Reefer Madness

Sunday, November 30, 2008

I think this one was of the most entertaining and historically interesting movies that we’ve watched all semester. Most of the movies that we’ve studied have focused on events rather than ideas. It’s important to remember that the movie is hilarious to us because we’ve come so far as a culture — though not quite far enough. Anyone remember the anti-marijuana commercial from just a few years back, where a high girl runs down someone in her car? Recently, they’ve gotten more humorous, and try to portray drugs as silly and stupid. The way this stuff is advertised to us has changed, but I think that is mostly because of the extensive advertising research done into what teenagers are receptive to.

But back to the film. It was over the top, as all propaganda is. I can’t imagine that it would have prevented too many young kids from smoking pot (and I never thought it was all that common in the 1930s), but it unfortunately would have put overprotective parents on high alert. The film itself is not poorly made for its time, but I have to say that I think it’s for the best that it disappeared until the 1970s. We all go through the D.A.R.E. program, and are generally more informed about sex and drugs.

Besides, as the movie shows, if a teenager is going to get high and have sex, the law isn’t going to stop them. It’ll just be there to punish them when they finish. And can we comment on the fact that while the film was originally aimed at parents, we see adults acting irresponsible and cruel, while the teenagers are just thoughtlessly stupid? Were they Communists or something?

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Wall Street - Discussion

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

“The Pax Americana, to me, is the dollar sign. It works. It may not be attractive.
It’s not pretty to see American businessmen running
all around the world in plaid trousers, drinking whiskey.
But what they’re doing makes sense.”
–Oliver Stone1


As we discussed on the first day of class, movies both influence and reflect society. Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” is an entertaining film, though I don’t know if I would put it anywhere near the historic film genre. I think it deserves its own subspace, away from cheesy films like “The Patriot,” because it was taken seriously in its own time and can be viewed seriously now, over twenty years later. However, it attempts to represent such a small group of people, and it is so dramatized. It is hard to see it as beneficial historical canon, as the experience of Bud Fox was clearly not the norm of stockbrokers, young or old.

While some critics like Robert Ebert praised the film for its entertaining storyline, I found that the stereotypical portrayal of good and evil was a major point against the film. Carl Fox, the middle-class, long-time union organizer, is the one who rescues Bud from a life of deceit and ridiculous riches. The lacking-in-morals Gordon Gekko, who shows no regard for anyone, tries to bring Bud over to the ‘dark side,’ luring him with bad things like money, sex, modern art, and more square footage than any single man needs in an apartment.

Another issue with the film is that yuppies, as portrayed in the film, really do seem to be more of a myth than an actual group of people. Yuppies in practice seem to be more like the upper-middle class of today, who can afford to go on overseas vacations and buy Starbucks coffee every morning. The entertainment value of the movie is benefited by the narrow focus of the film, but the audience learns nothing about the other Wall Street brokers. We never even see them having lunch, or allude to their outside lives in conversation. Part of this can be explained by the workaholic attitude of the stock exchange, but it seems odd to have absolutely no exposition of the lives led by anyone other than Bud, his father, and Gordon.


      Fortune Magazine, Europe edition, May 2007

To understand the overall impact and success of a historical film, we have to look at both its treatment of the subject matter and its commercial success. The movie did relatively poorly at the box office, outgrossed by both “Throw Momma From the Train” and “Three Men and a Baby” in its opening weekend.2 The movie was not successful outside of major urban centers like Manhattan because of its inability to engage the general public, a must for any commercial venture. Of course, not all great historical films are wildly successful (see “Matewan”), and not all successful historical films are great (see “Pocahontas”). However, if we take away the historical label from “Wall Street,” we have an entertaining, fantastic vision of New York. This vision of limitless riches and the ability of anyone, even the son of a union organizer, to rise to the top of the heap is a timeless manifestation of the American dream.

“My father believed that America’s business brought peace to the world and built industry through science and research, and that capital is needed for that. But this idea seems to have been perverted to a large degree.
I don’t think my father would recognize America today.”
–Oliver Stone3

To the next section –>…

MySpace Codes


1 Charles L. P. Silet, editor, Oliver Stone Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, 2001): 65.
2 Martin S. Fridson in Robert B. Toplin, editor, Oliver Stone’s USA (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000), 124.
3 Silet, 64.

