I saw it.

The Social Network was no Superbad, but Stephen Colbert was correct. Almost every girl and woman in the movie was unnecessarily objectified for the purpose of satisfying some fantasy, fantasies that stemmed from both the male characters in the movie and from the male creators of the movie. Even the characters played by Rooney Mara and Rashida Jones existed in the story on some level because the Mark Zuckerberg character was sexually attracted to them. Two of the last scenes in the movie involved Mark asking Rashida's character out to dinner, followed by Mark obsessing over the Facebook page of Rooney's character.

Both the presentation of and the critical acclaim for The Social Network depress me. It's a perfect storm of straight white male privilege packaged by a writer and a director who were both trying a little too hard. The movie's current 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes doesn't surprise me, considering that most film reviewers are nerdy white guys whose nerdy wet dreams were fulfilled by seeing their self-projections on screen, as portrayed by the likes of Andrew Garfield and panty-chasing Justin Timberlake (?!). (Jesse Eisenberg is talented, but the real Mark Zuckerberg did get cheated aesthetically on the casting.) There are no movies this year or last year or scheduled for next year that would either be a female equivalent of The Social Network, that have a solid female cast, or that even pass the Bechdel test. This exclusive, incestuous system takes a property from the male-dominated field of nonfiction--a story about the male-dominated field of technology--then has the story adapted through the male-dominated fields of screenwriting and directing; this system does not encourage or leave much room for women to succeed.

The scene that summed up the movie for was when Mark was handing out assignments to his friends so that he could to expand the website to additional schools throughout the country. When Brenda Song's character, who was eager to help, asked what she and her female friend could do, Mark simply replied, "Nothing."

With all that said, I advise you readers to go see The Social Network (tickets are still available!), and report back to me. I welcome your thoughts. Please leave comments! :)

Edit 10/13/2010:

1. In the words of Joan from the episode of Mad Men, "The Summer Man", "No matter how powerful we get around here, they can just draw another cartoon." In this case, no matter how hard you have worked to get into Harvard or Stanford, they can just make another movie, portraying you and all of your female colleagues as useless, drunken, coked-up whores. You would think that attending an Ivy League university would spare you as a woman from getting painted with the skank brush on the silver screen, but no. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a Sorkin/Fincher movie coming out next year about the girls gone wild in the House of Representatives.

2. I didn't fully address Brenda Song's character, but someone else did:

Brenda Song’s Crazed, Hypersexualized Asian Female Stereotype in The Social Network, (Updated), by Jenn, Racialicious.

3. Joseph Mazzello is still working. And he has a college degree? Good for him!

.

Welcome back, Grandpa.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Aaron Sorkin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Stephen Colbert: So the movie's about Facebook. I saw it last week. Fantastic. It's got that super crisp Aaron Sorkin witty banter back and forth. Can I ask you something about the ladies in it?

Aaron Sorkin: Sure.

Colbert: Okay. You've got the opening scene which a lot of people have heard about. It's very crisp. It's Zuckerberg and his girlfriend? The one who broke his heart.

Sorkin: The girl who would start Facebook.

Colbert: Exactly. She is super smart, and she definitely gets the best of him.

Sorkin: Right.

Colbert: The other ladies in the movie don't have as much to say because they're high, or drunk, or blowing guys in the bathroom. Why are there no other women of any substance in the movie?

Sorkin: That's a fair question.

Colbert: Thank you.

Sorkin: There's one other woman, Rashida Jones, who plays a young lawyer.

Colbert: That's true, that's true. I apologize. She does not do anything in the bathroom.

Sorkin: No, she does not. She's a trustworthy character. She's a stand-in for the audience. The other women are prizes, uh, basically, that you, um, uh, that, uh, that--

Colbert: But are women at Harvard like that? That's what I want to know. I'm trying to figure out, you know, whether I really missed out on a college experience.

Sorkin: I wasn't accepted into Harvard, so I wouldn't know.

