Tech Executives Are the New Darth Vader of Cinema
Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning. When The Social Network opened, Zuckerberg called the film "fun" and staged a staff screening. A sequel outing is unlikely.
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- Jeremy Strong portrays Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning.
- Zuckerberg organised a staff viewing of The Social Network on its release.
- Zuckerberg described The Social Network as "fun".
- The source calls a corporate outing to the sequel unlikely.
Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, and the casting signals how far public opinion on billionaire CEOs has shifted since The Social Network first reached screens.
The contrast is stark. When The Social Network was released, Zuckerberg organised a staff viewing of the film. He described the movie as "fun".
A group corporate outing to the sequel is unlikely.
What does this change for screen villains?
The trajectory is measurable in two films. In 2010, a founder could dismiss his unflattering screen portrait as entertainment and take his employees to see it. In The Social Reckoning, the same figure is played by Jeremy Strong — an actor now associated with portraying power at its most corrosive — and the framing, as the source notes, shows how far sentiment has moved.
What does this change for the tech industry's cultural standing? It suggests that the chief executive has replaced the older stock villains of cinema. The executive now functions as the contemporary Darth Vader: the figure audiences recognize instantly as the antagonist of the age.
Zuckerberg set the benchmark himself with that staff screening and his one-word verdict on the first film: "fun". The sequel, by implication, arrives in a colder climate — one in which no company would book the tickets.
Original: huffingtonpost.co.uk
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Staff writer covering people, launches and day-to-day practice in arts in the broadest sense at Arts & Voices.
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