Shotaro Kaneda

Film: Akira (1988)
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Lead Actor: Shotaro Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata)
Supporting Lead: Tetsuo Shima (Nozomu Sasaki)
Key Alpha Trait: Leader of Men/Fierce Independence

Netflix subscribers can watch the movie here.

Akira is one of the greatest sci-fi/cyber-punk/revolution/dystopia/anime movies of all time and one of my personal favorites. Heralded in 1988 for its cutting-edge animation, it still holds up to this day.

Summary:

Kaneda is a bike gang leader whose close friend Tetsuo gets involved in a government secret project known as Akira. On his way to save Tetsuo, Kaneda runs into a group of anti-government activists, greedy politicians, irresponsible scientists and a powerful military leader. The confrontation sparks off Tetsuo’s supernatural power leading to bloody death, a coup attempt and the final battle in Tokyo Olympiad where Akira’s secrets were buried 30 years ago.

Sounds complex? What did you expect from the sci-fi/cyber-punk/etc. genre description?

Considered a masterpiece, it along with Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Kick-Ass, The Dark Knight Returns, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Voltron are perennially on a list of products that Hollywood wants to adapt into live-action films. Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn’t seem to understand that these types of properties work best in their current form and not others, or they just don’t care, and Akira is next on the list to be adapted into a live-action movie. Playing the two Japanese teenagers and friends who engage in a psychic battle for a future civil-war esque tokyo will be two 30-something white dudes in a CGI Manhattan. I .Kid. You. Not.

But that’s the subject of it’s own post. For now we discuss the reason why Hollywood has been trying and failing so desperately for years to make this film. And why it will be so impossible to achieve.

Akira was originally written in manga form, like what comics are in America. Manga, like comics, run the gamut of mundane everyday life ala American Splendor to long-running epics like Crisis on Infinite Earths. Some even go on much longer than that. Published in monthly and sometimes weekly formats, an immense depth of background history and mythology is needed – if not created on the fly – to sustain the long plot and character backgrounds. Two of the most popular manga today, Bleach and Naruto, are on their 448th and 539th issues respectively, and are STILL not finished!

Needless to say, the battles that occur in manga can and often MUST be batshit insane to keep a reader focused on turning pages in a nation where fictional teenage boys fight in skyscraper mech robots on Earth and in space. To the Hollywood summer blockbuster system, that just screams “seat-filler.” Akira also has one of the greatest motorcycles to ever appear on film, that to this day, 23 years later, still has motorcycle engineers attempting to make a perfect recreation. Add to the deep bond of friendship and brotherhood between Kaneda and Tetsuo, and you have a mixture that any Hollywood producer believes will pour that precious young demographic into the theaters.

But even with all the special effects potential, it always begins with the story. And the story ultimately boils down to boys, power, and how we wield it.

Shotaro Kaneda is a fighter, first and foremost. Leader of the Capsule motorcycle gang, he has to be strong, decisive, and unyielding in order to lead the Capsules in running their turf in Neo-Tokyo. Needless to say, our boy Kaneda is alpha all the way. And, in a divergence from Brando in Last Tango in Paris, he never loses his alpha cred – in fact, he only gains it. In the beginning of the film (posted below) and by far one of the best dual character introductions of its time, Kaneda is retrieved from the dive bar, where he and the Capsule crew regularly hang out, to step to the Clown gang who has been encroaching on their turf. As Yamagata, his second-in-command, informs him of the situation, he says nothing. As the barkeep yells at the pair for always hanging out and never buying anything, he says nothing and lets Yamagata speak for him. He shouldn’t have to use his voice. While Tetsuo checks out Kaneda’s bike, Kaneda, in his cocky voice, finally says his first words of the movie:

Ha. You wanna ride it Tetsuo. It’s too wild for you. You couldn’t handle it.

All Tetsuo can mumble under his breath is a measly,”I could ride it.” Right then and there, you already see the dynamic between the two men. The blatant divisions of POWER. Kaneda’s bike is a symbol and practically a character itself, representing power and respect. The bike is a masterpiece of human ingenuity and uniqueness. Kaneda worked hard and was smart enough  to steal it for himself. That bike and its rider represent a self-attained power that the Capsule crew flaunts and other motorcycle gangs aspire to but ultimately cannot attain because of its innateness. If you can’t tell yet by the character and his representation in a movie where the setting takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan, Kaneda and his bike are also a symbol for America. Kaneda (America) and his bike (American power) dominate over enemy gangs (Germany, Italy, Russia) and Capsule crew alike (Tetsuo=Japan). Or did you not notice that Tetsuo is the beaten-down underdog that we initially hope will obtain some power to equal the relationship?

