NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� 鈥淎 toast to the disruptors,鈥� Edward Norton鈥檚 tech billionaire says in
And why not a toast? won鈥檛 give a prize for best villain, but if they did, Miles Bron would win it in a walk. (With apologies to the cloud of 鈥淣ope.鈥�) He is an immediately recognizable type we've grown well acquainted with: a visionary (or so everyone says), a social media narcissist, a self-styled disrupter who talks a lot about 鈥渂reaking stuff.鈥�
Miles Bron is just the latest in a long line of Hollywood鈥檚 favorite villain: the tech bro. Looking north to Silicon Valley, the movie industry has found perhaps its richest resource of big-screen antagonists since Soviet-era Russia.
Great movie villains don鈥檛 come along often. The best-picture nominated like its predecessor, was content to battle with a faceless enemy of unspecified nationality. Why antagonize international ticket buyers when Tom Cruise vs. Whomever works just fine?
But in recent years, the tech bro has proliferated on movie screens as Hollywood鈥檚 go-to bad guy. It鈥檚 a rise that has mirrored mounting fears over technology鈥檚 expanding reach into our lives and increasing skepticism for the not always altruistic motives of the men 鈥� and it is mostly men 鈥� who control today鈥檚 digital empires.
We鈥檝e had the devious Biosyn Genetics CEO (Campbell Scott) in 鈥淛urassic World: Dominion, a franchise dedicated to the peril of tech overreach; Chris Hemsworth鈥檚 biotech overlord in 鈥淪piderhead鈥�; and Mark Rylance鈥檚 maybe-Earth-destroying tech guru in 2021's 鈥淒on鈥檛 Look Up.鈥� We've had Jesse Eisenberg, who indelibly played Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010's 鈥淭he Social Network,鈥� as a tech bro-styled Lex Luthor in 2016's 鈥淏atman v. Superman"; Harry Melling鈥檚 pharmaceutical entrepreneur in 2020鈥檚 鈥淭he Old Guard"; Taika Waititi's rule-breaking videogame mogul in 2021's 鈥淔ree Guy"; Oscar Isaac's search engine CEO in 2014's 鈥淓x Machina鈥�; and the critical portrait of the Apple co-founder in 2015's 鈥淪teve Jobs.鈥�
Kids movies, too, regularly channel parental anxieties about technology's impact on children. In 2021's 鈥淭he Mitchells vs. the Machines,鈥� a newly launched AI brings about a robot apocalypse. 鈥淩on's Gone Wrong" (2021) also used a robot metaphor for smartphone addiction. And TV series have just as aggressively rushed to dramatize Big Tech blunders. Recent entries include: Uber's Travis Kalanick in Showtime's 鈥淪uper Pumped鈥�; Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu's 鈥淭he Dropout鈥�; and WeWork's Adam and Rebekah Neumann in Apple TV's 鈥淲e Crashed.鈥�
Some of these portrayals you could chalk up to Hollywood jealousy over the emergence of another California epicenter of innovation. But those worlds merged long ago. Many of the companies that released these movies are disrupters, themselves 鈥� none more than Netflix, distributor of 鈥淕lass Onion." The streamer was cajoled into releasing Johnson's sequel . Estimates suggested the film collected some $15 million over opening weekend, the old fashioned way, but Netflix executives have said they don't plan to make a habit of such theatrical rollouts.
And the distrust goes deeper than any Hollywood-Silicon Valley rivalry. found that 70% of Americans think social media companies do more harm than good. Tech leaders like Meta chief Zuckerberg .
As characters, tech bros 鈥� hoodie-wearing descendants of the mad scientist 鈥� have formed an archetype: Masters of the universe whose hubris leads to catastrophe, social media savants who can't manage their personal relationships. Whether their visions of the future pan out or not, we end up living in their world, either way. They're villains who see themselves as heroes.
鈥淚n my mind, he鈥檚 really the most dangerous human being around,鈥� Rylance says of his Peter Isherwell. 鈥淗e believes that we can dominate our way out of any problem that nature hands us. I think that鈥檚 the same kind of thinking that鈥檚 got us into the problem we鈥檙e in now, trying to dominate each other and dominate all the life we鈥檙e intimately connected to and dependent on.鈥�
鈥淕lass Onion,鈥� nominated for best adapted screenplay, presents a new escalation in tech mogul mockery. Norton鈥檚 eminently punchable CEO, with a name so nearly 鈥淏ro,鈥� is enormously rich, powerful and, considering that he鈥檚 working on a volatile new energy source, dangerous. But Bron is also, as Daniel Craig鈥檚 Benoit Blanc eventually deduces, an idiot. 鈥淎 vainglorious buffoon,鈥� Blanc says.
In Johnson鈥檚 film, the tech bro/emperor bro truly has no clothes. He鈥檚 just skating by with lies, deceit and a bunch of not-real words like 鈥減redefinite鈥� and 鈥渋nbreathiate.鈥�
Even though Johnson wrote 鈥淕lass Onion鈥� well before , the movie鈥檚 release seemed almost preternaturally timed to coincide with it. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive was only one of Johnson鈥檚 real-world inspirations, though some took Bron as a direct Musk parody. In a widely read Twitter thread, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said Johnson was dramatizing Musk as 鈥渁 bad and stupid man,鈥� which he called 鈥渁n incredibly stupid theory, since Musk is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in human history." He added: 鈥淗ow many rockets has Johnson launched lately?鈥�
Musk himself hasn鈥檛 publicly commented on 鈥淕lass Onion,鈥� but he has previously had numerous gripes with Hollywood, including its depictions of guys like him. 鈥淗ollywood refuses to write even one story about an actual company startup where the CEO isn鈥檛 a dweeb and/or evil,鈥� Musk tweeted last year.
Musk will soon enough get his own movie. The Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney on Monday announced he was several months into work on 鈥淢usk,鈥� which producers promise will offer a 鈥渄efinitive and unvarnished examination鈥� of the tech entrepreneur.
At the same time as the tech bro鈥檚 supervillainy supremacy has emerged, some movies have sought not to lampoon Big Tech but to imbibe some of the digital world's infinite expanse. Phil Lord, who with Christopher Miller has produced 鈥淭he Mitchells vs the Machines鈥� and the multiverse-splitting 鈥淪pider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,鈥� says the internet has profoundly influenced their approach to film.
鈥淲e, legacy media, are responding in maybe subconscious ways to new media,鈥� says Lord. 鈥淲e鈥檙e all just trying to figure out how to live in the new world. It鈥檚 changing people鈥檚 behavior. It changes the way we find and experience love. It changes the way we live. Of course, the stories we tell and how we tell them are going to change as well and reflect that. 鈥業nto the Spider-Verse鈥� certainly reflects having a lot of content from every era in your brain all at the same time.鈥�
too, is reflective of our multi-screen, media-bombarded lives. Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, whose film is up for say they wanted to channel the confusion and heartache of living in the everything-everywhere existence that tech moguls like Miles Bron helped create.
鈥淭he reason why we made the movie is because that鈥檚 what modern life feels like,鈥� says Kwan.
So even though Miles Bron won't go home with an Academy Award on Sunday, he still wins, in a way. It's his world. We're all just living in it.
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
