<em>The Circle</em>'s Old, Tired Narrative of Women Controlled by Technology

The new film The Circle, based on Dave Eggers’s 2013 novel of the same name, offers a familiar world: an internet dystopia in which proliferating screens, pinging alerts, livestreaming video, and near-constant performance evaluations are the iron cage of modern life. The heroine, Mae Holland, played by Emma Watson, takes a job at The Circle, a life-enveloping e-commerce and social-media company. Mae, a digital Cinderella, feels grateful to be plucked out of lower-middle-class obscurity in Fresno and settled down in the Bay Area at the world’s greatest company.

Every few weeks, supervisors give Mae an additional screen of information to manage: One updates with customer demands, another with her supervisors’ requests, another with news of mandatory corporate social engagements. Her advancement as an employee depends on maintaining a near 100-percent satisfaction rate with customers and co-workers, measured through an endless stream of surveys, likes, and follow-ups. Soon, Mae is both employee and product, as The Circle sells her attention and consumer preferences to corporate “partners.” And, in a move that prefigures Facebook’s recent