The Social Network: Citizen Kane of 2010? Or the story of a real live asshole…
Erica Albright : You're going to be successful, and rich. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.
Marylin Delpy: You're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying too hard to be one.
– from ‘The Social Network’ (2010)
The final line spoken by the character, Marylin Delpy, in The Social Network should have been the tagline for marketing this film, not the one that was actually used. “You're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying too hard to be one.” It is this line more than anything that sums up what this film is about, and in an indirect way, perhaps too indirectly, portrays one of the fundamental flaws with the ideology of the concept of the American dream and what that means since the inception of the Horatio Alger myth. And Marylin, I actually have to agree with Erica on this one. He’s just an asshole. He’s not trying; he succeeds. Having just viewed the film for the first time, there is a stream of consciousness going on right now. So forgive me if this seems disjointed. As always when I am acutely affected, both positively and negatively, by something, I must spew first and rationalize later.
Part of this will most likely end up in a paper/journal article that I am writing on authorship theory in film. While I most likely would have seen the film regardless of this paper, my perspective while watching it was to determine questions of authorship. From the get-go, what I discovered is how the perpetuation of the director as the author of the film has more to do with marketing tactics then it does with actual proof within any interpretation of the film. After the opening set-up scene of the film, the credits role. And one of the first credits to flicker across the screen is the following: A David Fincher film. It is a lie. This is not a David Fincher film. In fact, by my interpretation there are exactly two scenes in this film that stood out to me as belonging to David Fincher. This film is an Aaron Sorkin film. Everything about this film from the dialogue to the narrative structure to the pacing to the themes and character representations screams Sorkin. The absurdity of this film being a Fincher film reaches heights that I cannot fathom. And while I am loathe to compare Fincher to Welles, despite the fact that I actually like many Fincher films, I have no problem comparing Sorkin to Mankiewicz. And just as there has been much controversy regarding who the author of ‘Citizen Kane’ is – Welles, as those who adhere to the auteur theory as transported to the states by Sarris, or Mankiewicz as promoted by Kael – this film clearly may fall into the same controversy.
‘The Social Network’ is a modern day ‘Citizen Kane,’ at least narratively, dialogically and thematically. Major point in favor of this being a Sorkin film, authorially. What the film lacks is the directorial vision and cinematographic brilliance of a Welles and Toland. There is very little done visually that makes this film stand out as a visual medium. There is much – and from this writer’s perspective a subtle tribute to Mankiewicz and ‘Kane’ – that illuminates what can be done from a storytelling perspective with film. So what did Sorkin steal from ‘Kane?’ Let’s see. Structurally, the film doesn’t follow a straight timeline. The back and forth juxtaposition between the creation of the Facebook and the multiple lawsuit depositions harkens back to the creative storytelling techniques used to cultivate the character driven tale that was ‘Citizen Kane’ (CK). And ‘The Social Network’ (SN) is nothing if not a character driven tale. While Kane was a fictional character loosely based on a real person, Zuckerberg is a real man fictionalized. This film is less about the creation of Facebook and more about one man’s search for…well, let’s face it, the love of a woman. To be specific, the love of the one that got away. In this case, the love of the one that was treated like crap and was smart enough to walk away. So in case anyone is in doubt right now about what ‘Rosebud’ is in TSN, it’s Erica Albright. While the actress, Rooney Mara, has very little screen time, her legacy can be that she is the new Rosebud. If anyone is in doubt of this analysis, just consider how the film ends – visually. There are little epitaphs describing what happened with the lawsuits laid over Mark Zuckerberg attempting to friend her on Facebook. The fact that we never know whether or not she accepts, well, that just seals the deal.
Sorkin has attempted to use the Mankiewicz/Welles model to tell a contemporary story of the search for love as acceptance and a commentary on capitalist society. While it succeeds on many levels, it ultimately fails. The first time I saw CK, I was in tears by the end. Of course, I was twelve and much more empathetic than I am now. But every time I watch CK, I am disturbed and ultimately moved by the life of a truly unlikable human being. Sadly, I shed no tears at TSN. If I had, then I could honestly say that Sorkin reached the same height as Mankiewicz. That he attempted this at all takes chutzpah. Not because Mankiewicz wrote a script that can never be equaled, but because within film studies and society at large Mankiewicz is considered to have helped create a film that can never be equaled. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. The brilliance of Aaron Sorkin shines through in this film, and seriously makes me want to spit on the concept of the director. This film illustrates what a great writer can do. Write a film that almost directs itself. Sadly, in order for that to happen, we would have needed a modern day William Wyler – and I don’t know which contemporary director has Wyler’s sensibility to serve the story first – not a David Fincher. Stick to ‘Se7en’ and ‘Fight Club,’ buddy!
