Good Night, and Good Luck Summary Analysis

Good Night, and Good Luck is a 2005 drama film staring George Clooney and this film goes into a different world of communist and how CBS news handles un-American allegations.

In the movie, Good Night, and Good Luck, you realize that it's not truly about politics. Murrow was making a statement that television can be used for good rather than being a pointless distraction that draws attention from the important matters happening in society. Murrow and his team were walking on thin ice as they were using their show to expose political/ powerful leaders for their actions. After Hollenbeck's suicide, Paley pulls the TV show from one of the most popular nights to a Sunday night and gives them 5, one-hour shows. Murrow needs to find sponsors to keep his show going.

Murrow was willing to risk many things to ensure justice for those who didn’t have a voice. Not only did they help a man in the air force gain a voice for being trialed and dismissed for his father's actions. They gave a woman a voice who worked in the pentagon and was allegedly on a communist mailing list. Why did Murrow take the actions he did to act as a hero to these people with unfair allegations? Why did he want to risk his reputation and career for these stories? Was it just a good story or was there an underlying internal push for him to continue his shows?

One piece of the movie that stuck out to me is the dramatic irony of Joe Wershba and his marriage to Shirly Wershba. The watcher sees moments in a copy room and at home where they go through extensive lies and cover-ups to ensure that no one knows that they are married. The characters in the movie were unaware of the marriage, unlike the watchers. Joe and Shirley go through long measures to ensure that their marriage is secret so neither of them loses their jobs due to the policy of no 2 employees can be married. At the end of the movie, they are both pulled into the room and provided information of an upcoming layoff that they can avoid if they out themselves as a married couple. Happily and relieved that neither of them has to lie anymore, they agree to quit.

The last character I would like to shine a light on is the senator. My opinion is that Senator McCarthy was a ruthless leader who only cared about looking good. He wanted to be in the news and he wanted the public to see the good he was doing. But he wasn’t doing positive work. Instead, he was forcing allegations and branding people for actions that they didn’t even do. Society believed that he was stopping people who were un-American and supported communist ways, instead, he was pointing fingers at innocent people. Murrow saw this and wanted to stop this wrongdoing.