With Sean Parker as Tyler Durden
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one puzzled when The Social Network was announced as David Fincher’s next directorial effort. Has there been any project that has faced as much sight-unseen mockery as ‘the facebook movie”? Probably not since the pre-release snickering about Boogie Nights, back when it was “the porn movie starring Marky Mark.”
Well, things obviously worked out better than anyone expected, but TSN is mostly getting discussed as a Sorkin joint. Sorkin’s as mannered a dialogue writer as David Mamet and there’s no mistaking his voice from the first scene, but what’s astounding is the extent that this movie of people talking is definitely Un Film De David Fincher. There’s a solid-B Intro to Film paper to be found in comparing TSN and Fight Club alone. Emotionally stunted beta male protagonist? Who channels aggression into a new mode of expression? That taps into the frustrations and thwarted desires of denizens of late-industrial capitalism? And ends up upending established institutions and social structures?
Check, check, check, check.
And also: a partner embodying the protagonist’s wish-fulfillment concept of masculinity? With the role filled with a meta-textually fitting casting choice of a real world sex symbol? Checkity check.
There’s more to untangle, of course, including the charges of misogyny that were leveled—misguidedly—at both films, as well as the issue of Fight Club’s ostensibly anti-capitalist message vs. a story turning on stock dilution maneuvers, but I’ll leave that to the undergraduate who actually wants that B (probably a B-, really).