Now, I have a couple of questions connected to rants…
First of all, did anyone think that perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, at least as he’s portrayed in the film, might have Asperger syndrome? The high level of intelligence and the extreme level of social dysfunction and lack of empathy seem incredibly consistent with some of the aspects of Asperger syndrome. Perhaps the character would have been more likeable had he been created with this form of autism. Without that diagnosis though, there was no way that I could garner any sympathy for this character…and by proxy the real man for whom the character is based. Sorry, Mark. I don’t know you, and my only knowledge of you comes from this film and newspaper articles. Perhaps if I met the real man I might have a different opinion. But Marylin Delpy is actually wrong. Just trying to be an asshole, wanting to be that kind of person…well, it actually makes you a bona fide asshole. And here is where Sorkin failed, or perhaps it is where Jesse Eisenberg failed. Unlike Welles, who prompted moments of empathy, I had not one for Jesse/Mark. And I wanted to. I really did. Here’s a man who by current standards of masculinity in our society is a nerd. (And Mark, you should be happy that Jesse is the ‘good looking’ Hollywood version of you!) He’s the underdog in the world of Harvard – a microcosm of society as a whole – which is based on class, beauty, intelligence and legacy. Although it is not entirely clear what his actual background is compared to, say, the Winklevoss brothers, the main thing he seems to lack is the beauty aspect. And truthfully, to coin a cliché, beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder. The rest of his background – highly intelligent, clearly some sort of upper-middle class upbringing (since no mention of a scholarship is ever made), and two years at Exeter – screams privilege. While Kane may ultimately have had the same, if not better background due to financial wealth, his falling into that lifestyle was at a heavy loss to the child Kane. (Should I mention Rosebud again?) Zuckerberg, at least not from what we learn within the narrative, had no such loss. Perhaps if we had seen that kind of loss, instead of his just wanting to get back at or merely get back one girl, something a little more substantial than a teenage love affair, his ultimate fall would have been much more tragic.
I know. You’ve been waiting for this. It is I, after all, the poster child for women's equality. So…here it is. Can we talk about the portrayal of the women in this film? What a mix? And my first question is this: are all the women these characters encountered at Harvard really that shallow and superficial? I mean, seriously, these are women that got into Harvard! These women make Elle Woods look like Eleanor Roosevelt – not physically but intellectually. Erica Albright, the first woman we encounter, who in defense is actually portrayed as a substantial and intelligent woman, goes to BU! The dichotomous, contradictory portrayals of the women in this film are astounding. Did Sorkin try to mitigate the sexism inherent in the character portrayals by showing non-Harvard women as human beings and not slutty, bitchy bimbos who will have sex with someone just because they are popular? Were there no women ‘hackers’ or programmers who wanted to try out for the internship positions that first summer in California? Notice all the programmers under the challenge are men and those who are serving them the shots…all women. Yes, I understand that the sexism that is portrayed is part of the story. I get it. The whole ‘hot or not’ concept that sets all of the subsequent history to follow. And yet, I wonder…is it really still this bad? Don’t answer that. Right now, I don’t want to know. Having graduated from Smith College, though, I would urge all you Harvard women out there to remember that you are not merely hot bodies, you are intelligent minds…or you wouldn’t have gotten into Harvard. The fact that the male characters in this film view even the Harvard women as lesser beings (although apparently higher than BU women) to be objectified only makes a searing commentary on the state of male-female equality in the US in the year 2010! Yes, all you post-feminists out there who believe that you have achieved equality through some sort of misguided consumerist power that you think you have, I’d check again…
Finally, whether or not the average moviegoer will understand this or not from watching this film, this film is not a glorification of capitalism. It is as much a condemnation of the problems of wanting to achieve more wealth than is necessary and of the belief that money can solve all problems as CK was. As I noted earlier, the film ends with Zuckerberg waiting to see if Erica will accept his friend request. No amount of money, no amount of ‘friends’ (FB or otherwise) could get Zuckerberg what he wants. And I say again, score another point for this film falling into the Sorkin-as-author category! This condemnation of this shallow need for popularity and wealth – not just financial – comes straight from the mind of Sorkin…not Fincher. Columbia Pictures, you need to pull the film and reedit the opening credit sequence. It should read An Aaron Sorkin film!
Until the next time…
P.S. Erica, if you are out there, I truly hope that if the film portrays in an even remotely accurate way what you experienced, that you have no regrets for what you did. No matter how many billions Zuckerberg may be worth now. You were one of the few classy people portrayed in this film. You were one of the only human beings portrayed in this film. Personally, I think you should ask Zuckerberg for some shares…if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t be who he is. I’d say you got screwed out of a lot of money, but your self-esteem and ethics have no monetary value. They are priceless!
