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One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people
by neaden 9y ago
One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said that he has had people come up to him and tell him that Gordon Gekko inspired them to get into finance, so it's not surprising that Belfort is now inspiring a new generation.
- gowld 9y agoFight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspective. It does nothing in itself to destroy the fantasy except at the very end where it shows "maybe it's possible to take this too far?"
- ObeyTheGuts 9y agoda fuck its about crazy consumerism and getting real, and real works. Its exagerated, but nothing of what u say.
- optimuspaul 9y agoI think the problem with Fight Club could be that the movie changed the ending just enough that the message was lost. In the book is was more obvious what the message was.
- Nexxxeh 9y agoWasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?
- Apocryphon 9y agoYes, but capitalism is more than capable of repackaging those subversive themes to push product.
- nailer 9y agoNo. Project Mayhem was anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist. The message of Flight Club was that nihilism is a destructive force.
- ShabbosGoy 9y agoSimilar to A Clockwork Orange. Ultimately nihilism/anarchism are juvenile philosophies that one (hopefully) outgrows when they are older.
- CPLX 9y agoFight Club had a lot of messages. I could name a couple more: * A generation of men raised with absent father figures is leading to listless depression. * Every person has an idealized version of themselves in their head where they are powerful and purposeful. * Modern middle class culture has no real danger in it, and we have lost our connection to the world of physical violence and dominance. * Living for the acquisition of more IKEA furniture is a poor life decision. And so on and so forth. Like most decently thoughtful and provocative film and writing it throws a lot of things at you and makes you think and reconsider your values a little. It has a lot of messages, some contradictory, some confusing or banal, and some intriguing.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoI think, in a way, FC and The Matrix were the msg. That is, be complicit and conform, as zombies so. Or don't, and be alive, be yourself. Sure there are particulars. But is FC's consuming consumer that much different (metaphorically) from being a battery for the machines? I don't think so.
- Bartweiss 9y ago> If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie Nicely put. I don't really understand how the negative ending of Fight Club is supposed to stop people from identifying with it; it's not as though it shows another happier path people with the same sentiments ought to endorse. "If you feel this way and commit to it completely, things will go wrong for you" is totally compatible with "many people feel this way", and if the movie wasn't relatable it's not clear to me how it would have anything useful to say.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoSame thing happened with Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker [1]. Written as a parody. Now distributed to junior bankers as a handbook of hustle and an advertisement of the good life promised. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker
- rich_ard 9y agoI have had scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross played in sales meetings dozens of times.
- YorkshireSeason 9y agoIt's misleading to say it was written as a parody. To quote from the Wikipedia article: "semi-autobiographical book [...] describing the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s". Before reading Liar's Poker I was ignorant about, and extremely hostile to the financial industry, and the book brought about complete change. The book is at best ambivalent about high finance, but clearly also glamourises the industry.
- thvu1k 9y ago"because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous." Honestly, they don't try hard not make it look glamorous. This extravaganza is totally part of what makes people watch it.
- sdwa 9y agoIndeed the one thing that sticks out in my mind about The Wolf of Wall Street is that no effort was made to show all the harm he did to the people he stole from. It was just one very, very long spectacle. Not a film I'd watch twice.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoAgreed. It's a celebration of a lifestyle that Hollywood perpetually presents as the pinnacle of human experience - drugs, loose morals, sexual promiscuity, and fast cars; the means of acquisition aren't usually considered as important as the acquisition itself.
- nradov 9y agoIn the same genre, Boiler Room did a good job showing the harm done to the victims of Wall Street con artists.
- stevenwoo 9y agoScarface may be the the epitome of that for me, but on the other hand Tony Montana was pretty successful up until the very end of the movie.
- krupan 9y agoThank you, everyone in this thread, for articulating for me why these types of movies and books have never sat well with me.
- baxtr 9y agoI think one reason is that in these movies those actors you mention are the “heroes” of the story, in the sense that they’re the ones who undergoe the transformation. The flip side, all the people who have lost everything because of Belfort are not portraited at all. Another reason might be that many people are simply greedy and the consequences for the main actors weren’t that bad in the end after all. I think the real Belfort made an appearance at the end of the movie and gives speeches nowadays...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- simonsarris 9y agoThis always perplexed me. With Mad Men and Breaking Bad too, people idolized the main characters, which is interesting not only because they are bad people but because they are deeply unhappy, too. There's something extremely surface-level about people's takeaways from film characters. They want a certain level of panache that the characters can muster, but they ignore that even the characters themselves are miserable.
- watwut 9y agoThat might have also to do with how movies are made usually. If you really think about it, most detectives in detective stories abuse power and do things that cops really really should not. But, we are supposed to suspend reality and root for them. Same with action movies - main character does a lot of damage to everyone around, steal cars, hurt innocent people and we are supposed to ignore that. Happy end involves massive fight in the middle of city that would displace thousands of families. And so on and so forth. People take the usual expected reading of movies and apply them to these too. It is possible to make movies differently. I have seen movies that made me feel bad about violence and events and that made it clear that "this is not a cool thing". But the movies mentioned here are not like that - they sort of criticise it but are still made so that we feel happy about them. They show events from the point of view of perpetrator, but not much from point of view of their victims.
