Nguyen 1 Hanh Nguyen Dr.

Erin Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric February 28th, 2014 The Protagonists Female Counterparts As Their Reason and Catalyst The Social Network, a film produced by Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher is about the trials and tribulations of Mark Zuckerberg during the infant stage of the most populated social network, Facebook. Based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, the screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin as a dramatization of the real life story of Mark Zuckerberg and how Facebook became what it is today. The film revolves around the story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), Eduwardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Joss Pence), and Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), starting from the creation of the idea of Facebook to the end of the settlement agreement between Mark Zuckerberg with Eduwardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins. As the audiences are revealed to the story of the creation of Facebook, it is being told through the characters in the settlement meetings taken place six years after the launch of Facebook. On the surface of The Social Network the audience is shown the degrading face of females as they are treated like objects in scenes at college parties and interactions with male characters. Despite the fact that women are characterized as sex objects in the film, through the analysis of immediacy, framework of the camera, and parallelism of scenes and dialogue the film reveal the director, David Finchers critique on the objectification of women.

Nguyen 2 David Finchers use of immediacy and other styles of framing in the opening scene foreshadow the major events of the film and in the closing scene to not only bring a conclusion to those events but also becomes a parallel to the opening scene. The opening scene begins with a conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and Erika Albright in a local college pub. Immediacy presents itself by making the audience the visual center of that world (Bolter & Grusin 22), the camera creating a sense of presence of the audience in the scene as if the audience is with the characters. The camera starts with capturing the two characters with the setting behind them but when the conversation starts to escalate between the two characters, the camera goes back and forth between the two faces as if the audience are looking over their shoulder. The camera capturing headshot frames of the characters can be recognized as being the most important parts of the scenes. The first time that this happens is the first mention of the final clubs of Harvard by Erika and the acknowledgement by Mark. The second time the frame goes into headshots is when the topic of final clubs is brought up again with the mentioning of his friend Eduwardo, who although has money has no chance of being able to get into one. The dialogues that the headshot framing encompasses shows the importance of final clubs is to Mark. This also foreshadows one of the main reasons why the friendship of Mark and Eduwardo fell apart. Mark never thought that Eduwardo would get into a final club and later on in the film; the audience sees that Eduwardo did get into a final club while Mark did not. This was brought up in one of the settlement meetings as one of the reasons why Mark stopped including Eduwardo in anything related to Facebook. The most important headshot frame in the opening scene is near the end where Erika is leaving and explains to Mark that girls wont like him because he is a nerd but rather because he is an asshole. Erika breaking

Nguyen 3 up with Mark and these words what were uttered from her mouth gives Mark the reason to create his first prototype website called Facemash that eventually led to Facebook. The closing scenes immediacy also plays a very important role in the interaction between Mark and Marylin Delpy. Like the opening scene it starts out with the camera capturing the two characters in the room and when the conversation begins to progress, the frame then focus on each of the characters, again having the audience looking over the shoulder. Instead of having headshot frames of the individual like in the beginning of the film when the important messages are laid out, the framing is less intense as the camera captures more than just the face. The most important individual frame parallel to the beginning scene is at the end of the closing scene where Marylins last word is Youre not an asshole Mark, youre just trying so hard to be, the camera angle focuses on Mark in the beginning and then focuses on Marylin. Contrasting to what happened at the end of the opening scene the camera focuses on both of the characters. When the line first starts off, the camera panes to the back of Marks head like a reminder to him that someone had said something similar to this. Then the camera focuses on Marylin, giving her view on Mark and how he is not an asshole and the audience should feel some sort of sympathy towards Mark. The viewers realize that he is back to where he started from the beginning of the film, the reframing enable viewers to experienceon the intimate terms they have been conditioned to regard as reality (Lancioni 107) portraying Marylins line as a flashback to Marks ending of his relationship with Erika. The parallelism of these two scenes particularly with the two female characters indicates Marks journey has come back to the starting point as Mark is trying to befriend Erika again after all the things that happened. The similarity between the framing of the female

Nguyen 4 characters shows how important they are to Mark, Erika was the reason why he began his whole journey of creating Facebook and with Marylins help he is brought back to the memory of Erika when he stares at the computer screen waiting for Erikas approval on Facebook. The parallelism of dialogue and personalities of Erika Albright and Marylin Delpy in the opening and closing scene of the film conveys Marks realization of his identity. In the opening scene the dialogue between Mark and Erika is played out where Mark is the dominant character who is controlling the conversation, he is the one who is bring up topics such as final clubs, rowing, and Erikas status in his eyes. Contrast to the closing scene, it is Marylin who has the dominant role in the conversation, she is the one telling Mark that he has to agree to the settlement and that she knows and understand the jury if Mark is to go out to court. There is the famous line in opening scene, at the end when Erika is about to leave she says, You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you are going to go through life thinking that girls dont like you because youre a nerd and I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart that that wont be true. It will be because youre an asshole these few lines not only foreshadows Marks achievement but it also serves as the catalyst in his creation of Facebook. Erikas lines parallels with Marylins lines at the end of the film where she tells Mark that Youre not an asshole Mark, youre just trying so hard to be which leads Mark to think about Erika and once Marylin leaves he goes on Facebook and tries to friend request her. Erika is the reason why Mark even started Facemash which led to Facebook and Marylin acts as a catalyst to Marks realization of himself through his whole process of creating Facebook. The characteristics of Erika and Marylin are those that comprises of a strong

Nguyen 5 young women in the twenty-first century. They are the only two female characters that have those traits compared to the other girls who are shown to only drink and party. David Fincher effectively connects the opening and closing scene of the film to draw attention to the parallelism and relation that Mark has with Erika and Marylin. These two strong female characters are able to portray their personalities through the framework of the camera and the dialogue that they are engaged in. With the aid of immediacy in the scenes, the audiences are able to create the sense of reality as if they are with the characters in the setting and interacting with them, this draw in the emotions that are played out in the scenes. It also gives the audience the understanding of which lines are the most important in the scene and how it would foreshadow the events in the film. The dialogue in the opening scene with Erika parallels with the dialogue that is taken place in the closing scene, in the end Mark is placed in a situation that pressures him to act more maturely. With the help of Marylin, Mark finally understands his actions against Erika have cause; his act of anger towards Erikas words made no improvement in his life as Marylins last words triggers his memory of Erika. Although his creation of Facebook gave him fame and fortune he is still where he started when Erika ended her relationship with him. In the end Mark is still staring at the computer screen, the only source of comfort he has while he refreshes Erikas Facebook page in hope that she will accept his friend request.

Nguyen 6 Works Cited Bolter and Grusin. Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation (22). PDF file. Lancioni, Judith. The Rhetoric of the Frame (107). PDF file. The Social Network Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones. Columbia Pictures, 2010. DVD. "The Social Network." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web.