The Social Network
The Social Network! It came to campus on the big screen (for freeeeeeeee!), and as it’s one of my favorite movies, I had to see it again.
I first saw it almost two years ago and it blew me away, so much so that I never posted about it because (a) I had way too many ~feelings~ and could not sort them out well enough to post coherently, and (b) my story ideas had a worrying tendency to revolve around Mark being beaten to a bloody pulp.
Admittedly, writing (b) might have helped me sort out (a).
So here’s the story: Mark Zuckerberg, with the pecuniary aid of his best friend Eduardo Saverin, founds Facebook at Harvard. But they argue about whether to start putting ads on the site. Over the summer, Eduardo goes to New York to buy ads, while Mark goes to Palo Alto, where he falls under the influence of Sean Parker, a.k.a. Mephistopheles. Infuriated by Sean’s influence over the company, Eduardo freezes Facebook’s bank account.
“I had to get your attention,” he says to Mark, and he has Mark’s attention, all right: Mark is so furious that he secretly dilutes Eduardo’s share in Facebook, original 30%, down to 0.03%.
The question, which the movie never quite answers - and that’s part of the reason why it’s so interesting - is why. Why does Mark betray his best (and, Eduardo says bitterly, only) friend? The movie makes it clear it’s not for money. But otherwise - is he jealous that Eduardo got into an exclusive Harvard Final Club? Did Sean Parker talk him into it? Sean, after all, had a whole summer to remind Mark again and again that Eduardo was in New York City, not in Palo Alto, where he should have been if he was really dedicated to Facebook and to Mark.
And Sean is right, to a certain extent. Eduardo is dedicated to Facebook, but he’s not all in: he doesn’t move to Palo Alto, when the fall comes he doesn’t leave Harvard like the rest of them to devote himself to it. He spends a lot of time trying to sell ads, but he doesn’t seem to realize how huge Facebook is; and, of course, when he’s mad at Mark he freezes Facebook’s bank account.
Analyses of the film often seem to ignore the account freezing, but it complicates the story considerably. During the depositions, Eduardo says that he never did anything that could be just cause for dismissal - but freezing the account did jeopardize Facebook.
What is particularly horrible about Mark’s behavior is not that he fired Eduardo; he did have just cause for that. It’s that he did it underhandedly, and pretended that everything was fine even as he plotted Eduardo’s ouster. He invited Eduard to Palo Alto for a party, and then, then sprang it on him that his share in the company had been diluted down to almost nothing.
Why invite him to the party? Just to twist the knife? Or did Mark somehow, delusionally, believe, or convince himself to try to believe, that this backstabbing betrayal wouldn’t destroy their friendship?
The same pattern of behavior shows up in his treatment of the Winklevoss twins. The movie gives the strong impression that Mark can’t handle confrontation and thus goes for passive-aggressive sneakiness every time. One of the most painful scenes in the movie is Mark and Eduardo’s confrontation when Eduardo does visit Palo Alto. “I want, I need you here,” Mark says, and then changes the subject even as Eduardo presses for more clarification: he just can’t deal with that much emotional honesty.
This is the scene that launched a thousand fics. There’s a lot of good TSN fic, but I find it in the aggregate frustrating because it tends to collapse the movie into a question of romance - as if the only possible and most interesting explanation of Mark and Eduardo’s friendship crashing and burning was that Mark couldn’t admit to being in love with Eduardo, and as if Mark finally admitting it would fix everything.
I submit that this explanation is only interesting the first ten times you read it - and even then, it would be more interesting if it took into account all the other tensions the movie plays with - and that this manner of fixing their relationship is based entirely on porn logic.
Sometimes I feel like fandom has fallen into the old formula that so frustrates me in books and on television: that two hot people (traditionally, a man and a woman; in fandom, often two hot guys) who have any relationship other than utter indifference have to get together, - and if they’re hot enough, we can even work around utter indifference! - and that their relationship is somehow incomplete unless they fuck like bunnies.
