Now you can be anything, anything you want

I'm going to go ahead and play media junkie for another week.

Back in the middle of this summer I was sitting in a dark, popcorn-fragrant theater in Glenview, watching the final few obligatory movie previews shown before Inception. This moment in time was neither particularly extraordinary nor noteworthy, save for the following two things: 1) Being both loquacious and a miser, I can't normally justify spending $8 for the social privilege of sitting silently beside my friends when I can just as easily pay $2 to chat with them over coffee, so I enter movie theaters roughly two times per year, making any silver screen-viewing time memorable, and 2) It was on this evening that I saw the preview for The Social Network.

After getting over my skepticism that Justin Timberlake was actually cast in a major role in a high-profile movie (had he really managed to destroy every copy of the made-for-TV Disney movie Model Behavior?), I was overwhelmed with a second wave of disbelief that a serious, historical-dramatic movie was actually being made about something that occurred in 2004. Further, I had a hard time believing that the viewing public would be terribly interested in being regaled with the legal and professional drama of a 20-year-old Harvard nerd-turned-billionaire. If they were, isn't a Bill Gates movie long overdue?

Clearly, I was of the minority opinion. The Social Network is currently the #1 movie in America and has a 97% rating on rottentomatoes.com.

I don't plan on seeing the movie, in part out of sheer indignation over how popular it has become. Mostly, though, I'm avoiding it because I'm a little disturbed by how much glee the general public seems to be taking in the cold, almost-villainous portrayal of Zuckerburg in the film, as well as the pervading indifference to the fact that this portrait is, by most accounts, not particularly accurate. For example, Slate magazine writer Nathan Heller (who happened to knew Zuckerburg as an acquaintance at Harvard) relates the following:

"Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is a withdrawn, wounded recluse who spirals across campus with his head locked down, answering questions in a quick, high-strung rodent voice. The Zuckerberg I knew [...] was outwardly friendly, often smiling, confident, inclined, if anything, to talk at outdoor volume. He was something of a geek, I guess, but at Harvard in 2002, this was not exactly a minority position."

and later:

"Eisenberg's portrait of an oppressed, psychologically wounded mogul fits [our] cinematic universe better than the real Zuckerberg would, and, anyway, it's beside the point to fuss over the nitty-gritty of the movie's accuracy: The Social Network is openly built according to the laws of narrative fiction, not documentary."

Basically, the movie-makers knowingly distorted the story of Facebook's creation in order to fit the story that they thought moviegoers would want to see. I know: insert gasp of shock. Putting a spin on reality is sort of what movie-making is all about. Plus, this film was partially the brainchild of Aaron Sorkin, the man who painted perhaps the most distorted and idealistic portrait of American politics ever in The West Wing, so a misrepresentation is even less surprising.

Still, in the same way that I have a fundamental objection to Bones, The Social Network bothers me in its blatant disregard for factual accuracy in its characters.

For one thing, Zuckerburg (the real man) is still young, still in business, and still very close to the events portrayed in the movie. Other noteworthy historical figures and groups have been subject to similar in-the-moment scrutiny, of course: All the President's Men came out within a decade of Watergate... but at that point, Nixon was roundly perceived as a sweaty, awkward ne'er-do-well. And a slew of movies about Nazi Germany came out the instant the U.S. became involved in WWII... but the Nazis were already well on their way to solidifying their generally agreed-upon status as the #1 international arch nemesis of all time.

Zuckerburg, on the other hand, is not an obviously villainous guy. He helped to create a website that most of us consider invaluable today, and may or may not have done some douchey things along the way. To me, his legacy is overall positive, and his business troubles seem pretty run-of-the-mill rather than dastardly; I don't respect or understand the effort to make him out to be a creepy scoundrel. The fact that he's a billionaire doesn't make me feel any less sorry for the fact that he is now undergoing more or less international defamation, and for no real reason.

Similarly, I don't buy the argument that the filmmakers were solely striving for some sort of higher artistic purpose that transcends technical accuracy. One critic argues, The Social Network is "a major American story and an important cautionary tale" about 21st century cutthroat personalities and modern modes of betrayal. It's not about whether or not the story is true; it's about capturing the sinister quality that secretly underlies our flashy social media culture.

This interpretation might very well be valid, but it reads like an excuse. As I noted just a few weeks ago, over the last year or so certain groups have been growing dissatisfied with Zuckerburg's apparent lack of concern for Facebook members' privacy. Zuckerburg, who previously was hailed as a genius of communication and forward-thinking, was suddenly cast into a suspicious light. To me, it seems awfully coincidental that this high-concept artistic film happened to hit the box office soon after Zuckerburg's privacy issues made headlines. And as for the filmmakers' assertion that their account is obviously fictional--yeah, right. Anyone with a passing acquaintance with pop culture knows that many viewers are absorbing The Social Network as the Tale of The Real Zuckerburg. Maybe the filmmakers hoped that they would offer a catharsis for such viewers: "Take that, Zuckerburg! How does it feel to have your privacy invaded, Mr. Moneybags?"

It's not that I think The Social Network had some sort of wide-scale conspiratorial agenda to turn the world against Mark Zuckerburg, nor am I trying to argue that Zuckerburg is some sort of blameless saint. I do, however, doubt that the filmmakers could say, "The Social Network was made with due respect and fairness to Mark Zuckerburg and did not intend to prey on our cultural disdain for billionaires" without their well-pressed trousers catching aflame.