Kaneda: That's Mr. Kaneda to you, punk!

How could Tetsuo not envy Kaneda’s power? His might is proven. He is well respected. And, if nothing changes, it will damn sure stay that way. And we want him to have power. Sure, he’s a little mousy, not as good as the others, and maybe too passive. But we also see he is intelligent and foolishly brave. After a fire breaks out in the tunnel chasing down the Clown gang, Tetsuo is the only Capsule who races through the automated extinguishers to take down the fleeing Clowns. And, in successfully maneuvering obstacles which would have stopped him before, he literally brings the hammer down on the final Clown gang member. We know that Kaneda and the rest of the Capsules are going to give him props for this. He did something that even Kaneda didn’t do, all by himself. In this moment, we feel a profound elation for him for self-actualizing his power. Had the very next moment not happened, Tetsuo would have lived a confident, more pleasant life.

Unfortunately, that Tetsuo never comes to pass as he crashes into a Esper (child who has obtained psychic powers) on the lam. As Kaneda and the Capsules come upon their friend, they are beaten and made to watch as Tetsuo is administered drugs and taken to a military compound where the Espers originate. Here, Tetsuo is given his greatest gift and his eventual downfall. He is told of the almost limitless power he has inside himself, and instead of teaching him how to open it, he is administered tests and supplements to “remove the caps.” And, just as Kaneda told him before when he yearned for power he did not work for, he “couldn’t handle it. It’s too wild for him”

Tetsuo begins to dominate anyone and everyone with his power. If you don’t respect him for it, he will use it to kill you. The power he always wanted and now obtains is not the power that he needs. Nor is it a power that he respects, which leads his former Capsules not to respect it either. As you’ll see in the film itself, even Tetsuo must come to terms that he doesn’t deserve it and cannot control it.

Tetsuo: Heh, heh... what's happened to me? I must be dreaming. I feel like I can take out the world.

To write about Akira and NOT talk about the repressed anguish that a post-atomic bomb Japan harbored is to not talk about Akira. Point blank. When someone (Kaneda/America) exudes such an immense sense of power and dominance over you, it is bound to make you want to find a power to enable you to dominate them. However, attaining power without working for it makes you ego-driven, vain, selfish, and gives you a massive superiority complex. Tetsuo only truly wanted something that any man could really hope for – a team of loyal men, self-assured power and confidence, and the belief that his status is assured as long as he works for it. Can we really blame him for that?

In pure movie mechanics, Kaneda would be the protagonist of the story. He is in the majority of scenes. His journey drives the plot equally to if not more so than Tetsuo’s. He is the one of the pair who has a true love interest. However, it would be foolish of me not say that Tetsuo is the true hero of the story. He goes through the biggest change from beginning to end, and it is through his perspective that the movie climaxes and ends. And it is his major flaws of insecurity and selfishness that rub against opposing forces to breed the most conflict. As strong as Kaneda is in the beginning of the movie, he only grows stronger by the end as he takes on Tetsuo in full-form after he achieved essentially godlike powers. It is in Tetsuo that we see the struggle of trying to become the innate alpha that we admire – the frustration felt in his journey for respect and acceptance of his abilities, the constant conflict from differences of status when it comes to brotherhood. And in him, we see that the only way to achieve our potential is to constantly expand ourselves in every task we do. And if not, we implode into our own thoughts and fears of growth.

Next time on Alpha Males in Film: Die Hard.

Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando

Film: Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Lead Actor: Marlon Brando
Lead Actress: Maria Schneider
Key Alpha Trait: Psychosexual Dominance

Netflix subscribers can watch the movie here.

This film might as well be titled An American Seducer in Paris. Marlon Brando is a “made in America” white patriotic column of masculinity, at least until he breaks…but more on that later.

Summary:

Paul (Marlon Brando), a middle-aged American hotel owner mourning the suicide of his wife, meets a young engaged Parisian woman named Jeanne (Maria Schneider) in an apartment both are interested in renting. Paul and Jeanne proceed to have an anonymous sexual relationship in the apartment, and Paul demands that neither of them share any personal information, not even their names. The affair goes on until one day Jeanne comes to the apartment to find that Paul has, without warning, packed up and left.

Paul later meets Jeanne on the street and says that he wants to start anew with their relationship. He takes Jeanne to a tango bar and begins telling her about himself.

From the plot description alone, can you already see where Brando slipped?

In the beginning of the film, Paul and Jeanne meet while looking at the same apartment to rent. When she walks about the room, making small talk, glancing over at the brooding Paul in the corner of the room, one would think that Paul is an ass, a douche, or even creepy.

