The Social Network & Citizen Kane Compare/Contrast

The Social Network and Citizen Kane are two biopics about powerful men who build an empire.  They follow the life and times of two men who are out to prove something to the world.  Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network is a young billionaire who got rich on his own terms.  Charles Foster Kane is a similar kind of person but he has many different qualities as well.  In the end Mark Zuckerberg and Charles Foster Kane are fierce, alienating giants with big egos that deep down just want to be accepted.

Zukerberg and Kane, respectively, have only one or two people that they ever feel close to in The Social Network and Citizen Kane.  Zuckerberg is portrayed as having a supportive best friend who comes along with him on his Facebook endeavor.  He begins to trade him for Sean Parker as his main partner and friend as a business and moral decision when he comes closer to being a rich man.  Kane fires his good friend Jedediah Leland when he writes a bad review of Kane’s wife operatic debut.  Kane becomes drunker with power and he is mainly obsessed with having a wife that makes him look good.  Both of characters in both movies betray their best friends for means of self-gain, but unlike Zuckerberg, Kane is also motivated by his love for his wife.  Kane wants her to be his trophy but he also has much genuine affection for her.

Our main movie heroes in this case want to be accepted by the public.  Zuckerberg feels unwanted by one of the school’s Final clubs and every other organization that he would want to be a part of.  He is also angry and miserable when his girlfriend brakes up with him after he explains to her the benefits of being with a guy like him and how she will go places as his girlfriend.  He doesn’t realize she is insulted his megalomaniacal offer and extension of his prestigious Harvard hand out to her.   Kane also uses his ego and gossipy paper to get him attention and honor.  He makes a run for president too and is confused when he doesn’t win because he felt he was more loved by the people.  His friend observes that he talks about the people as if he owns them rather than representing them.  He also tries to buy his wife’s love at times and she pulls away.  In The Social Network, however, Mark is portrayed as lonelier than Kane because he can’t seem to really accept and cherish love when it’s in his grasp.  He ends up lashing out and betraying people, it’s the way his rage manifests itself.  Kane at least finds some love in women and doesn’t lash out quite as drastically as Mark.

Both of these topics are very interconnected and the fact that they don’t have many friends to lose makes it all the more heartbreaking when the relationships go down in flames.  Zuckerberg and Kane are geniuses in their own way that will be remembered as hugely important men, but the way that they rise to the occasion is ironic, human and extremely telling.  Just how they alienate people should serve as cautionary tales.  They are fascinating and potently tragic.