- gowld 9y agoIt's not just movies. Real life attitudes toward war are similar. Hawks advocate for fighting, especially fighting on foreign shores, with little regard for collateral damage. And that attitude is far older than movies, so movies didn't create that attitude, though they may reinforce it.
- LandR 9y agoTo your point its possible to make movies differently, there is a game called spec ops that is very subversive of the military shooter genre. Where other games want you to feel cool shooting and killing people spec ops constantly wants you to feel bad about your actions, at one point asking "do you feel like a hero yet? " Very good game.
- dudul 9y agoThis also applies to almost every single gangster movie. "Scarface" being really the case study. I believe it is mostly due to the last scene of these movies where the hero dies in some crazy action scene. Lot of adrenaline, and it looks so "cool" on screen that you can't help thinking "wow this guy was awesome!". One movie that dealt with that really well was "Goodfellas". During the 2nd part of the movie, the downfall is filmed in a very slow, almost boring manner. And the end is boring as f*ck, specifically to avoid this pitfall of glorifying the "hero".
- triangleman 9y agoAnd yet, Goodfellas was directed by Scorsese. What was he thinking with TWOWS?
- smacktoward 9y agoIt's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool. He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie with the sound off.
- TallGuyShort 9y agoI don't think it's just the visual element. I mean Scarface looks pretty terrible by the end of the movie, and people idolize him. I suspect it's more that stories are now told purely for short-term entertainment value. We don't focus on the substance of the story or the moral, we focus on the kind of clips that end up in a trailer. You see similar trends in popular literature too.
- Apocryphon 9y agoHis house still looks nice, though.
- jimmies 9y ago>I mean Scarface looks pretty terrible by the end of the movie, and people idolize him. You got the wrong idea. I don't think anyone idolizes Tony. It's a great movie and Tony is a great character and Scarface tells an interesting story, not because the protagonist made himself rich. Same as Godfather, I like it and I like them not because they are rich, but it was because they made interesting choices. Let's talk about Scarlett in Gone with the wind -- was she rich? Was she poor? Recently, I listened to Shit Town and it gave me an everlasting impression on me. The main character in the story was a very poor man. I liked him -- not because he is poor either, but because he is interesting. Who cares about whether the character is rich or poor, the character's background is merely a medium to tell the story. Being very rich or poor or desperate is just a convenient choice to get the story flowing because the characters in such extreme circumstances tend to have interesting experiences and choices.
- DisruptiveDave 9y agoBecause excitement, notoriety, achieving exceptional status - regardless of the specific around it - is wildly different than the average, mediocre, mundane life (relatively speaking).
- clojurestan 9y agoThese films are meant to depict a certain type of person, one who is drawn to the appeal of wealth and particularly the excess and display present in certain communities. I can imagine how someone who had this type of predisposition would feel inspired if they were exposed to that lifestyle by one of these movies and develop an aspiration for the specific position where previously it was a more amorphous longing for wealth and privilege.
- psyc 9y agoThis is the only comment in the whole thread that comes anywhere near the way I think about this subject. Everyone is presuming that people have their value systems formed by watching movies. I think that's as false as it is dismal. The way we form our value systems is highly complex. We get a lot from parents and real life role models, our own thinking about things, real life events, the systems we're part of, chance circumstances, and much more. A film or book may very well hint at the writers' value systems, but that is not simply transfered to the viewer. The viewer brought their own value system in with them, and at most had it very slightly modified, or more probably enhanced by whatever they identified with in the story, regardless of the presumed moral.
- ysavir 9y agoInterestingly, American Psycho isn't on that list. Nor should it be. It's easy to come up with a few theories as to what sets it apart, but I would love to see a proper analysis of how it tackles the subject matter without glorifying the lifestyle unnecessarily--and what other films should learn from it if they aim to accomplish the same
- burkaman 9y agoAside from Patrick Bateman committing gratuitous murders on screen, the major difference is that he hates his life and he never looks like he's having fun. Jordan Belfort might be doing terrible things (although not as bad as serial murder), but he looks and acts like he loves every minute of it. Bateman doesn't. You could also compare The Hangover and Leaving Las Vegas. One makes a drug-filled weekend in Vegas look sort of fun, and one does not.
- motohagiography 9y agoThe Bateman character in the film was directed and shot by Mary Harron. See her other work to get an idea of what made him different.
- duderific 9y agoThe word "Psycho" has such a blatantly negative connotation, that it's pretty clear that he is not supposed to be a hero. Also all the murdering.
- trentnix 9y agoOr the granddaddy of them all - Scarface.
