The Social Network and Sexism

Sometimes I think I see sexism in movies where there isn't any. I think that I am oversensitive when I whine about the portrayal of women in Hancock, or the dearth of legitimate female friendships, or the double standard represented by the MPAA's recent decision to categorize "male nudity" as separate from "nudity," while maintaining that female nudity is just "nudity."

But then other people start whining about something fairly innocuous in a brilliant film, and I realize I'm actually quite sane. The recent internet controversy over perceived gender discrimination in a film revolves around The Social Network, I guess because whenever a movie has that high of an approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes people need to find something to whine about.

The claims basically stem from the fact that the few women in the film are either a) crazy, b) topless or c) Rooney Mara (who one article refers to as "the bitch who got away"). This is pretty indisputable, although I'd throw in Rashida Jones as a relatively positive female force in the film. In fact, Jones' character is the only one able to get through to Jessie Eisenberg's Zuckerberg, and she provides the film with the closest it has to a summation of purpose. But okay. Let's discount her, since it's a pretty gender neutral role and besides does one female lawyer really undo the rest of it?

Well, my point is not that The Social Network has a lot of positive female characters. It's that why the hell should it? As someone who has searched throughout my pop culture career for female characters who are as daring and interesting as their male counterparts and often found the selections wanting, I can still see that not every movie needs to be about female empowerment. That would get kinda dull.

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More importantly, the story of facebook as streamlined by Sorkin and Fincher in The Social Network, is a story in which every single character is defined solely by their relation to Eisenberg's Zuckerberg. Andrew Garfield is a wimpy loyal noob* incapable of saving himself from irrelevancy. Justin Timberlake is an almost lustfully appealing go getter turned pathetic self-defeating drug addict. The women, therefore, that surround them represent Mark Zuckerberg's (or at least Sorkin's fictional version of Zuckerberg's) view of women, and more specifically the type of women who would come into his life by virtue of that being his view of women.

More importantly, the mere categorization of Mara's character as "the bitch that got away," displays the view of the author that a woman who objects to being repeatedly told she is stupid, worthless, and inherently in the debt of her male companion is a bitch. That's absurd. No one leaves that scene thinking that Mara was in the wrong to dump the shit out of Zuckerberg.

Anyway, while I understand the urge to criticize popular films, especially for perceived biases, and I think that everyone is entitled to their opinion whether or not I agree with it, I think that sometimes our gender backlash takes us so far away from the real issue that it helps to disguise legitimate claims to sexual discrepancies in cinema and make it all seem to come under the category of typical womanly whining.

And that really makes me sad. :(

*pathetic attempt at incorporating internet slang acknowledge and the author is adequately ashamed of it.

The Social Network

Earlier this year my father bought Life Magazine's "100 People Who Changed the World". I read the thing cover to cover. There were tons of omissions, none quite so confounding to me as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. My dad didn't understand why I insisted that the 26-year-old billionaire should be on the list, "Facebook'll be gone in 5 years" he argued. Well, I highly doubt that, I actually think it will morph and grow to the point where there's hardly a need for external websites (really all it needs is a live video chat, a document-sharing/sending method and a comprehensive online shopping component and Facebook will include every top web activity their is). But even if Facebook ceases to exist, the next big thing comes along and usurps its throne, it has already changed the world. It's a noun, multiple verbs and an adjective. It's changed how we interact with one another and how we present ourselves to the world, how stars rise, politicians campaign, humanitarian funds are raised and protests start. Sean Parker and Napster changed the music industry forever, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook changed the world.

With such scope of influence, every event in Facebook's evolution had the power to affect the entire world. That's the story The Social Network tells, a small story of friends and foes, egos and emotions, jealousies, insecurities and hurt as played out with international reverberations. I've often said that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's work is Shakespearean in tone: grand, poetic, rich in character detail. But nothing is more Shakespearean than a personal story with larger than life consequences. The intricate and engrossing story of The Social Network is beautifully told and Sorkin's is the perfect unique voice to hear it in.

Perhaps the film's greatest strength is the complexity of its characters. Zuckerberg is neither hero nor villain, but rather a guy, a flawed every man who's surplus of intelligence creates a natural deficiency in social arenas. As played to perfection by indie darling Jesse Eisenberg, Zuckerberg inspires frustration and incredible pathos in almost equal supply. He lacks tact and is a terrible judge of character but he means well, I didn't doubt that for a second. He's remarkable for so many things: his genius, his wit, even some of his priorities (money and female attention take a backseat to ambition and acceptance); and reprehensible for others: his thoughtlessness, his arrogance, his obsession with social improvement and his lack of loyalty (though there's a great moment at the end that throws this particular issue into question a bit). Despite being based on a real person, Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is a film conception, a complex human character rather than an accurate portrayal of the human himself.

The other characters are given similarly complex portrayals. The twin golden boys Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss (Armie Hammer) who sue Mark for stealing their website idea could easily have become villains, but Sorkin writes them as conflicted good guys both pissed off at being beaten at their own game and cautious of being taken advantage of. Eduardo Saverin (played with pitch perfect empathy by Andrew Garfield), the other character in direct opposition to our "hero", is actually the most easily likable person in the film in my opinion. Unrelentingly loyal until pushed beyond his breaking point and armed with good business sense and an accurate judge of character, Eduardo is the put-upon victim of the film's events. However, his hesitation to join the company in California, his traditional approach to a non-traditional venture and his too-trusting nature make him an easy target. Eduardo also serves as Mark's proxy to the outside world in a lot of ways. He's the translator who understands both the socially strange Zuckerberg and the world he struggles to interact with. At the end of the film, though he's been taken advantage of and stabbed in the back in many ways, one gets the sense that Eduardo will be just fine. But as a particularly heart-wrenching scene points out, he was Mark's only friend. Without Eduardo, Mark is alone. Successful, famous, powerful and alone. It's Mark who's ending has the ring of tragedy to it.