Clearly this is what a lot of people want fandom to be, and I only begrudge them that when I am feeling unusually petty and selfish. But it only does so much for me.
I first saw it almost two years ago and it blew me away, so much so that I never posted about it because (a) I had way too many ~feelings~ and could not sort them out well enough to post coherently, and (b) my story ideas had a worrying tendency to revolve around Mark being beaten to a bloody pulp.
Admittedly, writing (b) might have helped me sort out (a).
So here’s the story: Mark Zuckerberg, with the pecuniary aid of his best friend Eduardo Saverin, founds Facebook at Harvard. But they argue about whether to start putting ads on the site. Over the summer, Eduardo goes to New York to buy ads, while Mark goes to Palo Alto, where he falls under the influence of Sean Parker, a.k.a. Mephistopheles. Infuriated by Sean’s influence over the company, Eduardo freezes Facebook’s bank account.
“I had to get your attention,” he says to Mark, and he has Mark’s attention, all right: Mark is so furious that he secretly dilutes Eduardo’s share in Facebook, original 30%, down to 0.03%.
The question, which the movie never quite answers - and that’s part of the reason why it’s so interesting - is why. Why does Mark betray his best (and, Eduardo says bitterly, only) friend? The movie makes it clear it’s not for money. But otherwise - is he jealous that Eduardo got into an exclusive Harvard Final Club? Did Sean Parker talk him into it? Sean, after all, had a whole summer to remind Mark again and again that Eduardo was in New York City, not in Palo Alto, where he should have been if he was really dedicated to Facebook and to Mark.
And Sean is right, to a certain extent. Eduardo is dedicated to Facebook, but he’s not all in: he doesn’t move to Palo Alto, when the fall comes he doesn’t leave Harvard like the rest of them to devote himself to it. He spends a lot of time trying to sell ads, but he doesn’t seem to realize how huge Facebook is; and, of course, when he’s mad at Mark he freezes Facebook’s bank account.
Analyses of the film often seem to ignore the account freezing, but it complicates the story considerably. During the depositions, Eduardo says that he never did anything that could be just cause for dismissal - but freezing the account did jeopardize Facebook.
What is particularly horrible about Mark’s behavior is not that he fired Eduardo; he did have just cause for that. It’s that he did it underhandedly, and pretended that everything was fine even as he plotted Eduardo’s ouster. He invited Eduard to Palo Alto for a party, and then, then sprang it on him that his share in the company had been diluted down to almost nothing.
Why invite him to the party? Just to twist the knife? Or did Mark somehow, delusionally, believe, or convince himself to try to believe, that this backstabbing betrayal wouldn’t destroy their friendship?
The same pattern of behavior shows up in his treatment of the Winklevoss twins. The movie gives the strong impression that Mark can’t handle confrontation and thus goes for passive-aggressive sneakiness every time. One of the most painful scenes in the movie is Mark and Eduardo’s confrontation when Eduardo does visit Palo Alto. “I want, I need you here,” Mark says, and then changes the subject even as Eduardo presses for more clarification: he just can’t deal with that much emotional honesty.
This is the scene that launched a thousand fics. There’s a lot of good TSN fic, but I find it in the aggregate frustrating because it tends to collapse the movie into a question of romance - as if the only possible and most interesting explanation of Mark and Eduardo’s friendship crashing and burning was that Mark couldn’t admit to being in love with Eduardo, and as if Mark finally admitting it would fix everything.
I submit that this explanation is only interesting the first ten times you read it - and even then, it would be more interesting if it took into account all the other tensions the movie plays with - and that this manner of fixing their relationship is based entirely on porn logic.
Sometimes I feel like fandom has fallen into the old formula that so frustrates me in books and on television: that two hot people (traditionally, a man and a woman; in fandom, often two hot guys) who have any relationship other than utter indifference have to get together, - and if they’re hot enough, we can even work around utter indifference! - and that their relationship is somehow incomplete unless they fuck like bunnies.
Clearly this is what a lot of people want fandom to be, and I only begrudge them that when I am feeling unusually petty and selfish. But it only does so much for me.