Why The Social Network Should Beat The King’s Speech for Best Picture

It’s that time of year again. For a couple dozen movies to be nominated in Oscar’s big races and for only a handful to really win big. For the last decade the Oscars have been about as lively as snail shit mostly because from December until early February so many groups have their awards first it’s almost impossible for anything to surprise at the Academy Awards. I don’t know how it happened that the biggest awards show goes last after the Screen Actor’s Guild and the walking punch line of The Golden Globes (who this year topped themselves in ridiculousness by nominating The Tourist for best comedy, even though it isn’t a comedy and it really sucked). The Globes particularly are known for nominating big stars just so they’ll show up to the Awards show—as this year’s panned host Ricky Gervais infamously, but correctly pointed out—like it’s a big ratings draw to watch Angelina Jolie sit at a table reacting to other people winning.

The winner’s for this year’s Academy Awards will be—as they have been at two dozen other awards shows—Christian Bale for The Fighter, Melissa Leo for The Fighter, Colin Firth for The King’s Speech, Natalie Portman for The Black Swan, David Fincher for The Social Network, and The King’s Speech for Best Picture. All of these are fine choices (even if I would go with Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom instead of Melissa Leo for Best Supporting Actress, her sinister mom would eat Leo’s just lousy mom for breakfast) but I badly want The King’s Speech to lose the best picture race.

Is The King’s Speech a bad movie? No, it’s actually pretty good in a B+, been there before but nice try anyway sort of way. Now do I think the film I want to beat it—The Social Network—is the best film of the year? I wouldn’t quite say that either, but it is better in my estimation. More importantly, it’s something I haven’t seen before.

The King’s Speech seems to have been designed by a team of marketers to push all the right Academy buttons for a best picture win: 1. It’s British, always a draw with the Academy even if nobody else finds them particularly riveting, 2. It’s British royalty, even more of a been there, done that snooze fest but film snobs just about cum in their pants at the sight of yet another stuffy white dude wearing the crown loosening up a little, 3. It features a new physical affliction but covers all the same bases movies about this stuff always do. By finding a way to make something very old new again the Academy can pretend they’re not repeating themselves, 4. Most importantly, it’s set during World War II. The WWII tit has been milked dry by filmmakers, but somehow nobody gets tired of this setting. I think a big conflict with an absolutely evil enemy nobody can sympathize with (the Nazis) that we know we won is cinematic comfort food for a nation in twin wars of dubious origin (Iraq) or outcome (Afghanistan).

At the end of The King’s Speech I went out mildly happy, satisfied, and okay with what I had just seen (actually I snuck into Tron right after it but you get what I mean). It took me a few days to realize that I had almost entirely forgotten about it a week later and that, essentially, the money shot moment for this film was a MASSIVELY rich, spoiled rotten asshole being able to successfully deliver a speech, the first real thing he’s ever had to do. As great as Colin Firth’s performance is at making me almost forget my class envy, I still kept having this nagging urge to tell him to shut the fuck up with his whining about how difficult his life is. At a time when so many people are unsure where their next mortgage is going to come from, TKS essentially asks you to feel bad for a guy who has never even had to consider losing his house as an option.

It would be like if The Social Network asked you to root for the Winkelvoss twins, the snooty alpha dog brothers who get put on a leash by Mark Zuckerberg, the ultimate new money weasel. The Social Network does something only the best movies can do: it asks you to watch this borderline autistic conniver as he betrays his way to being a billionaire, but somehow makes him more sympathetic the more ruthless he becomes. Jesse Eisenberg’s facebook founder (so much more dynamic than the real thing stumbling his way through a 60 Minutes interview) is a whiz kid nerd programmed for revenge whose mouth shoots out verbal poison that really stings. As his dirty deeds get progressively worse, you find yourself shocked at how much you almost—almost—like him.

The Social Network is a snapshot of our time, when posting pictures of the party you went to last night is more fun than the party you went to last night, and everyone is too busy looking at the shots, wishing they were there, to call you out on it. It’s a metaphor for our image over reality based culture. Probably more than any other site, facebook rewired the way people under 30 communicate with each other, where each sentence is insulated in a technology that keeps us from really feeling it. It gets “what the kids are into” which is why it’s doomed with the Academy (who ironically chase younger viewers by asking Anne Hathaway and James Franco to host but keep making the same square choices in winners). The King’s Speech asks us to feel rose colored nostalgia for a time that may never have really existed, but The Social Network corrects our vision of what’s happening right now.