We raced out to see "the Facebook movie" this afternoon. I walked away with bad feelings.
There's only three kinds of women in this movie: sluts, bitches, and lawyers. Yes, it bothers me. Yes, I am that kind of feminist who sees misogyny smeared around everywhere. Yes, I wonder what goes on the heads of writer Andrew Sorkin and director David Fincher. Yes, I'm sitting there steaming, whispering heatedly into my husband's ear. He knows it's coming. He knows I'm composing this in my head as I sit there.
I don't think the lawyers balance out the sluts and bitches. And I'll say, every man in this movie is pretty much an asshole, but they are the protagonists. I'm not looking for heroic female role models here, just a real person. Just a movie where I don't walk away wondering why certain directors seem to relish punishing women. (David Fincher is working on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Murder. Rape. Torture.)
And I'm thinking about Nerd Rage.
The WHOLE motivation for creation of Facebook (and Napster) is the bitterness of the nerd boys rejected by pretty girls, as the movie tells it. In the opening scene, Mark Zuckerberg drives his girlfriend away with a conversation that goes downhill so precipitously, it's clear he's cut the brake lines to the things he shouldn't say. Why does she need to leave to study, he mocks, she only goes to BU. Not the almighty Harvard, as he does. He belittles and patronizes her until she breaks up with him. (A mark of the true friendless nerd is an inability to refrain from saying things that are true AND hurtful. If it's true, why shouldn't you say it?) So he runs home and writes nasty things about her on his blog, then creates a site for students at Harvard to rate girls against each other. So you see he really knows how to score with the ladies. And he's bitterly jealous of his only friend being invited to pledge one of the snooty exclusive clubs for cool kids. More Nerd Rage.
The Napster guy confesses he was motivated by trying to impress a girl who was more into a lacrosse player. But he's played by Justin Timberlake, (doing a very convincing full-on doucebag) so it's a little harder to imagine him batting zero.
Zuckerberg uses his programming talent and ruthless ambition to create a format for people to communicate with the world, and check each other out at a distance, perfect for the socially awkward. The film ends with him alone, sending a friend request to the girl who was smart enough to walk away from his anger, obsessively refreshing the page waiting for her to respond.
How many of these Silicon Valley dudes are motivated by Nerd Rage? I guess in a different kind of movie, they fall into a vat of radioactive acid and turn into supervillains.