However, those knowledgeable in the tenets of game know that it’s sometimes better to simply shut up and let the sexual tension do the work for you. Paul is an older gentleman, handsome, an unforgiving presence in the room, and comes from some money. As a 19 year-old girl engaged to a man who is the complete opposite of him, it is only natural that she would be curious. So it came as no surprise to me when Paul picked her small, petite, feminine frame up in the air and over to the window where he had his way with her. Did she fight him at first? Yes. But does she begin to return his feelings of lust? Definitely.

From this first encounter, Jeanne sought to get to know Paul on a personal level. Perhaps she wanted a savior from her engagement, or perhaps she simply wanted her affair to have a name. We can never know what she really sought. But we know that Paul didn’t allow this.

As the film progresses, we follow Paul and Jeanne in their lives outside of the apartment. Paul begins to come off as not as alpha in his relationship with his now dead wife as he is with Jeanne. Prior to his wife’s death, she was involved in her own affair with a resident in the hotel Paul owns. A willing cuckold, Paul actually comes to a point where he is able to grieve for his wife’s lover. As her funeral day approaches, he breaks his mother-in-law’s vision of the idealistic daughter she believed she had. We also learn how Paul was a failed jack-of-all-trades who was courted by his French wife and wed himself into money.

It is through the perspective of their initial encounter in the apartment that we’re able to discern the possible motivations for his actions with Jeanne. With the death of his wife, Paul uses Jeanne to get revenge – but not against his wife, but himself. Since his wife basically saved him from a life of poverty, he placed her on a pedestal, which made him resentful of the fact that he could not be the master of the relationship. In fact, it was BECAUSE of his impotence in his marriage that his wife fled into another man’s arms. In Jeanne, he sees a chance to be in a relationship in which the woman sees and adores a man’s value, and not the other way around. It is this key issue that is his downfall, as he doesn’t realize that his relationship with Jeanne is not proof that he can have that relationship, but that it is his relationship as long as he maintains it.

Paul: Even if a husband lives 200 hundred fucking years, he'll never discover his wife's true nature. I may be able to understand the secrets of the universe, but...I'll never understand the truth about you. Never.

With Jeanne, the picture Bertolucci paints is the total opposite of Paul’s, but from the same frame of mind. Young and a daydreamer, she is the daughter of a French general who has had a charmed life. She is wealthy, engaged to an up-and-coming French director who is placing her in a new, groundbreaking TV program (reality TV, yeah this movie is dated). And last but most important, she is beautiful, with a petite yet curvaceous body (which Bertolucci makes sure you know), a girlish feminine face and features, and an expensive wardrobe which makes all of the above pop.

Yet, she is not the most bright shining flower, deeply unhappy with her life. Her boyfriend dotes on her, constantly compliments her, repeatedly tells her he loves her, and always makes sure she feels special, but he is completely unable to compete with the stoic image of her father. It’s rather nauseating for a man to watch, because you can simultaneously see her thinly veiled compulsion to keep her distance from her fiance and compare him to your own past beta behaviors. When she goes to the apartment, she finally finds a place where she is a woman completely under the spell of her man. She is is not doted after but beholden to Paul’s every whim and thought.

Paul: Well, first you have to take a hot bath and if you don't you're gonna get pneumonia. Right?... and then you know what happens? You get pneumonia...and then you know what happens? You die! And then, you know what happens then when you die? I get to fuck the dead rat!

The apartment is the place where they’re completely able to pursue the relationships that they wanted or want to have. By keeping their names unknown to each other, they shed their pasts, their insecurities, their family and social pressures, and all the baggage that comes with their identities, to simply be the man and woman they want to be. In the apartment, Paul controls the shots. He commands her in the bedroom and she obeys. Jeanne follows Paul’s lead, sexually degraded in every manner possible, pining for Paul as he cares for her afterwards. Without their names, they are themselves in every way they could have always been. It is why in the end, as Paul reveals his name and asks her to tell her his that the alpha wittles away.

I would be remiss to not touch on the controversy attached to this movie. Brando, Schneider, and Bertolucci ceased to be on speaking terms after the film’s release. Bertolucci had his civil rights revoked by the Italian government for promoting obscenity. Brando vowed never to open himself up like that again. Schneider was flung into international fame and drowned herself in drugs and sex. No one left this film the same, including the audience. Even today, critics are polarized in considering Last Tango in Paris to be trashy or brilliant.

