The film His Girl Friday is all fun and games -- but there is some sharp social satire at the same time. Major social institutions such as journalism, politics and marriage are skewered with clever lines and absurd situations. What is the film telling us about at least one of these institutions (if you want to write about marriage and divorce see the the companion post)? Is it corrupt or crooked? Under siege? What, exactly, is the problem or critique?
The film His Girl Friday is a satire of the corruption in the journalism industry. The film follows the judicial process following the murder of a policeman committed by Earl Williams and highlights how journalism places public reaction and paper sales before truth and reliability. In the scene where Hildy interviews Earl for the first time, she appears to be guiding his answers. She persuades him into believing that he shot the policeman because shooting is what guns are made for. This scene demonstrates how reporters and journalists don’t care about producing true stories but rather about constructing a compelling narrative that evokes a positive response from public viewers. Furthermore, this scene is shot from a high angle giving the impression of a godly view and making Earl seem powerless as he succumbs to the greater force of corrupt journalism. His true story is distorted through the lens of a reporter. Additionally, later in the film when Earl is discovered hiding in a cabinet, he is surrounded by reporters all shouting out completely different stories of what they just saw. One explains that a shoot-out occurred while another explained that Earl got into a physical confrontation with the police. Of the many journalists that bore witness to the event, not one told the story of what actually happened. These modified stories illustrate that journalism has become dominated by capitalistic values of profit at the expense of the truth. In addition to the distortion of the truth, the film references other forms of corruption such as political ties. The film references the mayor's reelection and how publishing the article the next day will favor his reelection. These references further establish the film as a satire of journalism and criticism of the values of journalists.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday speaks a lot about the role of journalism and critiques what journalists do to get people to read their articles despite the comedy that comes with it. Throughout the movie, the journalists are portrayed as witty and cunning like Walter, but also devious and willing to do a lot to either get what they want or get the story they want. An example of this is when Hildy and Walter hide Earl in the desk so that they can have the first story on the whole Event. Walter is also an example of doing anything to get what he wants when he goes out of his way to disrupt Hildy's plans to convince her to take him back. He disrupts her plans through getting Bruce to be sent to jail multiple times as well as getting her involved in Earl's case. Journalists are also often shown to bend the truth and do almost anything as they please. One such case was when they found Earl in the desk and of the five or so reporters, each one reported something different on the phone. This scene argued that journalists only care about the story in the end and what will get people to read their story. None of the journalists reported the truth of what actually happened. The film also speaks to the power that journalists have when the sheriff attempted to arrest Walter and Hildy but they were both fully convinced they were not going to be arrested and in the end they were let go. This scene expresses the amount of power that journalists have which is still very prominent today with anyone who spreads information. All in all, the result of how the journalists are portrayed in this film is that, despite the comedic elements, it states a powerful message as to what the real nature of journalists are and what they do in society.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks, is supposed to be a comedic film, however there are certain moments and themes during the movies that make social satires about major social institutions such as journalism. The main characters both work for a journaling company, the movie revolves around their lives as they try to get the next big hit writing about a local criminal. Early on in the movie we see one of the main characters, Hildy the leading journalist, asking Earl, the criminal, questions. INstead of asking him his opinion or listening to his story, Hildy begins to almost answer her own questions by leading Earl into answering them to her liking. In addition to journalists not being fully trustworthy, we see yet another instance later on. Earl escapes from prison and Hildy tries to hide him in someone’s desk in order to get a private interview with him. During the scene, we see about 6-7 reporters on the phone all saying something different about the predicament. This is yet another stab at how the reporter is not taking facts they are writing what will get people to read.