The interview continues:

Colbert: You have called Facebook "a performance, not a reality". What do you mean by that?

Sorkin: Yeah. What I mean is that when somebody goes on and says, "I had a girls' night tonight. We split five desserts. Better hit the gym tomorrow!" That's somebody who's trying to reinvent themselves--

Colbert: Are you reading my Facebook page?

(laughter)

Colbert: So you're saying that's not real?

Sorkin: No, no, that's someone who's trying to reinvent themselves as Ally McBeal. I want to make it clear--

Colbert: Are you upset because you didn't write that show?

Sorkin: You do not have to agree with me on this point to enjoy the movie.

[ . . . ]

Sorkin: I would love for everybody to think that I'm as quick and sharp and charming as Martin Sheen on The West Wing. And now everybody gets to do that. But I do think that socializing on the internet is to socializing as reality TV is to reality.

Ally McBeal? That show went off the air before Facebook was invented.

And speaking of reality, Facebook is as real as a certain Orangeman's hair dye and spray-on tan.

Aaron Sorkin. Still as technophobic, behind the times, and sexist as ever.

.

The Studio 60 Effect: The Black Donnellys Edition

So, Studio 60's gone, thank goodness. I hope Steven Weber, Ed Asner, Nate Corddry, and Cal/Danny Concannon can find other shows where they can display their distinct, yet underused talent.

In the wake of Aaron Sorkin's overhyped trainwreck, NBC has given us Americans The Black Donnellys. I only taped this on Monday night because my friend told me it looked not so bad, and I had extra space on the video cassette. I would have recorded over it later this week without watching it, but I stumbled across this witty piece of writing: the Black Donnellys review over at Pajiba. The TV Whore writes:

As you have surely figured out by now (if you didn’t already know this from the endless NBC promos), Paul Haggis is the exec-producer of the series and the writer of the premiere. So you should already be able to figure out the show’s core: bad characters, worse dialogue, and clichés out the yin-yang. But you’re in for a real treat here, because at the show’s tasty center is a heaping pile of bad acting, overblown music, bad acting, flashy quick cuts, and, lest we forget, bad acting.

The acting wasn't that bad, but the writing certainly was. The music was heavy handed and often unnecessary. The worst part was the voiceover, coming from Joey Ice Cream, a locked-up friend of the Donnelly Brothers, who won't tell the coppers where his friends hid the bodies.

I had gotten temporarily excited because Tom Guiry, of Lassie, The Sandlot and We Were The Mulvaneys fame, was going to be on the show. Of course, I didn't know this until I read the Pajiba review. Good promotion, NBC. Sadly for me, Tom has not aged well, and his character in the show, Jimmy, is a profligate heroin(?) addict who can't stop finding trouble for himself. Additionally, Sean, the brother who's supposed to be cute enough to steal his brothers' girlfriends, is not as good-looking as Jonathan Tucker's Tommy, or their actually cute brother Kevin.

My biggest source of irritation is that the pilot episode, and therefore the premise of the entire series, is a ripoff of The Godfather. We the audience are supposed to sympathize with Tommy, the leader of the Donnelly family, because he committed every action in the show to protect his brothers. Except, his brothers brought the problems on themselves. His brothers gambled, lied, stole, then kidnapped and murdered a man to somehow rectify the first crimes. So, I'm not buying this latest excuse to show more disturbing, egregious acts of violence during primetime, masquerading as a dark family drama.

I still haven't seen Crash, but I coming to understand the Haggis hate. Any show that could make me long for the self-righteous whimsy of Studio 60 needs to take a hard look at itself.

Addendum: The LA Times review of the show. With a line like, "[The Black Donnellys]... is in a familiar-seeming if less tangible place — it might be Hell's Kitchen, but it feels like Scorsese's Creek," how could I resist? Read it while you can!

