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annakovsky) wrote2010-10-05 12:47 pm
annakovsky) wrote2010-10-05 12:47 pm
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Aaron Sorkin, I can't understand why you're single.
So I haven't seen The Social Network and don't have too much desire to (especially now), but I saw an interview with Aaron Sorkin about it on the Colbert Report last week. Here is an excerpt:
Colbert: Can I ask you something about the ladies in it?
Sorkin: Sure. Yeah.
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, that led him to make --
Sorkin: The girl who would start Facebook, yes.
Colbert: Exactly. She's 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 BLEEPing guys in the bathroom. Why are there no other women of any substance in the movie?
Sorkin: That's a fair question. There is one other woman, Rashida Jones who plays a young lawyer in the deposition room --
Colbert: That's true, that's true, I apologize, she does not do anything in the bathroom.
Sorkin: She's a trustworthy character, she's a stand-in for the audience. The other women are prizes, basically.
Colbert: Are women at Harvard like that? That's what I want to know.
(The interview then digresses a little bit, letting Sorkin give a super misogynistic example when asked about the actual website Facebook, and then Sorkin goes on to reiterate that it's just that in this particular story, women function as prizes, with no indication that he sees that as any kind of problem.)
So let that be a lesson to you, ladies. You might get into Harvard with your "brains" and your "talent", but that doesn't make you any less of a prop. Maybe you should've been an asshole who did something so important to humanity as ~*~FACEBOOK~*~ if you wanted anyone to treat you like a human being.
I am both super impressed with Colbert, an actual male human, for noticing that this is problematic and having the balls to ask about it, when no other review I've read has mentioned it, and super unsurprised that Aaron Sorkin sees no issue with treating half of the human race as slutty furniture.
Colbert: Can I ask you something about the ladies in it?
Sorkin: Sure. Yeah.
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, that led him to make --
Sorkin: The girl who would start Facebook, yes.
Colbert: Exactly. She's 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 BLEEPing guys in the bathroom. Why are there no other women of any substance in the movie?
Sorkin: That's a fair question. There is one other woman, Rashida Jones who plays a young lawyer in the deposition room --
Colbert: That's true, that's true, I apologize, she does not do anything in the bathroom.
Sorkin: She's a trustworthy character, she's a stand-in for the audience. The other women are prizes, basically.
Colbert: Are women at Harvard like that? That's what I want to know.
(The interview then digresses a little bit, letting Sorkin give a super misogynistic example when asked about the actual website Facebook, and then Sorkin goes on to reiterate that it's just that in this particular story, women function as prizes, with no indication that he sees that as any kind of problem.)
So let that be a lesson to you, ladies. You might get into Harvard with your "brains" and your "talent", but that doesn't make you any less of a prop. Maybe you should've been an asshole who did something so important to humanity as ~*~FACEBOOK~*~ if you wanted anyone to treat you like a human being.
I am both super impressed with Colbert, an actual male human, for noticing that this is problematic and having the balls to ask about it, when no other review I've read has mentioned it, and super unsurprised that Aaron Sorkin sees no issue with treating half of the human race as slutty furniture.
no subject
it's based in no way on reality -- just Sorkin's stupid need to turn the movie into a cliché rise and fall story.
Yessssssss, exactly. And I feel like this whole "Well, he's the villain" excuse on Sorkin's part is like -- well, so you've chosen to tell this story about this terrible guy who treats women like objects while you yourself functionally treat women as objects by WRITING THIS STORY THAT DOES SO, but you also get to feel smug about how awesome you are because you're condemning your hero? Uh, NO. If you really want to condemn assholes who treat women as objects, then do so BY TREATING WOMEN AS PEOPLE. God.
Haha, anyway, but yeah, I can totally believe it's interesting and well-made, I just wish more critics/interviewers were asking these same questions Colbert is.
no subject
Even the great female characters were really unexplored :| I'm really glad that at least Colbert-the-character exists and could call Sorkin out on his bullshit to his face \o/.
Oddly, when I think back on it, the movie was pretty ridiculous and offensive and clichéd, and yet when I was watching it I enjoyed every second. Like how Inception seems like the smartest thing ever while you're watching it the first time, haha...haaa.
no subject
Ahahahahahaha, I AM TOTALLY WITH YOU THERE. It's so funny how you can totally enjoy an experience and be so into it and it seems so smart and cool and then you walk out and a couple of days later are like, "Meh." Hee, especially if the internet is still having an orgasm over it.