ReplyDeleteI think the film is satirically portraying the corruption of yellow journalism as well as politics through methods such as verbal manipulation and bribes. The concept of yellow journalism is portrayed clearly because throughout the movie, the news men in the office are seen talking on telephones and providing their own greatly exaggerated versions of events, such as when the police found Earl, which may be completely false. Also, the men ignore the character of Molly and her opinions on the hanging of Earl, which eventually causes her to jump out of a window, and at this point (as shown by the camera movement) instead of being concerned about it the newspaper men show an interest because this event is something they could write about to gain a lot of circulation. There is the scene where Hildy bribes the policeman in order to talk to Earl in jail, and then guides him into believing he shot the gun because of production of use. The high angle in this scene exemplifies the manipulation of the truth. When Hildy and Walter keep Earl hidden in the desk without telling the others, this proves that Hildy and Walter place more value on creating compelling, dramatic stories with eye-catching headlines rather than reporting the plain truth. The other side of the issue with Earl relates to the mayor and the sheriff, who want him to be hanged so that the mayor can become reelected and the sheriff can keep his job. Their corruption is shown when they try to bribe the messenger before the public finds out about the reprieve. Overall, the film shows the themes of dishonesty to the public and the low value of truth in the press and politics of the time period.
ReplyDeleteSorry, *Mollie
DeleteThe film His Girl Friday criticizes the corruption behind journalism for fabricating false reports to gain the attention of readers. Hildy, the main character who is portrayed as an elite journalist that is one of the best, is best known for publishing fascinating stories and manages to gain the interests of many readers. Later on, through the interview of Earl Williams, the movie exposes Hildy’s methods as a journalist, as well as the other journalists around her. They all are reporting through the style of yellow journalism, which is a form of journalism that exaggerates the emotions and fabricates false information in order to gain the attention of readers, rather than providing factual information. The movie indicates yellow journalism through the numerous phone calls that the journalists made. For example, when the news of Earl Williams escaping got to the journalists, they immediately ran off to gather stories and updated reports about William’s whereabouts. When they return, however, each one of them tells a different story that is either simply outrageous or completely irrelevant to the publisher. All the stories had one common characteristic: it was a fascinating story that readers would love to hear. The movie is implying that journaling in the 1940s was unreliable due to the fact that every publisher competed for “views”. The competition between publishers led to corruption as journalists were meant to report factual news to the citizens, not some city gossip. These rumors that are spreading from sources that are meant to be reliable have ruined lives of innocent people like Earl and Mollie.
ReplyDeleteJournalism within the film His Girl Friday portrays the large journalism industry as a group of corrupted people. Very accurate to its real-life counterpart, the journalism industry has drifted away from concrete, factual stories, in favor of “clickbaitable” and profitable stories. When Williams was arrested after hiding in the desk, each reported told contrasting details about the same event that happened before their eyes. Big journalist companies have their journalists create what they see as the best story possible. In the case of Walter, his story was meant to save his own skin if he went to jail, rather than informing the public of important events. This ploy is used as it garners the most amount of money from an audience. This inspires bad practices within journalism as rather than reporting a good story, they only create news with polarizing headlines. As Bruce said to a journalist, Hildy, “You never intended to be decent and live like a human being” (1:11:13). Bruce explains the nature of a reporter, living with her first hand. The methods Hildy demonstrated were never meant to be ethical to those around her. During Hildy’s interview with William, she interrogates him with imposing guided questions to satisfy the story she wanted. Once again, all journalists are susceptible to trying to form their own narrative for their stories. Overall, journalists in His Girl Friday signal to the audience that reporters are not always truthful and it is important to know there are biases and narratives within the news.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday shows the deep corruption within the journalism industry in the time of the movie. This corruption of the journalism industry is based on the fact that journalists are greedy. Throughout the movie, there is an emphasis on how journalists are more interested in selling their papers rather than telling the truth. This is evident through the main crime story of the movie. During the scene where Hildy is interviewing the criminal, she is asking questions that can be seen as leading, trying to get the guy to admit to the crime for the story. This demonstrates the relentless pursuit Hildy has for creating a story, even if it means potentially framing a man for murder. There are also many instances in the movie where the side character journalists exaggerate details of events happening in order to grab the attention of the people listening. Despite the seemingly very different stories each of these journalists was trying to tell, they all had the ability to grasp the attention of the readers, leading to more people wanting to buy the paper. This is the strategy that almost all of the journalists use in this movie, as it is the one that makes them the most money. This aspect of the journalism industry in the film shows the corrupt hold that money has over the people in the film, as they will do anything, even twist the truth, in order to grab the attention of their audience, in turn making them more money in the process.