Marylin Delpy: You're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying too hard to be one.
– from ‘The Social Network’ (2010)
The final line spoken by the character, Marylin Delpy, in The Social Network should have been the tagline for marketing this film, not the one that was actually used. “You're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying too hard to be one.” It is this line more than anything that sums up what this film is about, and in an indirect way, perhaps too indirectly, portrays one of the fundamental flaws with the ideology of the concept of the American dream and what that means since the inception of the Horatio Alger myth. And Marylin, I actually have to agree with Erica on this one. He’s just an asshole. He’s not trying; he succeeds. Having just viewed the film for the first time, there is a stream of consciousness going on right now. So forgive me if this seems disjointed. As always when I am acutely affected, both positively and negatively, by something, I must spew first and rationalize later.
Part of this will most likely end up in a paper/journal article that I am writing on authorship theory in film. While I most likely would have seen the film regardless of this paper, my perspective while watching it was to determine questions of authorship. From the get-go, what I discovered is how the perpetuation of the director as the author of the film has more to do with marketing tactics then it does with actual proof within any interpretation of the film. After the opening set-up scene of the film, the credits role. And one of the first credits to flicker across the screen is the following: A David Fincher film. It is a lie. This is not a David Fincher film. In fact, by my interpretation there are exactly two scenes in this film that stood out to me as belonging to David Fincher. This film is an Aaron Sorkin film. Everything about this film from the dialogue to the narrative structure to the pacing to the themes and character representations screams Sorkin. The absurdity of this film being a Fincher film reaches heights that I cannot fathom. And while I am loathe to compare Fincher to Welles, despite the fact that I actually like many Fincher films, I have no problem comparing Sorkin to Mankiewicz. And just as there has been much controversy regarding who the author of ‘Citizen Kane’ is – Welles, as those who adhere to the auteur theory as transported to the states by Sarris, or Mankiewicz as promoted by Kael – this film clearly may fall into the same controversy.
‘The Social Network’ is a modern day ‘Citizen Kane,’ at least narratively, dialogically and thematically. Major point in favor of this being a Sorkin film, authorially. What the film lacks is the directorial vision and cinematographic brilliance of a Welles and Toland. There is very little done visually that makes this film stand out as a visual medium. There is much – and from this writer’s perspective a subtle tribute to Mankiewicz and ‘Kane’ – that illuminates what can be done from a storytelling perspective with film. So what did Sorkin steal from ‘Kane?’ Let’s see. Structurally, the film doesn’t follow a straight timeline. The back and forth juxtaposition between the creation of the Facebook and the multiple lawsuit depositions harkens back to the creative storytelling techniques used to cultivate the character driven tale that was ‘Citizen Kane’ (CK). And ‘The Social Network’ (SN) is nothing if not a character driven tale. While Kane was a fictional character loosely based on a real person, Zuckerberg is a real man fictionalized. This film is less about the creation of Facebook and more about one man’s search for…well, let’s face it, the love of a woman. To be specific, the love of the one that got away. In this case, the love of the one that was treated like crap and was smart enough to walk away. So in case anyone is in doubt right now about what ‘Rosebud’ is in TSN, it’s Erica Albright. While the actress, Rooney Mara, has very little screen time, her legacy can be that she is the new Rosebud. If anyone is in doubt of this analysis, just consider how the film ends – visually. There are little epitaphs describing what happened with the lawsuits laid over Mark Zuckerberg attempting to friend her on Facebook. The fact that we never know whether or not she accepts, well, that just seals the deal.
Sorkin has attempted to use the Mankiewicz/Welles model to tell a contemporary story of the search for love as acceptance and a commentary on capitalist society. While it succeeds on many levels, it ultimately fails. The first time I saw CK, I was in tears by the end. Of course, I was twelve and much more empathetic than I am now. But every time I watch CK, I am disturbed and ultimately moved by the life of a truly unlikable human being. Sadly, I shed no tears at TSN. If I had, then I could honestly say that Sorkin reached the same height as Mankiewicz. That he attempted this at all takes chutzpah. Not because Mankiewicz wrote a script that can never be equaled, but because within film studies and society at large Mankiewicz is considered to have helped create a film that can never be equaled. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. The brilliance of Aaron Sorkin shines through in this film, and seriously makes me want to spit on the concept of the director. This film illustrates what a great writer can do. Write a film that almost directs itself. Sadly, in order for that to happen, we would have needed a modern day William Wyler – and I don’t know which contemporary director has Wyler’s sensibility to serve the story first – not a David Fincher. Stick to ‘Se7en’ and ‘Fight Club,’ buddy!
