The Social Network: the man who mistook his movie for an episode of gossip girl

 I'm going to jump right in with The Facebook Movie a.k.a the four-way mirror from Hell.  It gives me a headache to think about it, sort of like when I wonder how it would feel to Like your own Like.

To disclaim, I really enjoyed the film and have much more posting to do, you lucky dogs!  But I flipped a coin and decided to start with the bad.

Fine, there was no coin. I'm just an asshole.

No doubt, The Social Network is the hottest piece of Facebook-related Facebook movie ever to grace the pages of Facebook. Debates are being raging about everything from how accurate The Social Network was to whether or not that even matters, to whether poor Jesse Eisenberg is, in fact, the "smug asshole version of Michael Cera."  (Actually, that last one appears to be the two sides' only common ground).  

Fact? Fiction? VHI biopic?  No matter.  Because whether The Social Network was meant as a fly on the walls of history or a delicious allegory of the sins of youth,  I got kind of screwed on both.

The Social Network is sort of like a Katy Perry song in that it's so obliviously misogynistic that it makes you want to cry.

I am amazed that a movie which spends so much time "calling out" Mark Zuckerberg on his objectifying of women spends so much time glorying in it.

At the outset, we as audience members are thrown our bone in the form of a "very smart girl." Smart Girl sees through Mark Zuckerberg and makes him angry toward women.

From there, The Social Network writes itself into a conveniently trailer-friendly corner.  Mark Zuckerberg is a twisted, sex-starved troll who wants to be cool.  As much as it pains us, this crucial center of conflict can only be shown via Incredibly Dated Hot Co-ed Montage.

As a result, despite being nothing like the actual Ivy League (Sorry, Facebook movie. I did way, way too much research on schools I was eventually too afraid to apply to for fear of rejection to accept your version of Harvard), The Social Network is forced to populate its movie with sexy, silly groupies who drop their pants at the first hint of "power." 

In their defense, it really can't be helped.  Yes, in real life Mark Zuckerberg has had the same girlfriend since Sophomore year of college, an Asian-American woman who's in medical school and wants to be a teacher.  But don't you think a Victoria's Secret model throwing him a coy look advances the story more?  

Of course, Zuckerberg is no Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own Me."  He did invent Facemash, a website rating Harvard women in order of their hotness. 

For that, The Social Network really takes him to task -- because that's when we meet the really angry ugly girls! They're angry! And ugly! And furious at Mark Zuckerberg for exposing this!

Honestly, ladies -- if you don't want to be ridiculed on Facemash, don't be the only girl in the movie who looks like an actual college student.

Sometimes, when Smart Girl is in danger of becoming a memory, she re-appears for four seconds in time for Mark to make a Character Decision (based on Anger Over Rejection) -- and then spring into action as crisp and clean as a page of Sports Night dialogue.  

Most of the time, though, the The Social Network's take on youth culture is like watching a stodgy, condescending version of Gossip Girl.  Which I'd actually prefer, because on Gossip Girl there are at least two women who are sassy and complicated, as opposed to gullible and admiring. (Neither of these women are Taylor Momson).

I guess Zuckerberg's real-life girlfriend fell victim to that old Hollywood axiom: "Why have one Asian woman when you can have many?"

Really, The Social Network empowers women in the way that Carrie Bradshaw's puns do. Mark Zuckerberg may have had groupies, but he never made me sit through a lacy co-ed bra montage.

I'm not saying The Social Network isn't a good film.  But if it is, it's definitely the "smug, asshole version."