The Running Man

“Uptown there was only one function for a man in baggy gray pants and a cheap bowl haircut and sunken eyes. That purpose was the Games.”

Ben doesn’t have to justify his presence Uptown, and no police bother him as he approaches the Games Building. They assume, correctly, that he is only there to become fodder for the Network. Uptown has nothing else to offer to people like Ben.

“You have a nice night tonight […] You go out and have a nice six-course meal with whoever you’re sleeping with this week and think about my kid dying of flu in a shitty three-room Development apartment.”

Ben takes every chance to antagonize and implicate the people giving the Games examination. In this case, he reminds the beautiful woman conducting three of his written exams why he is there—to support his family and sick child. She is doing her job, is well paid, and would never have to resort to the Games for money. Ben reminds her that not everyone is so fortunate, a foreshadowing of what he tells Amelia.

“I haven’t had work for a long time. I want to work again, even if it’s only being the sucker-man in a loaded game. I want to work and support my family. I have pride. Do you have pride, Doctor?”

Ben denies joining the Games because he is suicidal. He tells the doctor that, even though he is joining for his sick daughter, he also wants the satisfaction of working again. The doctor is still able to work, although his work is part of a perverse system of exploitation. Ben is proud of himself, even though he hates his desperate circumstances. The above quote uses repetition, repeating “I want” for emphasis.

“Somebody has to pay […] Somebody has to.”

Ben is furious when the operator disconnects his brief call with Sheila. He is beset with an urge for vengeance against the system, but there are so many targets that no one stands out as most deserving of his retribution. When Ben joins the game, he will finally have a chance to fight back. The text again uses repetition for emphasis, repeating “Somebody has.”

“People won’t be in the bars and hotels or gathering in the cold in front of appliance stores rooting for you to get away. Goodness! No. They want to see you wiped out, and they’ll help if they can. The more messy the better.”

Killian explains one of the challenges that Ben will face as a contestant. The masses—who are, ironically, people like him—will not be on his side. He cannot expect shelter or assistance from his peers. Instead, they will delight in participating in his capture and/or death.

“All in all, the Richards on the monitor was terrifying—the angel of urban death, not very bright, but possessed of a certain primitive animal cunning. The uptown apartment dweller’s boogeyman.”

Ben is bemused and disturbed by the doctored images of him that accompany his televised introduction to the masses. The editors have made him look savage, unhealthy, and even more desperate than he actually is. They also doctor images of his wife, portraying her as lascivious and vapid. The editors do this so that the public won’t sympathize with or help him.

“I’m a collector, you know. Cave art and Egyptian artifacts are my areas of specialization. You are more analogous to the cave art than to my Egyptian urns, but no matter. I wish you could be preserved—collected, if you please—just as my Asian cave paintings have been collected and preserved.”

After Ben’s appearance before the live audience, Killian congratulates him on being so entertaining. He describes Ben as if he is a perfect representation of his era and class. Killian treats him as a commodity and a novelty, dehumanizing him in the process. He finds Ben entertaining, which is part of why he will later offer him a job as McCone’s replacement. However, he makes no secret of the fact that he views Ben as a primitive figure, not a person.

“Stay close to your own people.” 

Killian advises Ben to stay near his people. He is not referring to Ben’s actual family, but to his social class. This will prove to be good advice. Ben is able to get help from people like Molie, Bradley, and others because they are more like him than like the people behind the Network. They are willing to risk their lives to help him succeed because they have nearly as little to lose as Ben.

“They gave us the Free-Vee to keep us off the streets so we can breathe ourselves to death without making any trouble. How do you like that?”

Bradley tells Ben some of the disturbing things he has learned from reading at the library. Bradley believes the government is conspiring to let the poor die of poor air quality, distracting them with Free-Vee. They entertain the poor while keeping them sedentary, which makes them easy targets for both advertisements and pollution.

“He had never been a social man. He had shunned causes with contempt and disgust. They were for pig-simple suckers and people with too much time and money on their hands.”

As Ben waits for Bradley to return, he realizes that he is a part of an idealistic struggle. Ben has never had the time or the luxury to nurture either friendships or idealism. In his view, the only people who have the ability to protest and pursue causes are those with money and free time. Now he realizes that people like Bradley help people like him at great risk to themselves and their families.

“He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride—if responsibility robs him of his manhood.”

Ben remembers that his father left when Ben was five. Ben didn’t blame him. His father left when he couldn’t handle the same dilemma that Ben is in, that of being unable to provide for his family. When Ben finds himself in a similar situation, there is no work he can take that will allow him to fulfill his responsibilities and keep his pride. Therefore, he turns to the Games. This may result in his family living without him, but he can keep his pride while providing for them.

“There was something suspicious and alien in his features, yet familiar also. After a moment Richards placed it. It was innocence.”

