meditations: "the social network"

why is money never happy?
why is it always cold, cruel, and ruthless?
why do we never see money with a smiley face?


watching , i wondered why all the only idea of money we have is negative. the current mindset appears to be that the main objective of life is to make money. in order to make money, you have to get ahead. in order to get ahead, you need to sell out your friends, shut them out and sue them. is money really worth losing your friends, especially when it's losing your "only friend"? it all paints a bleak worldview.

i don't know why it is that the current fad is to make money, and to make money fast. money and fame at an early age seems to be at the top of everyone's wish list these days. sure, protagonist or anti-hero mark zuckerberg is known as the founder of ubiquitous facebook, but more importantly, he's known as becoming the youngest billionaire ever at the age of 23.

btw, i spent the first two minutes of the movie trying to remember the name of the current indie favorite who looks like zuckerberg actor jesse eisenberg: michael cera.

what really bothered me about the movie was the demeaning depiction of asian women. although i have to say the movie was misogynistic with horrible portrayals of all female characters who were never more than stock characters, they slam asian women in so many ways.

here's some dialogue in the film about asian women:

eduardo: it’s not that guys like me are generally attracted to asian girls. it’s that asian girls are generally attracted to guys like me.

dustin: i’m developing an algorithm to define the connection between jewish guys and asian girls.

eduardo: i don’t think it’s that complicated. they’re hot, they’re smart, they’re not jewish and they can dance.

here's rebecca davis o'brien's take at businness insider.

screenwriter aaron sorkin's response to a comment (but not about asian women).

on another topic, the winklevoss twins were sort of the gentlemenly big-men-on-campus who were wronged by zuckerberg. in one of the funniest lines in the movie, twin tyler says "i'm 6'5", 220 pounds. and there are two of me." i wondered who they were, and the credits confused me--two people playing twin tyler?

i came home and googled them. twin cameron is played by armie hammer, but twin tyler is played by josh pence, except for the face. that's also armie.

here's how.

*quick note: the actress playing erica albright is rooney mara, sister of kate mara, soon to be playing lisbeth salander in the hollywood remake of steig larsson's book-of-the-moment "the girl with the dragon tattoo," also directed by david fincher.

for the record, zuckerberg has been dating priscilla chan since he was a sophomore at harvard, before he created facebook. and yes, she's asian.