- “Oh sure, sweetheart, I could tell you about this idea I have for a new website. But let’s face it, you probably wouldn’t understand.”
… but then, Sorkin also kind of avoids a few of the big criticisms that’ve been lobbed at The Social Network. Sorkin’s defense is here; here’s a chunk of it:
I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren’t the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80’s. They’re very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now. The women they surround themselves with aren’t women who challenge them (and frankly, no woman who could challenge them would be interested in being anywhere near them.)
Interesting—though as explanations go, it’s not exactly thorough. FilmDrunk’s Vince Mancini’s response to Sorkin’s statement is right on—he highlights a few important flaws in Sorkin’s response, and he also points out two things that’re relevant to any discussion of The Social Network‘s sexism:
Not every movie has to be everything to everyone, and the more they try, the more they’re usually going to suck.
And:
[The Social Network] never pretended to be anything but an EXTREMELY HEIGHTENED version of reality, and even cleverly gave itself permission to do so by making most of the action subjective flashback.
Go here for the rest of that.
I’m a bit embarrassed to note that it didn’t even occur to me that The Social Network might be sexist until reading that Jezebel piece, and I didn’t read that until I’d seen the movie twice already. (I like to think of myself as being at least somewhat enlightened, but realistically, my obliviousness to all this probably means I’m an ignorant jackass.) While I’m not sure I buy the accusations that the film is flat-out misogynistic—I think both Rooney Mara and Rashida Jones’ characters are pretty great, not to mention really pretty*—the fact that Zuckerberg’s longtime girlfriend was written out of the story is kinda sketch.
But a lot of things about the film are kinda sketch. While it’s easy—and not particularly unfair—to say “Of course shit was fabricated and changed, it’s a movie,” it’s also interesting to look at what Sorkin and Fincher changed, and to ask why they did so. Doing that doesn’t The Social Network any less phenomenal, and it’s definitely worth thinking about.
*JOKE.
This is exactly the conversation I had on Wednesday night at PAC’s goodbye thingy.
The choices Sorkin made reflected what he thought would be titillating- i.e. psycho asian chicks, blonde co-eds in stanford panties (note that JT was fully clothed in that scene), and a fake facemash which only included half the population (the female half).
And from everything I’ve read, no one who went to Harvard at the same time as Zuckerberg experienced that boys’ club mentality. AND no one even gives a shit about Finals Clubs so the question of why he decided to make a Billionaire Boys Club version of the facebook story is still unanswered by his post on Levine’s bog.
I really liked the movie DESPITE how marginalized it made me feel. Imagine how much I would have liked it if he had told the actual story.
/rant
Oh for fuck’s sake. Erik, if you saw the movie twice, and sexism didn’t even occur to you, the movie’s probably not overtly sexist. I accept Sorkin’s explanation, and this whole business about stereotyped “psycho asian chicks?” (btw Dana Stevens at Slate was also baffled this was a thing) C’mon now, is that even a stereotype?
Kiala, the movie’s apparently from the subjective point of view from the asshole male leads, who apparently, act like assholes the whole time. Why do men who don’t see the women around them as 3D have to be responsible for rendering their characters that way in a friggin’ subjective flashback?
Also, I haven’t seen the film, have no plans to, and I’m not a lady. So my opinion’s a pretty valuable one to have, natch.
@CC the point has been raised that these men DO see women in 3D and Sorkin decided to change that in the script.
How is making a character sexist sexist?
Here. Irin Carmon explains this for you.
http://jezebel.com/5662069/the-social-netw…
@ Kiala: “But are casual viewers coming away from the film thinking, “Wow, I’m really troubled by the lack of a coherent character arc for Christy the psycho girlfriend”? Or do they think, how badass it would be to live the northern California version of Entourage, Victoria’s Secret model in tow?”
If we’re talking about sexism, why does every “casual” viewer have to be a male fratboy stereotype? Further, why do we have to give a fuck what a dumbfuck fratboy stereotype HYPOTHETICALLY might take away from this film? If they are really sexist morons already, is Aaron Sorkin’s fucking Facebook movie really in a position to change that one way or the other?
I haven’t even seen the movie, but from all I’ve read, incl. the Jezebel post, Erik’s post and Dana Stevens’ review, I probably agree with commenter KiloTwat at Jezebel: “The movie went out of its way to show how lonely, pathetic and destructive most its main characters were. The hardest partier, Sean Parker, was portrayed as a paranoid, unhinged loon who can’t keep himself out of jail or in a job. Nothing about their lifestyle was glamorized. If you find the movie portrayal of that kind of living enviable in any way, the problem is solely yours because the filmmakers all but smeared tears and vomit into every scene.”
I have no idea why I’m wandering into this prickle patch without even seeing the movie – oh wait it’s because it’s all anyone is friggin’ talking about and I DON’T GET IT, PROBABLY BECAUSE OF MY PENIS.
@CC you do not get to talk about this anymore until you see the movie. #zipit
i did notice the almost entirely male perspective while watching the movie, but my “feminist alarm” did not go off, because i do not often watch movies through a lens of consideration of how the world REALLY is or how i want it to be. neither do i read a book that way.