Tall Tales

Slate on the degree of truth in Aaron Sorkin's 'The Social Network':

Last month, The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told the Harvard Crimson that "[a]ttention to truth and attention to detail were incredibly important" to himself and director David Fincher. By way of example, Sorkin explains that the filmmakers went to great pains to discern what "kind of beer [Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg] was drinking on a Tuesday night in October seven years ago." In reality, the name of the beer—Beck's—can be uncovered with a simple Google search. Sorkin's sincerity is harder to locate. In a New York magazine article headlined "Inventing Facebook," he makes a different claim about his honest intentions: "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling."

After watching The Social Network, it's obvious that Sorkin's second, truth-abdicating quote is the one worth believing.

Does anyone care? Observers seem concerned about the liberal fictionalization but will it matter?