Just Look Outside

I read an article awhile back about the movie The Social Network. The article was about how the movie was misogynist in its portrayal of women and how, with the exception of the characters: the bitchy ex-girfriend, the psycho girlfriend, and the newbie lawyer who says close to nothing during the entire movie (I think the only time she speaks is when she offers "Mark Zuckerberg" part of her salad), the movie was nominated for a batch of Oscars, nabbing one for its woman-hating script. The author of the article also said that, in addition to the movie being almost entirely vacant of positive female characters, the movie has nearly no one who isn't white in it. (I looked and I only saw 2 African-Americans in the movie. Only one actually spoke). I know that the article's author wasn't saying that real events, when adapted for the cinema, need to be so tinkered with so that the subsequent film in no way resembles what actually happened (although there were plenty of people who made the allegation that the movie had done just that), but I think what she was getting at is that there were actually more than just white guys involved with the events, and at least there ahould have been some sort of nod to that reality. Of course, this complaint/allegation isn't new. Even for a David Fincher film. Way back when Fight Club was released, there was a lot of to-do about the slightly more than misogynistic undertones of the all-male fight fest that was the creation of Tyler Durden and his alter ego, Tyler Durden. In the movie during a scene that takes place in a bathroom, real Tyler (Edward Norton) and imaginary Tyler (Brad Pitt) discuss how manhood has been treating them. When Real Tyler tells imaginary Tyler that his father's advice was (after Tyler had gone to college and gotten a job) to get married, imaginary Tyler tells real Tyler, "We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need?" I consider myself generally fairly difficult to offend, but even I got a little miffed by what seemed to be the anti-female tone of the book and film. I suppose that, when you analyze Fight Club, there are all sorts of psychological and philosophical reasons why the movie comes off as anti-woman, but nonetheless, it's difficult not to notice that the men seem a little hostile towards the fairer sex. Of course the criticisms that the article's author leveled on The Social Network wasn't all about what you saw in the movie, some of her criticisms were also about what you didn't see, namely, anyone who isn't caucasian. The same thing happened a few years ago with the TV shows Seinfeld and Friends. Both shows take place in New York City, perhaps one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities on earth, yet if you watched either show and hadn't been to or heard of New York City, you'd never know anyone lived there who wasn't white and reasonably well-off. Likewise, as a fan of the USA Network TV show Monk, I've noticed that Adrian Monk's San Francisco is strangely devoid of Asians and gays, two groups that are entirely unmissible in the real San Francisco. But that's just the two headed nature of fiction. Of course we want to see things that look like real life in movies and TV, even if the fiction itself is far from plausible (I know that The Social Network is supposed to be based on actual events, but my theory is, once a series of true events is played out before a camera, it's all fiction). The tip is that whatever the film is, even if it's supposed to be based on true events, it's still the product of a writer, a director, and the actors who play the parts. I seen pictures of Jesse Eisenberg and the real Mark Zuckerberg, and if they were standing next to each other, you'd never mistake the two for identical twins. Ultimately, if you want to see reality, you need to go outside and look around at all the people around you. Even if there is not another Asian or African-American person ever on TV or in a movie, they'll still be plenty out on the streets, in restaurants, and everywhere else there are actual people hanging out in the actual world.