As I believe art is to be utter truth recreated, and thus polarizing, I fall into the latter camp, and I’m not alone. The film director Robert Altman stated after seeing the movie, ”I walked out of the screening and said to myself, ‘How dare I make another film?’ My personal and artistic life will never be the same.” Mine neither. And if you watch the film, I guarantee you won’t be the same either.

Next time on Alpha Males in Film: Akira.

I have been following the blog of a great writer/director in Hollywood who goes by the digital nomenclature of Kid in the Front Row.

On a recent search through his articles, I happened upon several great posts about women in the industry (“Missing Voices of Women in Film“, “Women in the Industry“, “Men Only“), the lack thereof, and the lack of positive women’s roles. He responded to my comment on my post “The Plight of the Buppie Male“. I had a great super long response that was unfortunately eaten by the monster known as the interwebs, so I am putting this response on my blog as well as Kid’s. Hopefully some women writers, actresses, or plain movie lovers can weigh in as well.

Conflict

It is the one thing, the one absolutely vital component that makes the greatest of films. Don’t believe me? Look at some of the crappy spec scripts that sell and you’ll notice one key factor – they all have a conflicted high concept that even with bad characters and hackneyed execution will sell because someone saw that a re-write can set it straight and mine the conflict for two hours. Screenwriting teachers always teach students to place more conflict in their characters. Why? To make them more interesting. Characters that have to overcome external issues while confronting internal issues become amazing, fully-fleshed out characters that live on in viewers minds, long after they have left the cinema.

Enough of my diatribe? Stop, you say? OK. I will. Here is the point:

The average white female in America has no perceived conflict.

Should I study Buddhist philosophy or learn the origins of Gelatos? #whitegirlproblems

I’m not saying that women do not have actual conflict in their life, but what we first imagine as the female image must match up to our past perceptions. It matters in even more places than just film as well. For example, I wish I could find the article or the video I watched when a comedian stated, “For anyone to take their situation and be funny they must have societal pressure. Pretty women are not funny. The funniest women comedians are lesbians, ugly, or minorities.” And you know what?

The Queen of Lesbian Media: Ellen Degeneres

That person had a point.

Pretty, straight, white women have no societal pressure or any other kind of pressure on them. It’s why Sarah Silverman makes jokes about gross-out humor. You have to laugh at her because she has no pressure to create humor out of and laugh with her. Though at this point it gets old, Lisa Lampanelli makes jokes about the fact that she is fat, ugly, and how only black men will have sex with her. But we are laughing with her sucky life. Even with the new doors opened up for women to jump into careers and strive against the “old boys club,” there is no real pressure on them. If they fail, the consequences that will affect them are minimal. That’s important because what matters are the stakes. They are what goes hand in hand with societal pressure to create great conflict.

Nadine Rajabi

Stakes

See, along with pressure, stakes are the other thing that creates conflict and makes films interesting. To quote from the great Brando himself, ”I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless. But not men.” Why can women be careless? Because someone will always care for a women. Whether it be her parents, her father, her significant other, the man she just met, or the ever plentiful white knight, there is always someone who would not only take care of a woman at the drop of a hat, but perceive it as their duty. Men don’t have that. Watch a movie headed by women and honestly ask yourself, “Is there a chance that no one, absolutely no one, wouldn’t jump in the way and take care of this situation for her?” Also ask yourself, “Does she herself HAVE to solve this problem? And if someone else does, will it be of negative consequence to her afterwards?” When you make a movie about women, you have to take away the people that would be able to care for her, or make it a situation that absolutely no one else can feasibly take care of. For example in Juno, no one can handle the issue of the protagonist’s pregnancy because it is absolutely her issue as it is her body. In Precious, we must know that the main character’s home life is in shambles. Her father is a rapist and the cause of many of her problems, and her mother is the antagonist of the story. My idea is not sexist either. In all conspiracy thrillers and “Man vs. Man” movies, the question of “Why can’t he go to the police?” must always be tackled, usually by saying the antagonist has the police in his pocket. In Die Hard, he does have the police help him in the form of Carl Winslow. However, the police aren’t allowed in the building or the terrorists will kill the hostages. Once that is taken care of, there are very few people who have the capability and natural urge to help him.

With women characters you have to work so much more to remove helpers. I’d be willing to do that work, but the side effect is that it limits the types of introductions to do as you must take away both natural protectors (police, authority figures, etc.) and familial ones (brother, father, uncle, etc.). Thus it limits the story somewhat. We would look at our man character as weak if he used others to tackle his problem. With women it’s accepted.