The one character complaint I have is the simplicity of Sean Parker. Compared to the other characters, Parker (played with wonderful irony by Justin Timberlake, one of the foremost musicians affected by the rise of Napster) is not very interesting. He is tricky and engaging but ultimately too obviously devious to really win me over. A more complex portrayal of Parker could better explain the allure he held for Zuckerberg. As it is, that pull shows the weakness of Zuckerberg more than the power of Parker. Although maybe that's the point (and who doesn't love Justin?!)

But what's one tiny little complaint in the world of awesome that is The Social Network?

The intricate characters exist in a cinematic world perfectly constructed by director David Fincher, within a story that is endlessly fascinating, superbly timely and undeniably engrossing. The pacing of this wonderful drama/thriller/origin story hybrid is dead on and the dialogue clever as hell (naturally, with my beloved Sorkin holding the pen). A character-perfect quip about BU's lighter workload effectively has insecure students up in arms and the throw-away use of one of my favourite grammar jokes (Winklevi!) had me cheering with geeky delight. Sorkin makes a quick cameo for the fan with a keen eye, a Facebook aficionado will love the nostalgia of the old-school interfaces from the site's early days and the dorky fun of the drunk livejournaling/coding adventure that kicks off the story sets the tone for the delight of watching really smart people play dirty.

The whole thing is as perfect as it could be for a film with such high expectations attached to it. With The Social Network, Fincher and Sorkin have together created the film that defines right now and how we got here.

My Cinema Crush: Jesse Eisenberg

I first saw Jesse Eisenberg* in the 2005 film The Squid and the Whale. In it, he played the mostly unlikeable, snobbish son of a couple going through one of the most nasty divorces ever put to film. The movie showed Eisenberg's transition from gawky, assholeish teen to sympathetic young man against the back drop of his parents' marital decline and childishness, and its his rehabilitation that provides the films backbone. It's a fascinating, frustrating film, that is carried primarily by its then-21-years-old stars fantastic, nuanced portrait.

Perhaps its because of this that I never quite got the Michael Cera comparisons. If anything, way before Juno and Superbad made Michael Cera anything other than George Michael from Arrested Development, I already had Eisenberg on my radar as a young man to watch, who could make the awkward and unlikeable strangely sympathetic and redeemable, and who worked best within complex, beautiful scripts that dealt with universal themes like jealousy, heart-break and what it means to care about other human beings.

This isn't a review of The Social Network. Kelly, as this site's Editor In Chief, has claimed the honor of writing about that breath-taking film. This is about why Eisenberg comes out of it seeming so damn triumphant, and why it's worth taking a look at his previous filmography to establish that this was not a fluke. Eisenberg is a star to watch, a man who can go from charming to awkward to brilliant without batting an eye, but who never sacrifices the reality of his characters for cheap jokes. On top of the aforementioned The Squid and the Whale, Eisenberg has started his career by playing a wide variety of characters in a plethora of highly-praised, semi-independent films. His two most popular films, Adventureland and Zombieland (hmm...), are probably the most responsible for the Cera-comparisions, but they showcase a lot of what makes Eisenberg unique. He radiates an intelligence that is charming, but he's also so legitimately awkward and gawky that he makes his characters' isolation seem believable (Cera, who by the way I REALLY like, in contrast, is always on the normal side of socially awkward, a geeky cutie who girls want to take home and cuddle). He also plays darker, both in Adventureland's forays into heart break and doucheyness, and in Zombieland's lust for zombie death.

But it's his less famous roles that really distinguish him. Whether it's playing an Orthodox Jewish drug smuggler in Holy Rollers or a grown up dealing with his high school bully in The Education of Charlie Banks, he's built an impressive body of work for a 26 year old (let's ignore The Village for the time being). On top of that...

I kind of found his extremely selfish, social awkward, douche bag portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg kind of adorable. I hate boiling down what is a very legitimate argument about a young man's artistic prowess into a squeally, girly, "HE'S SO CUTE," but, well, this is a series of articles called "My Cinema Crush."

I had to seriously question my moral compass when I watched him screw over friend after friend and yet just really wanted to give him a hug. Partially that's cause Eisenberg portrays him with this ferocious, strangely moral intensity that without ever spelling out Zuckerberg's true motivations, we feel that he is operating the best that he knows how within a world that always seems tantalizingly outside his grasp. But partially that's cause Eisenberg makes truly awkward douches redeemable and, yes, adorable.

So there it is, the first in my series of cinematic crushes articles. Jesse Eisenberg, geeky douchebag extroardinaire.

PS. Today coincidentally is Jesse Eisenberg's birthday. Happy Birthday, Jesse. *or at least remember seeing him, since I know that he was in stuff before that ** If you really want to see why this kid is so damn engaging, check out this moviephone video with him, Justin Timberlake, and Andrew Garfield. It takes a lot to out funny-and-laid-back the erst-while boy bander, but Eisenberg damn near pulls it off.