When Ben meets the 11-year-old boy with the dog, the boy’s features surprise him. This is because the boy is relatively peaceful and calm. He doesn’t have the desperate, almost feral look that Ben associates with the youth of the inner city. This boy is still relatively innocent because he is part of a protected social class and isn’t forced into the streets for survival.

“The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it.”

Ben is amazed that Amelia successfully manages to lie for him about the explosives. Not only that, but she also returned to him in the car when she could have gone to McCone and condemned him. This foreshadows her later revelation that she helped Ben because he made her feel like a murderer. She has started to suspect that perhaps he has been wronged by the Games Network.

“Spectators had begun to creep back in spite of Armageddon’s shadow. Their eyes were wide and wet and sexual.”

The above passage explores An Appetite for Violence. After Ben frightens the crowd with the threat of explosives, he waits for Amelia to return from her talk with McCone. The crowd forgets its fear and returns. King describes their hunger for spectacle in terms of a ravenous, irresistible appetite that borders on lust. This craving for bloodlust is the constant that the Network exploits in its programming.

“Richards looked at him with the curiosity of a man seeing a celebrity for the first time—no matter how many times you see his picture in the movie 3-D’s you can’t believe his reality until he appears in the flesh.”

When Ben sees McCone for the first time, he reacts similarly to the way that the cab driver reacted to him, although he is not excited to see McCone. He knows McCone only by reputation and by his image on Free-Vee. Because of his presence on Free-Vee, McCone is both surprisingly ordinary and larger than life. Ben thinks again that Free-Vee shows only the reality that the Network wishes to convey.

“Human life has a certain sacred quality. The government—our government—realizes this. We are humane.”

McCone justifies his reasons for not calling Ben’s bluff about the explosives. It is never clear whether McCone believes the Network’s rhetoric completely or if he is just playing his part. Regardless, the irony is obvious: McCone claims that he is forestalling the violence out of a sense of humanity, despite his participation in an inhumane system.

“You made me feel like a murderer.”

On the plane, Amelia explains why she lied for Ben. She has previously seen herself only as an innocent member of the audience. However, given the nature of a program like The Running Man, there is no such thing as an innocent, non-complicit viewer. Anyone who gives the Network their attention effectively votes for its agenda.

“The duality of his brain was oddly comforting, in a way. It induced a detachment that was much like insanity.”

As Ben watches the ground pass beneath the airplane, he thinks of the many different types of people below. He also pictures the missiles that are tracking their movements. He is able to function despite his terror and exhaustion. Fear and desperation have given him clarity, a state that he identifies as being akin to mental instability. Here, Ben dissociates from the horror of his situation.

“‘Don’t you watch The National Report?’ Richards asked, still smiling. ‘We don’t make mistakes. We haven’t made a mistake since 1950.’”

Ben and McCone are wary of each other as the plane heads toward what will ultimately be its final destination at the Games Building. Ben mocks the blatant media manipulation put forth by the Network. It would never publicly admit to a mistake. Once enough time has passed and an ample amount of other entertainment is offered to the public, past mistakes are forgotten and cease to be real.

“You’ve been the greatest contestant we’ve ever had, Richards. Through a combination of luck and skill, you’ve been positively the greatest. Great enough for us to offer you a deal.”

Killian congratulates Ben on how well he has done in the game. Behind his flattery is a public relations motive. If Ben accepts his deal, the Network is spared the embarrassment of being humiliated by a contestant. It would also allow the Network to craft a new narrative for Ben, making him a hero while exonerating the system that placed him on the run in the first place.

“Open your eyes a little and you’ll see that The Running Man is designed for something besides pleasuring the masses and getting rid of dangerous people. Richards, the Network is always in the market for new talent. We have to be.”

Killian reveals one of the other motives behind The Running Man—the Network uses its contestants as a talent pool. McCone has been effective and lethal in previous games, but the nature of The Running Man means that Hunters can die. If the Network wasn’t constantly scouting for new talent, there could be a vacuum in the event of McCone’s death.

“As Chief Hunter […] you could get those bastards and put them down a deep hole. And a whole lot of others like them.”

Killian tells Ben about the deaths of his wife and child and then tries to appeal to his sense of vengeance and bloodlust. He doesn’t admit that the Network had anything to do with their deaths, but he does imply that Ben’s work as a Hunter could rectify the injustice of their murders. He wants Ben to help him get rid of dangerous people—even though he classified Ben as a criminal prior to offering him the deal.

“Say your name over two hundred times and discover you are no one.”

Ben mentally chants the names of his wife and daughter until they become nonsensical sounds to him. During the game, Sheila and Cathy have driven him to persevere. Now he feels that he has lost them, as well as his own identity. The Network has vilified him, and he has become, to the masses, what they say he is.