Societal Pressure

Societal pressure is a complex thing which elevates male characters as more interesting than female characters and may need further explaining. Men ALWAYS have a constant societal pressure to overcome obstacles. A man’s worth is seen mostly by his ability to overcome big and small obstacles, hence whenever a man encounters an obstacle he can traverse but is afraid to, he is told to “man up.” You’re taking heat from your boss because of some mistakes? Man up. You tried to get that cute girl across the bar and failed? Man up. Someone didn’t re-fill the toilet paper and you have to duck walk across the bathroom? Man up. And what does “man up” mean? Deal with it. A middle class, white woman, from Greenwich, CT, who just graduated from NYU and is trying to make it in the mean streets of NYC? Man up? Not really, because if she fails, she can still hook up with that banker she met in act two and retain the hope of marriage (see: saved). The man can’t make it in the mean streets of NYC? He better hit the homeless shelter or pull a Jerry Maguire “Who’s coming with me?”

If he comes home a failure, he will earn the ire of his father and the pity of his mother – neither of which will make us like him as a character. If he fights to overcome those issues all on his own, he becomes our beloved underdog and we will fight with him for two hours (i.e. Rocky), but if he wallows in it, content to work in the muck rather than through it, or requires others for help without contributing, he is a weakling and we will scorn him while finding a new character to root for. But that’s a whole different genre of movies. Save that for indie town with the hipster kids.

If a women is gay, ugly, or a minority, she has the best tools to combat the idea that women have a “fallback” team. A fallback team is anyone close to the character that we believe not only understand her problem, but would gladly take it on – because it substitutes that issue with adding more conflict. She’s gay and her parents don’t understand her lesbianism? Not a great fall back team. Black female dealing with complex issues of race and gender in an all-white school? No fallback men to white-knight on that one.

Let’s look at why Precious is such an interesting character. Let’s break down her situation. She has no strong family ties (fallback team = none). She is fat, ugly, and black (triple societal pressure). Do we want to see her win? Hell yeah.

Now for Juno. Her big problem is her upcoming pregnancy (due to it being an absolutely singular issue, fallback team = none). She is sexually unattractive to most males at her school (besides that jock played by the Degrassi boy and Bleeker), and is a pregnant teenager (societal pressure). Do we want to see her win? Yeah.

One of my favorites is the Bride from Kill Bill. She is ugly (let’s be honest), has no family (fallback = none), and was a sexually abused comatose cripple (I don’t even need to say it there). Do we want to see her win? Fuck Yeah. Had to add the fuck for Tarantino.

I'll take you all on!

So when writing female characters, try to make sure her family is in no way capable, willing, or alive to help her with her issue. And if you can’t do that, make her an underdog to societal scorn.

Angelina Jolie - Born to be Lara Croft

Take, for example, the interesting case of Tomb Raider. Lara Croft is the last of her family (fallback = none), pretty, straight, white woman (no societal pressure), can do everything herself without once being rattled. Do we want to see her win? Do we really care? She wins in everything she does from the first reel to the last.

One of the most enduring spies since James Bond

“But wait, Escarondito. How is that any way different from Jason Bourne?”

Because unlike Jason, she doesn’t really have to do anything. She’s pretty, straight, and white. She never needs to be more than that. So if she fails at saving the world, she doesn’t lose much worth, does she? Now if she fails to save the world and as a consequence becomes ugly in the process….now you’ve got a movie!

The alpha relationship: Caught on camera

What we got here is… failure to communicate.
Cool Hand Luke

If Bronan the Barbarian! had not filed his most recent post under the “Humor” category, I’m confident that even today all the posters who agreed and believed that he meant what he said would still not get that it was a joke. Bronan wanted to discuss a serious issue which plagues our media - beta poison. Beta poison is any TV show, song, genre, or film which espouses positive consequences to a male protagonist acting beta. How do you identify it? I’ll help:

Bronan was attempting to find humor in telling us we shouldn’t watch beta poison films like Superbad. Instead, we should watch films like Street Fighter, The Last Dragon, and They Live. While Bronan was trying to find the humor inrecommending such obviously bad movies, the comment section quickly divided into two camps – one which corrected the author by providing movies of true alphas, and the other who agreed with the author who, tongue firmly in cheek, tried to pass off outlandish, bloated, foolish depictions of masculinity as alpha.

This has led me to realize that so many men have grown up watching that bloated, greasy, muscled, faux masculinity, steroid porn and are equating it with their psycho sexual definition of “alpha.” Therefore, I am going to engage in weekly posts on movies which depict true alphas. Each week I will watch a new movie, classic or modern, and give a brief run-down on the plot, the protagonist, how he is alpha, and what is a result of his alphaness within the film’s world.

