Fact Vs. Fiction – Does The Social Network Movie Need an Opening Disclaimer That It’s Fiction?
When I’m hungry and dying for a tuna fish sandwich, I don’t go to the hardware store. And, when I want a lesson in history, I don’t go to the movie theater. There I’ll find lousy history and a bad movie.
Movies by nature idealize and romanticize the nature of the human condition. That’s their mission. Audiences should not seek factual truth from movies but only emotional truth.
Likewise, subjects of biopics should not complain that they were maligned or mistreated in the movie. Hey, it’s only a movie! If they’re sufficiently prominent to have a movie made about them, they ought to have ample access to the media in which they can argue their version of the thing we call “the truth.”
