Tech executives become the new film villains
Films about Meta, OpenAI and Elon Musk portray company leaders in a harsh light. The Guardian sees this as a sign of falling public trust in the tech industry.
Film villains are increasingly not gangsters or former intelligence operatives but the heads of major technology companies. That is the argument of a Guardian culture piece on recent films portraying Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
A sequel about Zuckerberg
"The Social Reckoning" continues the story of the 2010 film "The Social Network". In that first film, Facebook grew to 500 million users and a $25bn valuation. According to the article, Meta now has 3.6 billion users and is worth $1.8tn. Zuckerberg once called the first film "fun" and later described it as "hurtful".
In the new film Zuckerberg is played by Jeremy Strong, known for the series "Succession". The reviewer describes his performance as restrained and unsympathetic, with a more human moment only at the end, when the character backtracks on being a "free speech absolutist". Arturo Béjar, a former Meta employee and whistleblower, calls the portrayal "accurate", while another former employee said Zuckerberg was "unemotional" in meetings.
Other films
Also due is "Artificial", a drama about OpenAI in which Altman is reportedly portrayed in a deeply unflattering way. Alex Gibney's four-hour documentary "Musk" follows Elon Musk, described as the world's first trillionaire.
Falling trust
The article links the shift to the Cambridge Analytica scandal over user data privacy, the 2021 revelations by whistleblower Frances Haugen, and the 2022 inquest into British teenager Molly Russell, who took her own life after viewing harmful content on Instagram. In the UK, screenings of the film carry an advert for the online safety charity set up by Molly's family. Meta says it has worked to improve the safety of its platforms.