I have a brief list I have created of films I know to have depictions of true alphaness. If you would like to add more, I will gladly tack it on to my watch list. Simply leave a comment and I will add it in. However, if I see movies that are clear bastardizations of masculinity (Commando, They Live, etc.), I WON’T put it on the list.

Alphas in Film

• Die Hard
• There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men
• Dirty Harry
• Death Wish
• The Rules of Attraction
• Lethal Weapon
• Mad Max
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• The Maltese Falcon
• Chinatown
• Taxi Driver
• Raging Bull
• Scarface
• The Godfather Part 1
• The Godfather Part 2
• Blow
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• American Psycho
• Rescue Dawn
• Fight Club
• Ocean’s Eleven
• Pulp Fiction
• On the Waterfront
• Casino Royale
• Gladiator
• Master and Commander
• Bronson
• Malcolm X
• American Gangster
• 3:10 to Yuma
• City of God
• 25th Hour
• American History X
• Goodfellas
• The Usual Suspects
• Seven
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• American Beauty
• The Great Escape
• Magnificent Seven
• Lawrence of Arabia
• High Noon
• Cool Hand Luke
• Maltese Falcon
• The Ten Commandments
• Last Tango in Paris
• Akira

As I go through the list, I suggest watching the movies yourself to get a full appreciation of the character and plot. I will try to leave out spoilers, but there are some plot points in certain films which are too important not to write about. You’ve been warned. If you go to Netflix, you can receive a free month trial. Pick your plan and follow along.

As I was scouring entertainment blogs and sites riffing on Oscar snubs, predictions, and comparisons. I happened across this article on EW.com on how they questioned if The Social Network is this years Up In The Air. Needless to say, as a former resident of Boston in 2005 when the still titled Thefacebook.com was hitting it off nationally, I was sincerely interested in the movie before it came out, and loved the film upon viewing it. Twice. I absolutely do have qualms with the movie, yet I agree with critics that it is by far one of the best visual representation of our – my – generation’s times.

So I was a little miffed at how so many people were saying it was over-rated, over-hyped, boring, and my favorite, “stupid movie about Facebook,” because not a single person truly described why they thought the movie was bad – they merely stated what outside forces influenced them to believe the movie was bad.

So, I waited to read until I saw someone who truly wanted to discuss issues in the movie, or someone else who had something substantive to say about the movie. I’ll yield the floor to Buttercup.

buttercup

Thu 02/03/11 6:53 PM

This drives me crazy, the notion that somehow because TSN is about the founding of Facebook, it’s a movie about Facebook. It’s probably my pick for best movie of the year (and note: I haven’t seen The King’s Speech yet, along with a handful of others) because it’s a sort of intense and brilliantly acted take off of Citizen Kane. There Will Be Blood did the same in 2007, only it went all the way to tragedy and blood and melodramatic excess. Fincher and Sorkin ended TSN with a wistfulness that I liked, but probably made people wonder, “what the hell was that about?”

Zuckerberg begins the movie motivated by ambition and need: the desire to be acknowledged by the elite at Harvard, success, for the pretty girl to like him back. Only he doesn’t have the necessary equipment for success: breeding, money, social graces. All he is pure ambition to succeed, his brains, and balls of steel.

Meaning he is quite willing to be entirely ruthless to get what he wants, and the movie pretty much lays it out that Facebook = the means through which he’ll gain the success and validation he needs so badly.

The movie has two beautiful ironies built into it. The first is that, Eduardo’s friendship is the real thing: a connection to a real human being who cares for him, maybe even loves him. But Mark screws him over in the end not because of animus or latent resentment, but because Eduardo really was *wrong* about the business of Facebook. He was wrong about needing to sell ads, and he was actively wrong to pull the $19k in the initial bank account. Sean Parker is a d-bag, but he’s also right. Just because you’re a nice person or a good friend doesn’t mean that you make good business decisions.

The second irony is subtly built upon, and something I mulled over. Zuckerberg is awful at reading social cues — as demonstrated in the very first scene — or interacting with people. Yet he manages to create the most successful online social network ever. As though because he’s so awful at human interaction, he somehow compensated by analyzing relationships scientifically, and managed to codify the way people interact in a way that can be laid out in software. Hence: the amazing success of Facebook, a social network founded by someone who’s practically autistic.

The ending is wistful because Zuckerberg technically has it all at the end: billions, Facebook, renown, etc. He could buy and sell the final clubs he so ached to get into at Harvard, as he said. But he’s alone at the end, even moreso than he was at the beginning. Clicking the Friend request to Erica Albright = his personal Rosebud. while the Beatles play him off. Turned out getting everything he wanted didn’t actually get him the things he needed.