- justicezyx 9y agoHollywood dont want people to be model citizen, otherwise they would want to consume recreation that has nothing to do with their business: hiking hanging out with friends families reading learning whatever that is not being mind-washing by the popular entertainment
- icebraining 9y agoWhy is reading part of being a model citizen, but not watching movies? I'd give Paths of Glory for someone to watch over 99.9% of books out there.
- Regardsyjc 8y agoThere are plenty of Hollywood films that promote those values. The Stephen Hawking biopic. Even the Harry Potter series. Marvel superhero films like Dr. Strange. Other biopics like Hidden Figures, etc.
- justicezyx 8y agoI think the argument that: - A is claimed to be bad - This statement is wrong - Because some instances of A is not bad Is a type of nonsensical logical reasoning.
- fullshark 9y agoIt's like how Truffaut said it's impossible to make an anti-war film, it looks too cool and exciting on the screen and there's no real understanding of the human costs involved.
- ericmcer 9y agoA big part of this to me, is the idea of yourself as an archetypal character. People are different each day, some days you are having conversations with strangers at coffee shops and patting yourself on the back for being so socially adept, other days you just don't want to talk to a soul. Some days you love your career path, other days you wish you had chosen something else. The idea of some reliability in your mood, desires and personality is attractive: "I am the computer guy, everyday, all day, 100%". The idea of these characters who are so certain of who and what they are, and are driven by some greater purpose is very alluring, even if the personality is toxic and the purpose immoral.
- didsomeonesay 9y ago"There’s no such thing as an anti-war movie."
- protomyth 9y agoFor a lot of people a "vapid, shallow lifestyle" sure as heck beats their serious, suffocating lifestyle.
- david927 9y agoI remember in Marketing class they taught us about "Herb the Nerd". In the 1980's Burger King was expanding and as part of this came a big advertising campaign centered around a nerdy-looking guy called Herb, who was the only person who hadn't been to a Burger King. If you could spot him in a Burger King restaurant, you could win money. It was a colossal failure, and instead of increasing customer volume, ended up having the opposite effect and decreasing it. Why? Because the overt message of "Herb the Nerd" <-> "The only person who hasn't gone to Burger King" was shortened in people's minds to "... Nerd" <-> "... Burger King". It's fascinating: indirect/subtext messaging will beat direct messaging every time.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gowld 9y agoDomino's Noid also had a tragic ending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noid
- jstarfish 9y agoCan't forget the Quizno's rats. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ad_report_card/2004/02/the_creatures_from_the_sandwich_shop.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ad_report_card/2004/0...
- mrtksn 9y agoI don't think that these films critique anything, they just tell a story and it's up to the people's judgement to critique the events and characters in the story. I wouldn't say that people who idolize these characters have poor judgement or bad morale though. I mean, we shoot people or do illegal street racing in virtual environments for fun all the time, maybe it's just a human nature to entertain the idea of what we could have done if sociatal norms or laws wouldn't stop us. Idealization of a persona usually doesn't mean wanting to become exactly that person but to have some quality of that person. Maybe those people who actually do something are simply racionalizing their actions through these fictional characters?
- louthy 9y agoI think what people attach to (rightly or wrongly) is that these characters usually have wrestled themselves into a position of total control over their own lives. Most people watching the film won't have that freedom to stick it to the man, or run away from their situation and live a life that's their selfish own: there are usually financial, family, or even self-doubt constraints. Control over your own life is something that everybody craves and it's clear that these characters have it in abundance, even if it's only for a brief period of time - i.e. to the end of the film. But up until that point, they're seen as individuals who have broken free from their respective shackles.
- jdtang13 9y agoIt's not like those viewers are stupid. People just see what they want to see. It's very hard to focus on an external stimulus in a way that really lifts you out of your own private world.
- whistlerbrk 9y agoSame thing with Casino and Goodfellas both of which end quite disturbingbly for the main characters
- ada1981 9y agoWhen someone is insecure, they don't see war as a warning, they see it as a place to find new weapons. When someone is narcissistically wounded, they are going to mimic the survival strategies of other high-status narcissists.
- barrkel 9y agoIt's part of the appeal of a popular movie: striking a chord with multiple audiences simultaneously, one with irony, another without. In many ways, if movies didn't do this, you probably would be less likely to have seen them.
- rconti 9y agoThink of it this way: It's a lot easier to look at someone ostentatiously wealthy and just say "well, I'll just cut out the bad parts like doing hard drugs and pissing it all away by being an asshole" than it is to look at Mother Teresa and say "I'll be just like her, except a billionaire". That is to say, making a ton of money seems a lot harder than just not being an asshole.
- chrischen 9y agoI thought doing the hard drugs is part of the glamor.
- dade_ 9y agoSurfaces are important, because it is all most people ever get.
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- some_account 9y agoI got incredibly bored from Wolf of wall street and didn't finish it. To me, it's just a ridiculous person acting like a teenager and having no intelligence or wisdom whatsoever.