Overview (Warning: Spoilers)
To say that this movie is a mirror of the modern era is an understatement, it is our modern era. The movie A Botched Internet takes a look at the dark side of our current day technology and its negative aspects. It opens on the main character, Carter Jackson, wanting to have an operation to look better on social media. His wife and son make obvious attempts to sway him from this decision, but he neglects them. Now, this is an obvious reference to a trend called the “Facebook facelift” which is when someone gets an operation on their face to look better on a video or in a picture posted to social media, they calling people who indulge in this lifestyle self centered.
As the movie progresses we see more of his social media life as well as well as his extreme connection to it. From his frequency to check it to his apparent distaste of reality compared to its digital counterpart, you can tell this is a man who finds some extreme levels of fulfillment form this life style. This reminds me of a book I once read called "The Anti-social network: a place for all thoughts, ideas and plans you don’t want to share" by Marc Hartzman. It discusses the idea of social networks taking away from the real world to replace it; in the movie you can just see in Carter how disconnected he is from everyone around him from his isolation of others to his focus on the media. In the movie, we finally make it to the botched face surgery and truly this is where the film gets uncomfortable, he rises to see his monstrous face and freaks out, breaking things and attacking people. The thing is we do not see the face yet, it is kept a mystery until the end. From here you wonder how others will react based on how extreme his reaction was, could it truly be that monstrous and grotesque. The reveal of his face to his family comes straight out of something like the book Metamorphosis, you can tell they loss some level of connection towards him after the change. Likewise, both the book and this movie also seem to believe social acceptance is based out of physical appearance.
You see him seclude himself to his room, with no objection from his family. In a moment of suspense you see him go on social media, hoping to gain sympathy from there. He posts a selfie asking for help from others. He is met with reticule; in gritty detail he is made fun of. His disposition is like a feeding ground for them .It makes you question who the monster of this movie: Carter or the people rejecting him. You have probably seen a painting by Domingo Ulloa called "Racism/Incident at Little Rock" depicting the world of racism toward the Little Rock Nine. The image depicts the children being surrounded by a white monster yelling at them, but they seem unfazed. It shows how in a world of social unacceptance they stood strong and pressed on. In this movie our main character is being oppressed in a similar matter, but reacts in the opposite matter. Carter becomes fearful, he notices his isolation and his separation from everyone else and goes on a rampage. This movie is trying to tell us that when faced with social unacceptance you should ignore it and keep pressing on.
Carter begins attacking others, calling them critics and monsters, affirming my previous allegation that the people judgers can be seen as a monster. He catches media attention where we see his family has completely given up on him, we also learn that an armed group of police are going to hunt him down. Their attack on Carter is brutal one where we see he is chased down, pelted with different items, shot at, and called similar names he was called on the social media. This brutal assault comes off like an old 1930s horror movie, like Frankenstein, where the humans misunderstand the monster and end up attacking it due to its appearance.
He is chased into an abandoned building, tries to hide and slowly makes his way to the bathroom. Once there he looks at himself in the mirror, their is a tension built up between him and the reflection. He punches the mirror and doesn't stop even when his hands are extremely cut and bleeding profusely . He passes out and eventually dies from bleeding to death. This is a key symbolic moment, symbolic for his self hate obviously bringing him to this point and eventually killing him. At the core of this movie is how humans control social acceptance, from the technology we have built to judge others to how we treat others based on appearance.
As the movie progresses we see more of his social media life as well as well as his extreme connection to it. From his frequency to check it to his apparent distaste of reality compared to its digital counterpart, you can tell this is a man who finds some extreme levels of fulfillment form this life style. This reminds me of a book I once read called "The Anti-social network: a place for all thoughts, ideas and plans you don’t want to share" by Marc Hartzman. It discusses the idea of social networks taking away from the real world to replace it; in the movie you can just see in Carter how disconnected he is from everyone around him from his isolation of others to his focus on the media. In the movie, we finally make it to the botched face surgery and truly this is where the film gets uncomfortable, he rises to see his monstrous face and freaks out, breaking things and attacking people. The thing is we do not see the face yet, it is kept a mystery until the end. From here you wonder how others will react based on how extreme his reaction was, could it truly be that monstrous and grotesque. The reveal of his face to his family comes straight out of something like the book Metamorphosis, you can tell they loss some level of connection towards him after the change. Likewise, both the book and this movie also seem to believe social acceptance is based out of physical appearance.
You see him seclude himself to his room, with no objection from his family. In a moment of suspense you see him go on social media, hoping to gain sympathy from there. He posts a selfie asking for help from others. He is met with reticule; in gritty detail he is made fun of. His disposition is like a feeding ground for them .It makes you question who the monster of this movie: Carter or the people rejecting him. You have probably seen a painting by Domingo Ulloa called "Racism/Incident at Little Rock" depicting the world of racism toward the Little Rock Nine. The image depicts the children being surrounded by a white monster yelling at them, but they seem unfazed. It shows how in a world of social unacceptance they stood strong and pressed on. In this movie our main character is being oppressed in a similar matter, but reacts in the opposite matter. Carter becomes fearful, he notices his isolation and his separation from everyone else and goes on a rampage. This movie is trying to tell us that when faced with social unacceptance you should ignore it and keep pressing on.
Carter begins attacking others, calling them critics and monsters, affirming my previous allegation that the people judgers can be seen as a monster. He catches media attention where we see his family has completely given up on him, we also learn that an armed group of police are going to hunt him down. Their attack on Carter is brutal one where we see he is chased down, pelted with different items, shot at, and called similar names he was called on the social media. This brutal assault comes off like an old 1930s horror movie, like Frankenstein, where the humans misunderstand the monster and end up attacking it due to its appearance.
He is chased into an abandoned building, tries to hide and slowly makes his way to the bathroom. Once there he looks at himself in the mirror, their is a tension built up between him and the reflection. He punches the mirror and doesn't stop even when his hands are extremely cut and bleeding profusely . He passes out and eventually dies from bleeding to death. This is a key symbolic moment, symbolic for his self hate obviously bringing him to this point and eventually killing him. At the core of this movie is how humans control social acceptance, from the technology we have built to judge others to how we treat others based on appearance.