Hacker Cinema
Upgraded
2024 · Film · 104 min
Directed by Carlson Young
Ana is an ambitious intern dreaming of a career in the art world while trying to impress her demanding boss Claire. When she's upgraded to first class on a work trip, she meets handsome Will, and Ana pretends to be her boss– a white lie that sets off a glamorous chain of events, romance and opportunity, until her fib threatens to surface.
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1 comment on Hacker News
The article isn't very deep, only pointing out a phenomenon by way of examples and without too much analysis.
I'd argue that villains need power to have teeth and believability. Our definition of power changes over time- that's why we don't see too many communist rebel Che Guevara knock-offs, for example, as movie villains anymore unlike in Predator or Escape from LA. But if it wasn't tech CEOs then tinpot dictators and rogue generals always work, because they're always in power somewhere in the world. There's also the archetype of the sinister senior intelligence apparatchik or bureaucrat as highlighted in Mission: Impossible, 24, the Bourne movies, and a ton of others even before the Snowden revelations or the Iraq War, because that's another example of American conception of power.
I'd argue that tech CEOs also make for an easy target because their public personas are often defined by their idiosyncrasies (Jobs' turtleneck, Bezos' shaved head) and perceived social awkwardness. Sometimes, in the case of Upgraded, it just feels cruel to stereotypically awkward or neuroatypical nerds. But there's at least one major counter-example: Ex Machina was a great Hollywood exploration of A.I. and the Turing Test, and its genius CEO villain was played by Oscar Issac as a charismatic, or at least chummy, non-stereotypical nerd.