This past weekend, the film adaptation of Dave Egger’s The Circle premiered in movie theaters. While
the film—at least initially—sticks pretty close to the book, I didn’t find it
nearly as creepy or effective in its themes, which challenge us not only to
examine the implications of technoconsumerism but also our understanding of
transformation.
Like the novel, the film focuses on Mae Holland, a recent college
graduate who lands a job at The Circle, a powerful internet corporation that
consolidates all your online needs--from tablets, computers and cell phones to
biometric devices, social media and financial security and identity—into one
service. Picture Apple, Microsoft and Google wrapped up into one and you start
to get the picture.
As Mae rises through the ranks, we encounter a society where privacy
is slowly being strangled by voyeurism in a world where cameras proliferate, the
hunger for connection is insatiably fed by social-pressured and all-consuming
social media, and corporations shape the norms and values we live by.
Sound familiar? The story is an apt one for our age, exploring
several relevant themes—particularly the implications of equating virtual
relationships with intimacy and electronic transparency with honesty and personal
authenticity.
In the novel, Mercer tells Mae that her obsessive use of social
media has made her “socially autistic.”
"You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues,” he
says after having dinner with her and her parents. “You’re at a table with
three humans, all of who are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you’re
staring at a screen, searching for strangers in Dubai.”
In the film, we watch Mae’s obsession with rank and connection in
social media tear at her relationships. In the novel, we also see its internal
affects as we watch Mae use it to help herself suppress questions of whether
she is truly connecting with others and drown out a clamoring dark void inside
her.
Mae’s story uncomfortably reminds
us that the technoconsumerism has the power
to change the way we approach life and others, stealing our attention
from those in front of us as well as our own thoughts and feelings.
But it was the idea of equating electronic transparency with honesty and
authenticity that was the most unsettling for me.
In both the film and the novel, several characters begin to wear
small cameras 24-7 in an effort to promote a transparency campaign initiated by
Eamon Bailey, the Steve Jobs like co-founder of The Circle (played by Tom Hanks
in the film). During a pivotal conversation with Mae, Baily tells Mae he is “a
believer in the perfectibility of human beings.” In the novel, he spends pages
expounding with a religious-like zeal that constant surveillance will compel humans
to become their best selves.
“Finally, finally, we can be good,” he tells her. “In a world
where bad choices are no longer an option, we have no choice but to be good.
Can you imagine?”
While Mae is entranced by the concept, readers and viewers (hopefully)
find this philosophy—that by controlling behavior to a certain norm we can make
people better—disturbing. Who determines what is good or the norm? And are we
really freed from our “bad” selves—or are we enslaving ourselves to something
else?
In the novel, Mercer (unsuccessfully) warns Mae not to presume the
benevolence of those in corporate power. “For years there was this happy time
when those controlling the major internet conduits were actually decent enough
people. Or at least they weren’t predatory and vengeful. But I always worried,
what if someone was willing to use this power to punish those who challenged
them.”
And the quasi-religious language is
also disconcerting.
In The Guardian, Edward
Docx references a recent essay by Jonathan Franzen that
touches on this kind language and philosophy associated with technology.
"With technoconsumerism," writes Franzen, "a humanist rhetoric
of 'empowerment' and 'creativity' and 'freedom' and 'connection' and
'democracy' abets the frank monopolism of the techno-titans; the new infernal
machine seems increasingly to obey nothing but its own developmental logic, and
it's far more enslavingly addictive, and far more pandering to people's worst
impulses, than newspapers ever were."
But I’m also struck by how this kind of philosophy is a constant
temptation for believers. In fact, Paul himself seems to spend a great deal of
ink devoted to this very thing. We can’t become good people—Christ-like—by controlling
our behavior. That kind of transformation must begin within—as Dallas Willard and others put it in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, we become “the kind of person who embodies the goodness of God.” That
kind of spiritual formation doesn’t come from merely focusing on changing
behavior; it is a “substantive
formation of heart and soul and mind and body into Christlikeness.” Instead of focusing on our
outward behaviors, we work with God to transform from the inside out.
In the end, the film fails to convey the creepiness factor of the
novel when it comes to this technoconsumerism philosophy as well as the
implications of technoconsumerism on our lives. Some critics say that’s because
it’s so close to our reality that we’ve been inured to the creepiness, but I
think it’s more because we aren’t as privy to Mae’s thoughts as we are in the
novel as well as because of some of the changes the film makes to the novel.
For example, in the both the novel and film, Mercer is angry at
Mae after she uploads photos of his deer antler chandeliers—but in the novel,
it’s because his business takes off and makes him famous. He doesn’t want that
kind of notoriety, but Mae can’t understand that. Her world is wrapped up in likes, zings and followers; her inability to step outside her
technoconsumer worldview causes a deep rift between them.
And then there’s the ending. I won’t spoil it here, but if you’re
curious, there are others who have written
about that and other
differences between the film and novel.
I don't think the film is as awful as some critics think, but if you think these themes are interesting and you're up for a creepy, engrossing story, I recommend the novel. It didn't make me give up things like social media or my smartphone, but it certainly did change the way I think about them.