that it would encourage a musical stage production in 2002 and a film adaptation of that musical in 2007.
Hairspray
- Release Date
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February 16, 1988
- Runtime
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92 Minutes
9
The Running Man
The future has become a totalitarian police state in The Running Man, where the government controls everything you watch on television. One program they allow is The Running Man, a game show where the “runners” are targeted for death by the pursuing “stalkers.” Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a former law enforcer disillusioned with the world he has served, forced to compete in the game for his survival and the state’s ratings in a bloodbath of kill-or-be-killed entertainment.
Based on Stephen King’s novel, The Running Man still holds up for what feels like a dystopian sci-fi staging of The Most Dangerous Game. The satirical savagery of framing state-controlled TV like an insidious game show is equally horrific and hilarious, intoxicating for its dark comedy and vicious brutality. The film had an aesthetic that would ironically inspire the competitive game show American Gladiators and a story that would be replicated in films like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games.
8
Saturday Night
On October 11, 1975, the long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live broadcast for the first time on NBC. However, leading up to the late-night premiere, there was a chaotic clash of creative, legal, and technical issues. The ensemble struggles to put on a show when it seems like everything is going wrong for the little show that NBC hopes will fail, with only a few hours before the sketches begin.
Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking), Saturday Night finds the comedy in the fast-paced flustering that comes with live TV production. Dress rehearsals go awry, cast members clash, and standards and practices have plenty of notes about the controversial humor too hot for 1970s television. The ticking clock and brisk dialogue make this picture as exciting as the stacked ensemble, including Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons.
7
The Truman Show
Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) has grown up unaware that he’s the star of the biggest TV experiment ever staged. Having grown up in a televised and scripted environment, Truman starts questioning his existence when he discovers that his world is manufactured for ratings and sponsorships. Terrified and intrigued by this discovery, Truman seeks to test out the limits of the world composed for him by the ever-watching director Christof (Ed Harris).
The Truman Show arrived at the perfect time when reality TV started taking off as the next big thing in American television. The offbeat psychological tale posed the interesting question of where this medium could lead for someone who had entirely grown up with a scripted TV life. The film challenges our perceptions of reality and how we approach it when it seems controlled by more powerful forces, framing an existential crisis for a reality show star.
6
September 5
On September 5th, 1972, the world witnessed one of the most eventful terrorist attacks by the Black September group at the Olympic Games in Munich, taking the Israeli team hostage. The ABC Sports crew broadcast this terrifying event from Germany, tasked with providing crucial coverage on the situation, despite their job being to cover the games. The film follows the newsroom drama of deciding what footage to showcase over the air and which facts to report as the hostage situation grows dire, ushering in a new age of televised journalism.
Set almost entirely within a TV broadcast studio, September 5 is an engrossing and intense dramatization of this key event in world history while still not shying away from the political temperature of the era. The film focuses on a lot of the dated tech used for helming a live news broadcast, especially one performed abroad by a crew still getting used to filming international sports. There’s a great questioning of broadcast standards and journalistic choices for a sports reporting team thrown into the deep end, anchored by engaging performances by Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, and Leonie Benesch.
September 5
- Release Date
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November 29, 2024
- Runtime
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91 Minutes
- Director
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Tim Fehlbaum
5
Quiz Show
Based on an actual scandal, Quiz Show follows the popular appeal of Herbie Stempel (John Turturro), the most successful player of the NBC trivia show Twenty-One. While NBC loves a winner for ratings, it also desires someone more appealing for the screen, seeking to replace Herb with the more refined Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes). Herb suspects the executives are fixing the games for Charles to win over him, attracting the attention of congressional investigator Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow), turning a game show into a nightmare of corruption.
Although director Robert Redford took plenty of artistic liberties with the real-life story, Quiz Show highlights how greed and fame can cloud entertainment ambitions. The scandal forced audiences to question whether what they saw on television was fixed, even with reality shows that seemed unscripted on the surface. With a thematic focus on the loss of innocence on television, the film also boasts some incredible performances by John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, David Paymer, and Paul Scofield.