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Wall Street - Bibliography

Tuesday, November 11, 2008


Fabrikant, Geraldine. “Wall Street Reviews ‘Wall Street.’” New York Times (December 10, 1987).

Fridson, Martin S. in Robert B. Toplin, editor. Oliver Stone’s USA. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000.

Lipper, Hal. “Wall Street: Paper-Thin.” St. Petersburg Times (December 11, 1987).

Jones, Landon Y. Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981.

Loukides, Paul and Linda K. Fuller. Beyond the Stars. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Press, 1990.

Ribstein, Larry E. “Imagining Wall Street.” Virginia Law and Business Review 1.2. (Fall 2006).

Roth, Louise Marie. “Engendering Inequality: Processes of Sex-Segregation on Wall Street.” Sociological Forum 19.2. June 2004.

Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics. Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Silet, Charles L. P. editor. Oliver Stone Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2001.

Stengel, Richard. “Snapshot of A Changing America.” Time Magazine (1985).

Wall Street. DVD. directed by Oliver Stone (20th Century Fox, 2000).

Williamson, Judith. “Having Your Baby and Eating It.” New Statesman 15 (April 1988).

Photos of Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko, and the Wall Street trailer, are © 20th Century Fox.

Go back to the beginning <--..

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Wall Street - The Movie

Saturday, November 8, 2008

“In ten minutes, it’s history.
At 4 o’clock, I’m a dinosaur!”
–Wall Street1

Oliver Stone’s 1987 film “Wall Street” is the story of a young stockbroker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), and his struggle to get to the top of 1985 Wall Street. Bud’s father, Carl (played by real-life dad Martin Sheen), is a union representative for a small airline. He wants his son to work for his money like he did, rather than “living off the buying and selling of others.”2 Bud’s mentor, Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas), is a corporate raider, seemingly without scruples or emotions. Bud sees him as a father figure, but a father who can give him what his own father never could.
Douglas’ Gordon Gekko gives Bud his in to the corporate high life after Bud gives him inside information on his father’s airline. Gekko rewards him with cash, a new wardrobe, a trophy girl (Daryl Hannah), and instructions to live by a more questionable moral code.

“I’m talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing.” –Gordon Gekko3

“The audience needs to know that the good guys have won Bud’s soul.” –Larry E. Ribstein in
Imagining Wall Street4
 Unforunately, Gekko’s motives for helping Bud are less than fatherly. Bud learns that Gekko is planning to take over his father’s airline and leave all of the workers out of a job. In order to save his father’s job, the company, and his humanity from Gekko, he engages in illegal insider training. The movie ends with SEC officials showing up at Bud’s office to arrest him.


Oliver Stone filmed scenes at the New York Stock Exchange during trading hours and used the brand of computers used on the trading floor (AT&T). He and his crew met with Wall Street executives, takeover artists, and junk bond chiefs. Stone even invited investment banker Kenneth Lipper to become chief technical adviser on the film. He turned Stone down, until he was granted the right to read the script and write a critique.5

Despite Stone’s attempts at reality, many reviewers criticized the film for lacking emotional depth, using inaccessible corporate jargon, and creating a fantastical life of a stockbroker. Even Wall Street professionals criticized the film. “[The characters] have no subtlety. They practically wear placards - ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘corruptive,’ ‘redeemed’ - tacked to their $2000 suits,” said Hal Lipper of The St.Petersburg Times.6 Takeover lawyer Arthur Fleischer, Jr., called the film a “ludicrous portrayal and completely unbalanced.”7

To the next section –>….

Trailer and photos © 1987 20th Century Fox

MySpace Codes


1 Wall Street, DVD, directed by Oliver Stone (20th Century Fox, 2000).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Larry E. Ribstein, “Imagining Wall Street” Virginia Law and Business Review 1.2 (Fall 2006): 182.
5 Martin S. Fridson in Robert B. Toplin, editor, Oliver Stone’s USA (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000), 124.
6 Hal Lipper of St. Petersburg Times, “Wall Street: Paper-Thin”, December 11, 1987.
7 Geraldine Fabrikant, “Wall Street Reviews ‘Wall Street,’” New York Times, December 10, 1987, D1.

