The People We Know

This is of course a dated entry. However, I think about stories a lot and the most recent one to crop back into my mind is ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW. Overtly metaphorical dialogue aside, this is the only film I know of the accurately attacks the themes of an information age. What is so curious about my generation (Born in 1986) is our unwillingness to admit to a change in social interaction. The school I went to was largely comprised of students who fashioned their lives after previous generations. I think this is expected for any child in adolescence. All people originally look to their parents generation and select what generational traits they want imprinted onto their own lives. The advent of the computer, more importantly the internet, has created changes that roll miles outside of the box of how we receive information.
This dials in on the backbone of the film. Information + Technology = Social Change. No matter what time period I look at information is the key to why there are social trends, fashion trends, economic trends, and so on. Each piece of information we receive jointly effects our attitude toward a situation.
This film specifically decides to focus on Technology as the driving force to social ambivalence. Miranda July, Director, hones in with such accuracy on chat rooms and the questions they raise. She poses an expectation that the modern day man/woman should own a computer and have access to the internet. The two central characters (played by John Hawks and Miranda July) use no technology in the film and in turn have the most social quirks. It pains me to watch these two desperate character as they try to form a fragile romance with a completely inept and dated skill set. Meanwhile John Hawks, lives as a single father in a house where his sons are on the computer from the moment they leave school. Dissected by two brilliant child actors we get to see the true effects of technology.
These two children create a bubble around themselves, closing out their distant father. A bubble of complete artificiality, in a virtual world where sex is easy, innocence is lost anonymously, while an alter ego is created. What is so brilliant about July's depiction is how age creates a direct relationship to social consciousness. The youngest child, no more than seven, finds himself in a sex chat-room, and demonstrates his naiveté through one of the most memorable and funny scenes in the film. Through this scene July demonstrates both the dangers of such chat-rooms as well as the agelessness of the internet. When the young boy finally arranges a meeting in the park, he finds himself face to face with an estranged forty year old woman. Fortunately, July brings us to the cusp of disaster, but we can hold hope in humanities inherent morals. Youth in this film is close to losing their physical innocence to older counterparts, however, they continuously find narrow escape and are pushed back to retreat in their online worlds.