It's complicated

I went to see "The Social Network' with my friend/colleague last night.

I can see why there is a lot of hype.

I thought the film, though perhaps not always factually accurate, was pretty darned brilliant...on zillions of levels.

Sorkin has gotten a lot of criticism...for many reasons. He has gotten criticized by many saying that his film is not factually accurate. His response is that he was trying to tell everyone's story...and was not trying to lead the viewers to conclude who REALLY invented the idea for Facebook. He wanted to depict human nature. Sorkin stated 'the story is as old as storytelling; the themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class and power. This is story that Aeschylus would have written or Shakespeare or Paddy Chayefsky. Luckily for me, none of those guys were available, so I got to do it. " Damn...he's right. It's a Greek tragedy. And, it's the world we live in.

Sorkin has also gotten lots and lots of criticism for the way women were so mysogenistically portrayed. I have to say that I was pretty horrified myself by the way 99% of the women characters in the movie were objectified. But I also read Sorkin's authenticated responses to his critics: "It's not hard to understand how bright women could be appalled by what they saw in the movie but you have to understand that that was the very specific world I was writing about," he wrote, adding, "More generally, I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now. The women they surround themselves with aren't women who challenge them (and frankly, no woman who could challenge them would be interested in being anywhere near them.)." Damn, again. He's right again. Unfortunately, I've known some angry and misogynistic guys. Not many, but I have come across them. And, afterwards realized how naive I was. There are also a lot of women out there who are perhaps also young/naive/not yet comfortable in their own skin/not yet fully confident/etc...., and sadly...I guess this is the resulting behavior. (an extreme range of it anyway). It doesn't matter if you go to Harvard, or the local community college, or never go to college for that matter. Human nature is human nature. And, we each suffer bumps and bruises, and disappoint others, and ourselves. This movie seems to be a glaring example of how we screw up...even if it is embelished to the extreme.

Sorkin concluded his response on the critic's blog by stating ""I wish I could go door to door and make this explanation/apology to any woman offended by the things you've pointed out but obviously that's unrealistic so I thought the least I could do was speak directly to you," the screenwriter wrote.

Hmmmm....I thought.....that's pretty darned cool.

I had to agree with Sorkin. It's pretty hard to distill life and it's complicatedness (is that even a word?) into a 2 hour movie........but, he comes close. There is friendship/love/loyalty........deceipt/betrayal/misogeny/etc. Life is complicated. It is hard. It is tragic. Human beings can be brilliant, and can sometimes invent things that change the world in moments of their manic and mad brainstorming sessions....however, each one of us remains entirely vulnerable to committing timeless foibles. Each of us remain utterly human, and thus utterly fallible. Zuckerberg's heady success came with some very bitter pills....the loss his love, and his closest friend. Some pretty heavy lessons for the world's youngest billionaire.

Lastly, for those of you who think that Facebook and other social media platforms are frivolous and that the phenomenon seen it's heyday....or, that it's just plain evil...........or, you're pissed because Facebook has violated every rule of privacy.....you are probably just going to have to come to terms with the fact that it's all here to stay...for better, or worse. Venture Capitalists and Silicon Valley are betting on this, and I think it's going to be pretty cool to see what happens when the new seed cash infuses the ideas coming from the current and up-and-coming wonder-boy-geek-wizards.....and, girls. And we'll be sure to see more great books, and screenplays of course...as Hollywood continues to hold the proverbial mirror up to our own hypocritical and fallible ways.

Kleiner’s Bing Gordon: Social Web due for shake-up, old media will “eat their young” VentureBeat