The Post-Crash Decade of American Cinema CHAPTER TWO - The Pornography of Corporate Capitalism: The Wolf of Wall Street
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2023
Summary
In Wall Street, which, according to the film critic Mark Kermode, “played like a war movie” (2010), Gordon Gekko declared about himself and others like him: “We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace […]” and recommended that Bud Fox read Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Many more real-life Bud Foxes must have also reached for the ancient Chinese military treatise, as Michael Douglas, who played Gekko, has stated that he “was always shocked when so many people who saw Wall Street said that I [Gekko] was the person who influenced them and inspired them to go into investment banking” ([in:] Comstock 2011). One such person (according to the IMDb) was Jordan Belfort, in comparison to whom Gekko suddenly begins to look much less like a reptile and much more like a gentleman and scholar.
In perhaps the most famous scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort gives a long and passionate speech to the traders in his company, Stratton Oakmont. He is yet another Wall Street general speaking to a decidedly masculine army setting off to fight a deadly battle:
See those little black boxes? They’re called telephones. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret about these telephones. They’re not gonna dial themselves. Okay? Without you, they’re just worthless hunks of plastic. Like a loaded M16 without a trained Marine to pull the trigger. And in the case of the telephone, it's up to each and every one of you, my highly-trained Strattonites. My killers! My killers, who will not take no for an answer! My fucking warriors, who will not hang up the phone until their client either buys or fucking dies! […] So you listen to me and you listen well. Are you behind on your credit card bills? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! Is your landlord ready to evict you? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! Does your girlfriend think you’re a fucking worthless loser? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich! […] Fuck, yeah! I want you to go out there and I want you to ram Steve Madden stock down your clients’ throats until they fucking choke on it! Till they choke on it and they buy 100,000 shares! That's what I want.
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- The Post-Crash Decade of American CinemaWall Street, the 'Mancession' and the Political Construction of Crisis, pp. 65 - 96Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2021