(no subject)

[raincitygirl]

I watched “The Social Network” last week, entirely the fault of lost2mercy. Oh BOYS, silly silly boys. Am now rewatching it with the Aaron Sorkin (scriptwriter) and selected cast commentary, and am finding myself rather charmed by Jesse Eisenberg (who plays Mark in the movie). Mostly because he freely and quite casually admits to taking antidepressants, which I didn’t think anybody in Hollywood would admit to, particularly a young actor with their way to make still. Plus, I am charmed by Eiseinberg’s portrayal of Mark as though he has Asperger’s Syndrome. He hasn’t actually said in the commentary yet whether it’s intentional, but it seems a little too on-the-nose to be a total coincidence.

I am rather annoyed, however, that NONE of the female cast are taking part in the commentary so far. Admittedly Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones and Brenda Song all have fairly small roles, but still… It grates. On a related note, I downloaded the Kindle version of “The Accidental Billionaires” the book upon which Aaron Sorkin based the screenplay, because I was curious. Let’s just say I’m glad it wasn’t an expensive book. It’s not that it’s actively badly written, it’s just the air of entitlement BURNS. All these characters seem to feel entitled, by virtue of their intelligence and accomplishments, to a girlfriend, and a hot, status-enhancing girlfriend at that.

Because a beautiful girl on your arm is proof to other guys that you’ve made it, and the relationship itself is irrelevant. Not to mention the fact that these guys mostly want to date women who go to their colleges, and are presumably surrounded by girls who are just as smart as they are, but they still see them exclusively as arm candy. Or invisible, if they’re not pretty enough to be arm candy. I’m only on Chapter 3, so maybe it improves, but I doubt it. There’s no apparent awareness by the writer that this is a screwed-up worldview. The movie can be sexist at times, but at least Sorkin’s screenplay shows metatextual awareness that his male characters act in sexist ways.

Comments

[scrollgirl]

Let’s just say I’m glad it wasn’t an expensive book. It’s not that it’s actively badly written, it’s just the air of entitlement BURNS. All these characters seem to feel entitled, by virtue of their intelligence and accomplishments, to a girlfriend, and a hot, status-enhancing girlfriend at that.

Oh, wait, are you telling me the book is WORSE??? I mean, I think Sorkin is a genius when it comes to sparkling dialogue, dramatic speeches, and intense male friendships. But I would never say he's a feminist writer, or that he does a great job at giving female characters agency and centrality in his stories. But wow, sad to hear the book was worse.

Try the Social Network fanfic, though, because you can get some pretty good stuff. It's slasherific, of course, but there are also good stories where the women get to voice their perspectives or be more active participants in building Facebook.

The movie can be sexist at times, but at least Sorkin’s screenplay shows glimmerings of metatextual awareness that his male characters act in sexist ways.

This is true at least.

[raincitygirl]

See, I actually only ended up seeing the movie *because* I had read some AU fanfic that was really terrific (and ended happily, darnit). I knew canon ended badly, but I figured I’d watch the movie and then turn it off 20 minutes before the end, avoid the heartbreak that way. Lo and behold, when I rented the movie, it’s all in flashbacks and there’s no way to avoid the angst. Poor boys. And thank goodness for AU’s.

And yes, the book is MUCH worse. shezan pointed out that the author, a journalist by profession, may just have been reporting the opinions of real!Saverin and the real!Winklevosses, as opposed to endorsing those opinions. After all, the author couldn’t have written the book without their cooperation, so directly criticizing their antiquated worldview in print would make his life more difficult. But whether the author agrees with their views or not, it blows my mind that real!Saverin allowed the book to be published. It makes him look SO bad, and it’s like he doesn’t even realize it.

According to lizardbeth_j Natalie Portman went to Harvard at the same time as all of these people, and TSN director David Fincher asked her before he directed the movie if she’d known them. Her response was yes, she’d known them all, though they were never close. Basically, she thought they were all incredibly smart, but also all pretty horrible people. Which, as the person who mentioned this information about Portman to me said, is kind of impressive. Having grown up around Hollywood types, Portman must have known some pretty horrible people before she ever got to Harvard and met these guys.

But yeah, there’s this part where one of the Winklevii is complaining about how his heavy courseload combined with his athletic commitments and his commitments at the Porcellian Club make it incredibly tough to find time to date. And thus to find the “high-quality” girlfriend he deserves. And I’m practically yelling at my iPhone (on which I’m reading this): “Maybe if you’re too busy right now to find a girlfriend you’re also too busy to HAVE a girlfriend. Obviously your academic and Olympic aspirations have to come ahead of your personal life, but nobody’s forcing you to be a member of the Porcellian in your very limited spare time.”

It’s like the character had zero recognition of the fact that there’s emotional work that goes into maintaining a relationship. That he would have to actually spend time with his hypothetical girlfriend (when he has no time) doesn’t seem to occur to him. He just wants a hot girl to take to events, one who’ll be impressed by him that she won’t expect any kind of reciprocity. This is a recipe for a bad relationship. I’m incredibly bad at relationships and even *I* know this.

I haven’t read far enough in the book yet to know how the real!Eduardo and real!Christy relationship goes down, but I kind of loved in the movie that when FB snagged Wardo a hot girlfriend, the relationship turned out to be a disaster. I was kind of sad for him, because however preoccupied he was with FB, he still didn’t deserve to be with an emotionally abusive pyromaniac (because movie!Eduardo comes across as very sympathetic, in spite of freezing FB’s account). And I wasn’t thrilled that the only Asian character in the movie turned out to be an emotionally abusive pyro. But at the same time, it was kind of like Sorkin was saying: “Guess what, these perfect trophy girlfriend types are JUST as maladjusted as the high-status but screwed-up guys they date. Inventing FB or going to the Olympics does not give you a cheat code to acquire the perfect girlfriend.”