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ReplyDeleteIn the film His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks uses sharp social satire to dismantle difficult to talk about topics in the political sphere while maintaining a level of comedy with clever lines and absurd situations. The majority of the plot in the film is centered around a inmate convinced of murder and sentended to death via the gallows and a tag team duo of investagotrs that each have a thier own motive for covering the story. Along the way the duo comes to realize that the sheriff that has been holding the inmate’s life in his hands is using him as a pawn to get reelected. Sheriff Hartwell is running for reelection and in an attempt to stay in favor of public opinion he attempts to hide the appeal from the mayor calling for the release of the inmate. The duo of reporters discover his malice intent and end up saving the day in the end getting themselves and the imate out of trouble. Howard Hawks uses this subsection of the plot as a way to show how corrupt people and government entities can be.
The film "His Girl Friday" portrays the ridiculous nature of yellow journalism in the early 1900s. Yellow journalism, the ideology that whichever newspaper produced the most ludicrous stories would obtain the most viewers, is something demonstrated through multiple examples in the film. One is how when Earl was completely unconscious, every single journalist in the room started talking about how he had tried different things to escape, like shooting his way out or fighting, when he'd actually been just carried out. They don’t even hesitate, showing that ethics take such a backseat in their business that they’re willing to go to any lengths as quickly as possible to get a good headline. Another example was when Hilby persuades Earl to use the gun as an example of “production of use,” to make him seem insane and thus acquire a better story. The scene from this particular example exemplifies how many journalists at this time didn’t have much regard for morals, as she deceives a helpless, jailed man just to continue to uphold an already flawed ideology. The scene is taken from above; the perspective is one of a bird and shows how Earl is literally caged. At this point, he’s not really able to do anything except follow along with Hilby. Yet another example is when one woman jumps out the window to try and save Earl, but none of the reporters actually care that she's dead, and instead just want to report her story to get another good headline. These examples illustrate the nature of yellow journalism - one that forgoes the obligation of the media to reflect the truth, and instead only prioritizes profits from subscriptions from viewers of the newspapers.
ReplyDeleteThe Film His Girl Friday critiques the corrupt Journalism industry that manipulates the truth in order to get readers instead of reporting the truth to the readers. Throughout the film, journalists are shown to manipulate, hide, postpone events to maximize their personal success with their paper. They are shown to value headlines over the livelihoods of the people affected by their stories and the people reading the paper.
ReplyDeleteFirst, this is shown when Walter wants to postpone the execution of Earl Williams so his Newspaper can make headlines with a testimonial claiming Earl’s insanity and innocence. Instead of reporting the truth to the people, Walter tries to manipulate the truth to make his newspaper sell like wildfire. To follow through with his plan, Walter gets Hildy to “prove” that Earl is insane. As a result, Hildy manipulates Earl into believing that the reason he shot the gun was because of the ideology “Production of Use,” which forced him to use the gun because he had it. Then, Hildy begins to write a paper claiming that Earl is insane, when in reality he was manipulated by Hildy, a newspaper reporter, into admitting that he is insane.
Second, the journalism industry’s value of profit over public service is evident when Walter and Hildy hide Earl so no other newspaper can make a story off of his escape and location. While the press is supposed to represent the truth, two newspaper reporters continually hide the truth for their personal gain. Even when pressured by other reporters to reveal Earl’s location, Walter and Hildy choose to hide him in a desk instead of coming clean, showing that they will push their morals aside when it comes to making headlines.