It’s actually a fairly traditional story, if you think about it. Only told beautifully well, with intensity and power.

The king does not wish to hear you.

In which the author of the article, Owen Gleiberman replied:

• Owen Gleiberman
  Thu 02/03/11 7:27 PM
  Buttercup,
  That’s a BRILLIANT evocation of how the film works. Everyone on this board should read your comment…
  (and, yes, it’s really me)

My reply will be posted on the website as well. But considering I haven’t posted in a while, and wanted to drop some thoughts on TSN, I decided to give you all a taste as well.

@Buttercup @owen

And the funny thing is that’s just a surface analysis of the Social Network. Another aspect I loved about the movie was the subtle discussion of class and relationships. Did you notice that the characters from money were left with nothing at the end by the characters who came from a lower tax bracket? (Excluding the money they actually received in RL. They will never be able to receive what Facebook can make). There is an underlying discussion of class and success that leaves its stench in almost every scene of the movie, that most people don’t get a whiff of until the movie is over. First, let’s look at Eduardo and Mark. Mark states that Eduardo had made $400,000 last summer by investing. What college aged kid do you know that has even the start-up money to invest in one summer and make $400,000? Let alone have his father fork over money to start a business with no consequence? A rich one maybe? Yet, look at Mark. From the outer boroughs of New York, blessed with a brilliant mind, and permanently dressed in “a hoodie and fuck you slippers.” Is this our image of young wealth? Heck no.

Shoes of the elite?

The other players in the movie? The Winklevoss twins. Born of a rich and connected father, raised in stiff upper crust parties, family events, and soon to be rowers in the Olympics. These guy are the highest class of class. Divya’s family is not spoke of at all, yet by the fact alone that he hangs out with the “Winklevi” and hobnobs just as easily at the Regatta let’s you know that he is clearly from money as well. How about Sean Parker? A Northeastern University student (Go Huskies!) who created Napster, some say stole (odd he and Zuck got along?), and became seemingly rich overnight based off his own brains and ideas. Granted, his lawsuits crippled him for a period, while Mark brushed his off like dirt, the comparisons between the two must be obvious to those who know the history.

Of like minds

Mark and Sean are two young, middle-class, creative businessmen who built themselves up on their own money and ambition. The Winklevoss twins, Divya, and Eduardo are children of the Elite, born and raised into a world where everything is almost handed to them. In any other movie, and especially in our economic times, these would be the characters to despise, yet they are the most compassionate, human, law and order abiding characters in the entire film. Eduardo is the heart and soul of the movie. Eduardo is also, along with the Winklevoss twins and Divya, a representation of the old way, the textbook way of doing business. They go about doing business the way class taught them, the way their father taught, the way media images taught them to go about business. They take people on good faith and will later build up contracts.

A symbol of the loss of loyalty

Eduardo gives his good friend money to start up a business that he believes he is an equal partner in. All four characters trust people on their word. And all four characters get screwed. The classiest of the upper class is now in the position to be screwed Bound by the laws that govern their elite society, they even wait on bringing litigation against Mark as they “are gentlemen of Harvard” and their image does not allow them to do that kind of thing without repercussions. It’s an odd contrast to the fact that Zuckerberg creates a site where he is able to put out whatever image he feels like to represent himself.

But Mark and Sean go about business their own way. As children from a lower class, the rules they need to abide to in order to maintain their image are much less restrictive than the Winklevoss twins and Divya. While Mark is looked at with a side-eye for potentially stealing their idea, imagine the scandal that would result from the Winklevoss’s social circle if that were to happen. Doubt it? These guys were worried about their image for suing a kid who truthfully wronged them. Yet for all their moral inconsistencies, Sean and Mark succeed off of ambition, ingenuity, and lack of sincere emotion.

Did you not notice that? Sean, and Mark especially, show no emotional empathy. Sean is manipulative, feigns empathy, is completely unsympathetic, and hides his motives the entire movie. A perfect trickster character. Sean will never tell you how he really feels, and you will never know his true motivations. It is impossible to tell if even puts value in the interactions you are having with him. As for Mark? He almost doesn’t emote period. Only when the situation is so dire to have to warrant a response does he react to anything. Examples are all over the movie, such as Erica in the opening scene. When Eduardo sees the cease and desist letter. When Eduardo find out his percentage in the company. Mark is only able to react to other people. He gives nothing of himself emotionally. And when compared to everyone else around him, he is always more muted emotionally. Jesus, Mark barely even talks to people, doesn’t respond to what they say, doesn’t even look them in the eye.

