The information in this article was taken from http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/10/aaron-sorkin-responds-to-commenter-in.html.

             After our discussion in class regarding the pervasive misogyny in The Social Network, I decided I would do a bit more research on what Sorkin himself said regarding the topic. I found a post he wrote in response to a Tarazza who said the following:

I found it intriguing that Sorkin felt it was necessary to punch the audience in the face using the misogynist culture that is the tech industry. More specifically, he states “Facebook was born during a night of incredible misogyny…” Mark Zuckerberg is trying to get back at his girlfriend so he writes hateful blog posts and creates Facesmash, a website which compares girls’ attractiveness. This shallow evaluation is pretty easy to understand, but why does Sorkin go to such extreme lengths to showcase women as prizes?

The point Sorkin wanted to make was that women weren’t just eye candy or pretty things nerds surrounded them with. The women portrayed in the movie are objects to be controlled. Sorkin comments that the people who created Facebook weren’t the “…cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 70s. They’re very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men who are running the universe right now. The women they surround themselves with aren’t women who challenge them.” This commentary is exemplified through the character of Sean Parker – he is constantly surrounding himself with women. These women are objectified – we see a Victoria Secret model, two girls getting high on the couch, girls doing drugs.

Interestingly, through the chauvinistic tone of the movie, the character of Mark Zuckerberg shows an uncharacteristic (in the perspective of the movie) soft spot. When he asks Sean Parker about Napster, Parker says he created it to steal a girl he liked from the high school football star. When Zuckerberg follows up with the question of whether Parker still thinks about her, Sean responds with a vehement no. Zuckerberg, however, seems to have created Facebook in order to impress Erica – this was illustrated when he tells Eduardo that they have to expand after their unfortunate confrontation at the club. At the end of the film, an interesting continuity is shown when Zuckerberg clicks on the refresh button on his computer waiting for Erica to respond to his friend request. This scene demonstrates that Zuckerberg hasn’t forgotten about his roots. Although this certainly is fiction, the closing scene provides some consolation regarding the film’s misogynistic tendencies.

Aaron Sorkin apologizes to Tarrazza at the end of his response, but I think the film’s sexism contributes to the overall message. Indeed, this nuance makes the movie more Hollywood-esque and appealing to the male demographic.