Now, I have a couple of questions connected to rants…
First of all, did anyone think that perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, at least as he’s portrayed in the film, might have Asperger syndrome? The high level of intelligence and the extreme level of social dysfunction and lack of empathy seem incredibly consistent with some of the aspects of Asperger syndrome. Perhaps the character would have been more likeable had he been created with this form of autism. Without that diagnosis though, there was no way that I could garner any sympathy for this character…and by proxy the real man for whom the character is based. Sorry, Mark. I don’t know you, and my only knowledge of you comes from this film and newspaper articles. Perhaps if I met the real man I might have a different opinion. But Marylin Delpy is actually wrong. Just trying to be an asshole, wanting to be that kind of person…well, it actually makes you a bona fide asshole. And here is where Sorkin failed, or perhaps it is where Jesse Eisenberg failed. Unlike Welles, who prompted moments of empathy, I had not one for Jesse/Mark. And I wanted to. I really did. Here’s a man who by current standards of masculinity in our society is a nerd. (And Mark, you should be happy that Jesse is the ‘good looking’ Hollywood version of you!) He’s the underdog in the world of Harvard – a microcosm of society as a whole – which is based on class, beauty, intelligence and legacy. Although it is not entirely clear what his actual background is compared to, say, the Winklevoss brothers, the main thing he seems to lack is the beauty aspect. And truthfully, to coin a cliché, beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder. The rest of his background – highly intelligent, clearly some sort of upper-middle class upbringing (since no mention of a scholarship is ever made), and two years at Exeter – screams privilege. While Kane may ultimately have had the same, if not better background due to financial wealth, his falling into that lifestyle was at a heavy loss to the child Kane. (Should I mention Rosebud again?) Zuckerberg, at least not from what we learn within the narrative, had no such loss. Perhaps if we had seen that kind of loss, instead of his just wanting to get back at or merely get back one girl, something a little more substantial than a teenage love affair, his ultimate fall would have been much more tragic.
I know. You’ve been waiting for this. It is I, after all, the poster child for women's equality. So…here it is. Can we talk about the portrayal of the women in this film? What a mix? And my first question is this: are all the women these characters encountered at Harvard really that shallow and superficial? I mean, seriously, these are women that got into Harvard! These women make Elle Woods look like Eleanor Roosevelt – not physically but intellectually. Erica Albright, the first woman we encounter, who in defense is actually portrayed as a substantial and intelligent woman, goes to BU! The dichotomous, contradictory portrayals of the women in this film are astounding. Did Sorkin try to mitigate the sexism inherent in the character portrayals by showing non-Harvard women as human beings and not slutty, bitchy bimbos who will have sex with someone just because they are popular? Were there no women ‘hackers’ or programmers who wanted to try out for the internship positions that first summer in California? Notice all the programmers under the challenge are men and those who are serving them the shots…all women. Yes, I understand that the sexism that is portrayed is part of the story. I get it. The whole ‘hot or not’ concept that sets all of the subsequent history to follow. And yet, I wonder…is it really still this bad? Don’t answer that. Right now, I don’t want to know. Having graduated from Smith College, though, I would urge all you Harvard women out there to remember that you are not merely hot bodies, you are intelligent minds…or you wouldn’t have gotten into Harvard. The fact that the male characters in this film view even the Harvard women as lesser beings (although apparently higher than BU women) to be objectified only makes a searing commentary on the state of male-female equality in the US in the year 2010! Yes, all you post-feminists out there who believe that you have achieved equality through some sort of misguided consumerist power that you think you have, I’d check again…
Finally, whether or not the average moviegoer will understand this or not from watching this film, this film is not a glorification of capitalism. It is as much a condemnation of the problems of wanting to achieve more wealth than is necessary and of the belief that money can solve all problems as CK was. As I noted earlier, the film ends with Zuckerberg waiting to see if Erica will accept his friend request. No amount of money, no amount of ‘friends’ (FB or otherwise) could get Zuckerberg what he wants. And I say again, score another point for this film falling into the Sorkin-as-author category! This condemnation of this shallow need for popularity and wealth – not just financial – comes straight from the mind of Sorkin…not Fincher. Columbia Pictures, you need to pull the film and reedit the opening credit sequence. It should read An Aaron Sorkin film!
Until the next time…
P.S. Erica, if you are out there, I truly hope that if the film portrays in an even remotely accurate way what you experienced, that you have no regrets for what you did. No matter how many billions Zuckerberg may be worth now. You were one of the few classy people portrayed in this film. You were one of the only human beings portrayed in this film. Personally, I think you should ask Zuckerberg for some shares…if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t be who he is. I’d say you got screwed out of a lot of money, but your self-esteem and ethics have no monetary value. They are priceless!
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