Contrast that with Eduardo. At first, learning Mark is dumped, he is compassionate. When he notices Mark is jealous that Eduardo received a letter, he is empathetic. When Mark then disses him for it, he is considerate of Mark’s emotional state and lets it go. Eduardo treats Mark as a person and definitely a person he cares about. The Winklevoss twins approach Mark on equal terms and apologize for not being able to bring him into the club house further due to “rules” (there they are again). They show anger at being betrayed because they clearly admired his skill set and trusted him. The same goes for Divya as well. You can clearly tell he is angry at the betrayal when he grabs his girlfriends computer realizing their idea was stolen. The Elite class emote all over this movie from beginning to end. They are compassionate, passionate, forthright, honest, and the absolute losers of the film. They are played, manipulated, beaten, and put into the position and frame of whiners attempting to “stand on ….shoulders and call themselves tall.”

The real brothers Winklevoss

And this is the final culmination that I gleamed from the issue of class and relationships from this movie. All the images of the forthright American that we espouse in books, media, community and familial culture, will always and easily be trampled on the roadside by the ingenuous American without scruples. Whether it always has been or not isn’t the case, nor the “moral of our times” that the movie was trying to bring into the open. What the movie does say is that we can now obtain this success within an ever shortening span of time with inhuman efficiency (see: viral) if we want to, but we must also be willing to be inhuman to achieve that success. The frame rules of image that we govern ourselves by to build up and maintain our constant struggles in life can also become a prison which inhibit our ability to move beyond that life. And anyone who does not inhabit that culture and its required credentials can use those rules against you. You don’t have to be principled to be successful in America – just be successful.

Can you guess which one never has to work again?

Originally published at Esca Productions on February 16, 2011.

“Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers.”

We all fall down, like toy soldiers. And you want to know why? Because I’m not standing next to you. Neither is Juan, Jonaton, Jun, or any other ethnic male that doesn’t fit into your vision of “whites” who would rather take every darkie and every shade they come in under your boot rather than marching next to you.

I have been in and around the “man-o-sphere,” MRM, game, and PUA blogs for what seems like forever, but in truth only amounts to two years. In those two years, I have had my eyes opened to new ideas, found myself revisiting memories with new perspective, focused on what being a man and a citizen means to me as a black man in Obama’s America, gained more insight on the truth of inter-relationships between men and women, and had to find those nuggets of knowledge through the most vile, half-assed, backwards, dumb shit, narrow-minded, hackneyed, self high-fiving, emotional, wanna-be alpha, racist, whiny, try-hard, “white” boy rhetoric I’ve ever seen.

To take it from my boy Philly D – “WTF, white people?” Do you not understand the predicament you all are in? All things masculine are not being taken lightly. They are being cracked down on from the crib. Boys aren’t even allowed to be boys anymore. Don’t follow the program and sit down in your seat nicely like the girls. Take the drugs, kid.

Don’t like the women, job market, opportunities for entrepreneurship available to you and would rather play games and live purely for your own existence? Kay will tell you to “man up!” There’s something wrong with you. You are a man-child.

The marriage industry, and many female centered mags and books, are trying their darnedest to keep marriage a life staple no matter who is getting the short end. It might not last too long though, and women are loving every moment of their divorces. But men are picking up on the trap more and more every year. Even if they are going down the shooting gallery of family and friends. they’re making sure they have their pre-nup vest on under the tux.

So why did I start this post on race and racial issues? Why did I question your knowledge of the predicament you are in? Because, while you all got in a tizzy about Obsidian’s post and got all racist again stroking your e-peen to Matt’s, you failed to notice the one thing that even Ferd has been trying to get you to understand as well. You are going down, slowly and surely, and no one cares to save you. It IS of your own doing as your brethren have been running the show for years. And these issues effect all men regardless of race.  But you still have a chance to do something about it instead of sitting idly by and watching the world burn. You’re going to have to enlist help from the Brothas, Latinos, Asians, and all the rest. You’re going to have to bite the bullet and work with them for two reasons: 1) These issues affect all men, and must be framed so, and 2) no one will care if it’s purely fronted by what they will perceive as butt-hurt white males. No one is looking out for you, and they would much rather see you fall to the wayside so they can get the piece of the pie they were not allowed to for years. So you have two choices going forward. You can sit back, kick up your legs, and watch as your sons’ futures dwindle away. Or you can use the resources and men available to you to attack the problems at hand. If that hurts too much, let Huey’s words ease you into it.