Musings from an Adorable American: "It's Valentine's Day?" Edition

Things of various importance that have been on my mind this week:

• The State of the Black Union 2007
  

On Saturday morning, I stumbled upon this day long event on C-SPAN, while I was wading through the jungle that is the new TimeWarner Cable program guide. Ugh. This whole channel grouping thing is not helpful to me at all. I'm just confused and frustrated, and my networks aren't where they are supposed to be!

Back to the black people. I watched this program before and after the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign announcement--which C-SPAN cut to, then came back--and before and after I went to Step class at my gym.

Lots of pertinent issues were discussed by the usual suspects, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as well as other distinguished panelists. Even though Sharpton and Jackson are both ministers, I still can't tell you what their actual jobs are. They just seem to be on call whenever people like Michael Richards or Joe Biden need to apologize to the black community.

The most striking part of the State of the Black Union was not the gospel dance party afterwards that moderator Tavis Smiley didn't expect C-SPAN to stick around for. (What were they going to cut to, an empty Senate chamber? It was Saturday. That follow-up musical performance was the most exciting spectacle C-SPAN has covered in a long time.) The most striking part was that the majority of issues discussed were important to every American: health care, the growing prison population, education, employment, financial matters, the illegal occupation of Iraq. The event could have been called, "The State of the Union, and we just happen to be Black." This conversation was way more informative and engaging than either George W. Bush's State of the Union address this year, or the Democratic Party's response delivered by Senator Jim Webb. Just like Nickelodeon and Linda Ellerbee used to say when I was growing up, Black History is Everyone's History. And possibly more now than ever, when bankruptcies abound, home mortgage foreclosures are increasing, the gap between the very rich and the very poor is widening exponentially, and No Child Left Behind is leaving behind most of its school districts, the State of the Black Union is the State of Everyone's Union.

• Tina Fey's spot-on assesment of Aaron Sorkin

"...Sunday night at the Writers Guild Awards...Fey told the crowd, 'I hear Aaron Sorkin is in Los Angeles wearing the same dress - but longer, and not funny.' "

Hee!

• The State of the Black Union 2006

I watched the beginning of it this morning on TV One. Compared to the day-long coverage on the 2007 version on C-SPAN, I didn't like the commercials TV One has to show for revenue, but I did appreciate the editing. Listing the name and accomplishments under each speakers face is much more effective and time-efficient than Tavis Smiley taking two minutes to vocalize the same thing. I know Mr. Smiley is being reverrent and polite to these great American leaders, but I've got things to do. Let's keep it moving. You know these people can be longwinded. And when I say, "these people," I mean the mature members of our American community who love a captive audience and a TV camera pointed at their face.

• Gilmore Girls

This show has gone down the pooper. I was so bored during last night's episode, "Farewell, My Pet." The only saving graces were Michel and Paris, both of whom I have always loved.

• Debra Dickerson on The Colbert Report

I cannot believe this fool. Watch the clip that had me yelling at my TV screen. Like that's an unusual occurence for me. It's at the bottom of the Comedy Central page, so hurry before it's gone.

To summarize for the time- and/or technologically-impaired, Ms. Dickerson informs Mr. Colbert that Barack Obama is not really black, since, according to her, "'Black,' in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves." Calling him black would supposedly disrespect his father's Kenyan heritage. Despite the fact that Senator Obama was born in Hawaii, and his mother, white though she may be, was born in Kansas. Mr. Colbert suggested calling Senator Obama, "nouveau black," to which Ms. Dickerson replied that they could call him "African African-American." Mr. Colbert also had a solution to Senator Obama's non-owned heritage: he could be someone's slave for a short while for the black experience and to gain some street cred; to avoid the racist overtones, he could be Jesse Jackson's slave. Ms. Dickerson had no response for that.

I'd love for Ms. Dickerson to come up to my face and tell me I'm not black because I can't trace my ancestry to a particular West African slave in my family tree. What an idiot. I am so not buying her book.

I'm sure I'll have more stuff to think about later this week.