Monday, October 04, 2010

American Psycho
(or American Idiot*)

David Carr is sampling from the wrong group of young Americans:
But the movie [The Social Network] could well serve as a referendum on business aggression and ambition that breaks along generational lines.
Many older people will watch the movie, which was No. 1 at the box office last weekend, and see a cautionary tale about a callous young man who betrays friends, partners and principles as he hacks his way to lucre and fame. But many in the generation who grew up in a world that Mr. Zuckerberg helped invent will applaud someone who saw his chance and seized it with both hands, mostly by placing them on the keyboard and coding something that no one else had.
By the younger cohort’s lights, when you make an omelet this big -- half a billion users -- a few eggs are going to get broken. Or as the film’s artful tag line suggests, "You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies along the way."
"When you talk to people afterward, it was as if they were seeing two different films," said Scott Rudin, one of the producers. "The older audiences see Zuckerberg as a tragic figure who comes out of the film with less of himself than when he went in, while young people see him as completely enhanced, a rock star, who did what he needed to do to protect the thing that he had created."
Ezra Klein reflects on the Gallup poll about who likes Obama:
18-29 year-olds   57%
65 and older        38%

If young people do not turn out for the mid-terms next month (they historically don't) and Republican retirees do as they historically do - what else do they have going on? - Republicans will take the House.

Onion review of American Psycho.
------------------------
*idiot is taken from the Greek idiotus meaning someone with no interest in politics

No comments: