Feminist Applause for The Social Network

The Social Network, the film that tells the tale of the founding and rise of Facebook, has taken a lot of flack from feminist critics since its release on October 1. The film and its screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, have been accused of creating and promoting misogyny, of pigeon-holing women into hyper-stereotyped roles in which they serve as mere props, and of failing to critique the sexism of the characters and their setting. In turn, this feminist has a confession to make. I love this film. A warning to readers who haven’t seen the film: spoilers will greet you after the jump.

Before we continue, please note this disclaimer: this is a review of a piece of cinematic art. It is not my goal to evaluate the authenticity of the film’s depiction of Harvard University, nor that of life as a young upstart in Silicon Valley.

The Social Network is a funny yet sad portrait of a young man at the beginning of a journey to unimaginable wealth, power, and notoriety. There is truth to the applause-worthy zinger that Rooney Mara’s Erica Albright hurls at Mark Zuckerberg (the main character and co-founder of the web giant) after she breaks up with him in the film’s opening scene, yet Zuckerberg is a complex character. She tells Zuckerberg, “You will go through life thinking that women don’t like you because you’re a geek,” but in actuality it “will be because you’re an asshole.” I don’t doubt her prophecy, but I found Zuckerberg, as played by Jesse Eisenberg, to be a likable (though not quite lovable) asshole.

He is hands down brilliant, and because of that, a few steps ahead of all of those around him. He does not mince words, has an uncanny ability to flip the script on authority figures, and generally speaking, despite pompous delivery, he is right. While he may appear to some to be an anti-hero, I found myself admiring Zuckerberg for his intellect and sharp rhetoric throughout the film.

Take for example this scene at the beginning of the film in which Zuckerberg sits in front of the Harvard disciplinary board for hacking into the university’s servers in order to create “Facemash,” a website that allowed male students to vote on the hotness of female students based on their school photos.

As the scene unfolds he explains to the board that he deserves praise for being a skilled enough programmer to breach the university’s top-notch web security. Now, I wouldn’t suggest that an ethical violation such as that be ignored, however, I have to agree with him. He does deserve recognition. What should have been an enormously difficult feat for a driven hacker was a mere night of drunken computer geek debauchery for him (at least as the film tells it).

Another instance in which Zuckerberg’s intellect and sharp command of language are displayed to his advantage is during a scene that depicts a deposition hearing for a lawsuit brought against him by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer), who alleged that the idea for Facebook was stolen from them.

What we see in this clip is that Zuckerberg doesn’t particularly like anybody. Particularly if he perceives them as a waste of his time. Thus, I think that the previously referenced critiques of this film that read Zuckerberg as a misogynist fail to notice that he’s really more of a misanthrope. His detachment and apparent lack of empathy is not reserved for women. Further, I think the film intends to mock, and in its best moments, satirizes the misogyny (and the superficiality) of contemporary culture.

The counter-narrative to Zuckerberg’s night of coding at the film’s opening features sleek party buses arriving at the campus to deliver well styled and highly sexed women (presumably from Wellesley) onto the doorsteps of Harvard’s elite Finals Clubs, and the subsequent lingerie strip teases and table top gyrations within the dark paneled walls of historic mansions simply cannot be taken seriously. I read this not as exploitation of women, but as an extrapolation of the dreams of the young men depicted, who seem to see themselves through rock star colored glasses. I find this hilarious, and I am not alone.

I viewed this film with one of my best friends, also a woman and a critical feminist. Both of us are sociologists with backgrounds in media studies, so it is from a nuanced critical perspective that we approach film and television. We’ve had many an exasperated conversation about the hectic sexism and stereotypical gendered portrayals (of both men and women) that run rampant throughout Hollywood and its creations. Our backgrounds render significant the fact that we laughed the most and the hardest of our fellow audience members at the screening we attended. We cackled at the portrayal of the Winklevoss twins, who fail to see that the rules of the “old boys” days of Harvard have gone, and that their father’s money and Olympic status mean nothing to (then) university president Larry Summers when they take their claim of intellectual property theft to him. We belly-laughed and grabbed each other’s arms in glee when one twin exclaimed to the other, “Because we are gentlemen of Harvard!” as an explanation of why they should not file suit against Zuckerberg. Boasting the stereotypical markers of successful masculinity, tall and handsome, muscled athletes with old money on their side, they cannot get out of their own and thus get taken for a serious ride by Zuckerberg.

What we found funny was this biting and hilarious portrayal of both masculinity and privilege. Taken as such, this film is brilliant, for it is masculinity, not misogyny, that is at the heart of this film. What Aaron Sorkin crafted in his screenplay is a look at women, and at the world at large, through Zuckerberg’s lens. As Dana Stevens astutely observed on Slate, the “filtering of the female characters through Mark’s limited experience of them isn’t sexism; it’s good screenwriting.”

Thus, I think that accusations of misogyny are off the mark. The Zuckerberg we see doesn’t hate women. On the contrary: he seeks their approval, their admiration, and their desire. These are some of the key markers of successful masculinity in our culture, particularly for men in adolescence and young adulthood.

In her brilliant and insightful book Dude, You’re a Fag which details her study of masculinity in a California high school, sociologist C.J. Pascoe found that masculinity is understood and expressed primarily through sexuality. In the case of heterosexual boys and men, to perform and embody the preferred masculinity is to appeal to, and to dominate and control, girls and women. What we see in the film is a textbook example of Pascoe’s findings.

When Erica broke up with Zuckerberg, she didn’t only attack his person (by calling him an asshole), but the absence of her desire was an effective attack on his masculinity. He thus retaliated by publicly attacking her femininity on his blog, calling her a bitch, and stating that her breasts were inadequate and that she lies about her bra size. He then demonstrated both his heterosexual interest in women and his masculine ability to dominate them by creating and circulating Facemash.

He idolizes Sean Parker not only for his success with Napster, but also for his perceived masculine prowess. Parker, as played by Justin Timberlake, is portrayed as the epitome of masculine cool. He arrives in Zuckerberg’s world well dressed, good looking, suave with the ladies, connected, and generally in the know. He wears Victoria’s Secret models on his arms and orders bottle service at swanky clubs. After first meeting Parker with the co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg leaves in awe of Parker, and the dreams of wealth and fame that he has woven.

Parker himself lays out in this scene how an affront to his own masculinity was the impetus for creating Napster. He then implies that Zuckerberg will mount a triumph of mascuilinty by retaining control of his company as he grows it, thereby making the venture capitalists his “bitch.”

After Facebook has exploded in popularity and in its earning capacity, and after the two lawsuits that targeted Zuckerberg and his actions in creating the site have played out, the film closes with Zuckerberg alone, but for his laptop, in a darkened conference room. He relentlessly refreshes the Facebook page of Erica Albright, hoping for her confirmation of him as a “friend.” And so we have a sad portrait of a young man struggling to assert himself and earn the respect of those around him.

The film is beautifully directed by David Fincher, and features a haunting electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that provides an aural undercurrent of tension to those depicted on screen.

Posted by Nicki Lisa Cole on Nov 7 2010. Filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry