54 pages • 1 hour read
The Running Man
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Themes
Media Manipulation and Social Control
Once Ben leaves home and gives a larger view of society, it becomes clear that the media presented to the populace is highly curated and edited to further the agenda of the upper classes. One of the primary mechanisms of control is Free-Vee (TV). Its massive popularity ensures that the Network’s message will reach the majority of the people that it would like to influence.
In addition to entertaining and distracting the audience, Free-Vee is also meant to pacify the lower classes. Because the Games are so popular, the Network is a reliable, free conduit that influences viewers. The rebellion could take influence away from the Network if it could get people to stop watching Free-Vee, but that is unlikely. The prevalence of Free-Vee also prevents the masses from focusing on other forms of media and education. The educational gap between the majority of viewers and the upper class is vast: “The literacy of Games applicants was notoriously low” (19).
Members of the lower class are seen as interchangeable. When Ben changes into his uniform, he thinks, “When the entire group was wearing them, Ben Richards felt as if he had lost his face” (34). In the eyes of the upper class, this is nothing new. The poor are faceless because no one outside of the inner city spends much time thinking about them.
The clearest examples of media manipulation are how the Network presents images of Ben and Sheila. Ben is depicted as a vicious, violent criminal who is overcome with bloodlust. The crowd boos and hates him. They should hate the existence of the man they are being shown if he were real. The image of Sheila is even more of an attempt at manipulation. Rather than presenting the true sympathetic story of a mother who fears for the lives of her husband and child, the image makes her look wanton, drugged, and mentally unwell.
Societal control is a matter of building, maintaining, and continually growing power. In The Running Man, the elites are poisoning the lower classes with pollution. By keeping them in front of their screens, they can keep them from wondering about their circumstances. People like Bradley continue asking questions defiantly and using libraries so they can learn rather than watching Free Vee, which requires nothing of them but their attention.
Ben quickly learns how to use the media to his advantage. When he confronts McCone on the airstrip, he orchestrates the situation in such a way that he can buy himself more time. He knows that the Network has to present a certain image; it can’t afford to gun him down with Amelia in front of the crowds. Amelia lies for Ben because she says he makes her feel like a murderer by being part of the crowd hunting for him. This is the same feeling the Network instills in viewers. When Ben destroys the Games Building, it may galvanize the rest of the populace to have a similar perspective.
An Appetite for Violence
The organization that creates the Network Games—and the government that would legalize them—has a keen understanding of how to appeal to the worst parts of humanity. When the novel starts, it is clear that the public has an appetite for depravity on Free-Vee. For example, on Treadmill to Bucks, suffering is presented as entertainment. Even in the world of The Running Man, it is unlikely that people would watch a program that showed nothing but heart attacks and strokes, stripped of incentives for the participants. Presented through the frame of a game show, the heart attacks and strokes are rendered palatable, although this shouldn’t be the case.
The Network’s most popular show is The Running Man, illustrating the population’s desensitization to and craving for violence. It is the only show in which the death of the competitors is the goal. Before their selection, Laughlin tells Ben, “I think we’re getting the big-money assignments. The ones where they do more than just land you in the hospital with a stroke or put out an eye or cut off an arm or two. The ones where they kill you. Prime time, baby” (56). Such a show could not appear on prime time without demand. The Network can therefore say that it is simply providing what the people want.
Ben understands how people are hungry for violence when he tells Amelia, “These people only want to see someone bleed. The more the better. They would just as soon it was both of us” (277). Earlier, Killian echoes this sentiment when he tells Ben that the crowd wants to see his death and that the messier it is, the louder they will cheer. Life for the lower class in Co-Op City is grim, but the Games place people in even worse circumstances. Even though they may unwittingly be dying of air pollution, viewers can watch one of the Free-Vee programs and be glad that their situation is not as dire.
Desensitization to violence happens by degrees. It is unlikely that the Network simply launched into a full schedule of horrific, dangerous programs, or there would have been backlash. Instead, they amped up gradually, like a frog slowly boiling in water. Without the support of the government, the Network would not be able to succeed, let alone to constantly grow in popularity. Viewers like Amelia slowly acclimate to the mounting horrors shown to them.
Amelia ‘s eventual sympathy for Ben demonstrates that one can also become re-sensitized to violence. However, it must also happen by degrees and is rarely a quick process.
The Class Divide
Ben Richards is part of the lower class, who comprise the majority of the city. He, and others like him, have no reason to go uptown unless they are submitting themselves to the dangers of the Games. Like his peers, Ben is often in a situation where he has to take a job that could have adverse physical effects—like sterilization, resorting to crime, or taking intermittent day labor. When Ben can no longer provide enough for the family once Cathy becomes sick, Sheila resorts to sex work. Their situation is not uncommon in their social class.
Though members of the lower class are victims in society, they ironically comprise the audience for Free-Vee, where they watch fellow members of their class suffer as reality show contestants. They consume entertainment produced by the rich, who use their anguish as a means of control and pleasure. The poor survive on black market medicine, sex work, and crime. They are also more likely to marry in traditional, archaic fashion, and they have a high level of illiteracy.
Ben’s trip up the floors of the Games building is a potent symbol of class differences. With every floor, there are more amenities and space. When Ben visits Killian and Burns, they occupy plush suites stocked with alcohol and women. They take everything for granted. This infuriates Ben, who takes every opportunity to needle people like the guards and Rinda, who are nonchalant about their elevated status.
Near the novel’s climax, as Ben and Amelia drive through the volatile crowd, Ben notices that the throng divides into two camps. On one side are his people, and on the other side are the elites. They are literally facing off with each other, waiting for something to ignite.
Killian advises Ben early to stay close to his own people. Even though everyone is incentivized to report sightings of Ben, the people most likely to identify with his plight—and to risk helping him—are those with the greatest chance of winding up in the same situation. Many of them are secretly rooting for Ben, who slowly wins them over by talking about pollution every time he records a clip.
When Ben finally crashes the jet into the Games Building, it levels the playing field between the Network and the lower classes. Earlier, Bradley said that a revolution was coming and that people were waiting for a reason: “People’s mad […] all they need is a reason. One reason” (172). This may be that reason.
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