4
Broadcast News
Writer and director James L. Brooks found a brilliant way to add a love triangle into the world of TV journalism with Broadcast News. Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) is a news producer who is thirsty for hard-hitting stories, and her writer friend Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) is happy to oblige her wishes for compelling TV news. Complicating their potential romantic relationship is the arrival of Tom Grunick (William Hurt), an anchorman hired more for his looks than his intelligence. With Tom’s sensationalism becoming a draw, Jane and Aaron must question their ambitions in TV news and romance.
Broadcast News has plenty of humanizing drama from the workplace love triangle, but it also puts a lot of thought into the production and ethics of TV news. The film wasn’t afraid to tackle current news topics of the 1980s (as with the early coverage in the movie of the battle in Nicaragua) and features some exciting moments of editing a news piece seconds before it airs, racing the tape across the studio. The performances by all three notable names are fantastic, but the film is also worth watching for some surprise roles with Joan Cusack and Jack Nicholson.
3
A Face in the Crowd
Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith) went from being a quirky drunk to a radio entertainer when he was discovered by producer Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal). Larry’s stardom gains enough traction to make him a TV icon so powerful that he can affect presidential elections. The more power he gains, however, the more his ego grows, and he believes he has America’s attention wrapped around his deceptive finger, including Marcia.
A Face in the Crowd predicted the rise of influencers who entertain their way into power. Using radio and television, Larry manipulates TV audiences into hanging on to his every rant and song, making him impossible to ignore. The film has aged remarkably well, highlighting TV fame trajectories and boasting an unorthodox role for Andy Griffith, far from the wholesome figure he played for The Andy Griffith Show on 1960s television.
2
Good Night, and Good Luck
Edward R. Murrow hosted the CBS interview show See It Now, which wasn’t afraid to tackle the toughest stories. Amid the communist scare of the 1950s, Murrow came under fire for criticizing unjust accusations of communist sympathizers, making him a target of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Working alongside his co-producer, Fred Friendly (George Clooney), Murrow will be challenged not just by the intimidating McCarthy and the US government but also by CBS, gaining the ire of executive William Paley (Frank Langella).
Taking place entirely in the CBS TV studio, Good Night, and Good Luck is a thrilling recreation of a crucial moment in TV journalism. Even with the only music being some jazzy melodies sung in a nearby studio, the film centers around the politics and mechanics of a TV broadcast, where conflicts of advertising and relationships play a key role in determining whether or not Murrow’s reports will make it to air. Coupled with the bookending segments of Murrow’s speech on his legacy, director George Clooney has composed a heartfelt and heroic portrait of one of the most essential hosts in TV history.
1
Network
Few movies have ever been as provocative and questioning about the power of television as Network. Howard Beale (Peter Finch) goes from being a laid-off anchorman to one of the loudest voices on TV when his furious rant generates huge ratings. Despite the desires of producer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) to make Howard more of an attention-grabbing figure, his ranting goes so far as to tamper with the corporate world of broadcasting that doesn’t share his vision of the world.
Harping on the growing provocative nature of television, Sidney Lumet’s film is an explosive picture on the topic, with more than Finch’s unforgettable performance. The network finds Howard’s social commentary acceptable as long as it is a ratings hit, making him more of a target if his ratings slip or if he goes after the conglomerates that pay for his televised speeches. Just as powerful as Howard’s public rant is the private one by Chairman Arthur Jensen, who angrily explains to Howard that there are no nations and only corporations that control everything. Although television has changed dramatically since the 1970s, Network remains one of the best films in terms of what captures our eyeballs on the small screen and how far honesty can go with popularity.
Network
- Release Date
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November 27, 1976
- Runtime
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121 Minutes
- Director
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Sidney Lumet
TV might have shifted from the days of revered news broadcasters like Cronkite and the sitcoms that everybody watched. However, television still has the power to dominate our attention spans when there is something juicy on the screen, as key current events and reality programs still draw crowds. We have become so used to such programming that it’s sometimes a good idea to pull back and reflect on the medium through film, where grander topics can be explored about what makes us tune in and out.