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Wall Street - The History

Saturday, November 8, 2008


The young urban professionals have arrived…
they’re making lots of money,
spending it conspicuously,
and switching political candidates like they test cuisines.”
–Newsweek Magazine1


The baby boom generation had grown up by the 1980s. They were the rising dominant political and cultural force in America: increasingly college-educated, upwardly-mobile and looking to find greater success than that of their parents. Every one out of three Americans had been born between 1946 and 1964, and the median age in 1983 was 30.9. Single-person households were on the rise, more people than ever were not getting married, and metro areas were growing faster than suburbs, a turnaround from the previous decade.2 Cold War tensions and the United States deficit under Reagan were on the rise.

Both the average household income and the rate of home-ownership dropped during the early 1980s. Who was benefiting during this time? Estimated to be only about 6% of all baby boomers, the “BMW-driving, Reebok-clad, madly acquisitive” yuppies were making ten to twenty times the 1981 average American income.3 The term “yuppie” came from the phrase Young Urban Professional, and echoed both “hippie” and “preppy.” The yuppies rejected the social revolution ideals of the hippies, while envying the preppy sentiment of entitlement.4 The major difference was that anyone with money could become a yuppie.

“It is as if the Woodstock mentality had somehow merged with the Bloomingdale mentality.”
–Landon Y. Jones5
 Personal empowerment and the quest for financial independence trumped emotional connections like family and marriage. The worth and identity of a person did not come from their heritage, but from personal accomplishments. While their parents had started their lives by marrying young and having their own families, the yuppies spent their 20s and 30s pursuing their careers. This delay in passing the traditional signposts of adulthood meant that the yuppies lived their 20s as children, spending their money on gourmet food, travel, health clubs, and remodeled homes. Yuppies were three times as likely to carry an American Express card and travel overseas.6
Women did not begin entering Wall Street as professionals until the 1970s. The increased focus on career and the more liberal sexual ideals of the 1980s drastically altered the way in which men and women related to each other. Women had to choose between using their sexuality to get ahead in a male-dominated workplace, or risk becoming unsexed in their attempts to integrate. A 2004 study on Sex-Segregation on Wall Street showed that professional women in the field were less likely to be married, less likely to be parents, and on average earned 60% less than their male counterparts.7
“Babies become the signifiers of emotional life, in representation, now that women are no longer available for that task.” –Judith Williamson8

On the legal side, prosecutions for insider trading rose between 1982 and 1987. It is unclear whether this was due to an actual increase in insider training or simply an increase in prosecutions, since U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman John Shad shifted the focus in the early 1980s back onto prosecuting securities law violations. Hostile takeovers also trended upwards during the 1980s from 47 a year in 1981 to 85 a year in 1987.9 One possibility for this rise was the country’s eventual recovery of stagflation and depressed stock prices.

The Yuppies first burst onto the scene in 1984, but rode the wave of prosperity in the incarnation looked at in this presentation only until around 1987.

“The Yuppie lifestyle features rampant consumerism, distrust of the parent generation, fear of the suburbs, unstable intimate relationships, reliance on the peer network, confrontation of the lingering sixties consciousness, difficulty of growing up to accept adult responsibilities, the problems of parenthood,
and the desire to have it all.”
–Carol M. Ward10

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MySpace Codes

1 “The Year of the Yuppie,” Newsweek in The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (Simon & Schuster, 2001), 241.
2 Richard Stengel, “Snapshot of A Changing America.” Time Magazine (1985): Time.
3 Ibid.
4 Schulman, 241.
5 Landon Y. Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1981), 317.
6 Schulman, 243.
7 Louise Marie Roth, “Engendering Inequality: Processes of Sex-Segregation on Wall Street,” Sociological Forum 19.2 (June 2004): 209.
8 Judith Williamson, “Having Your Baby and Eating It”, New Statesman 15 (April 1988), 45.
9 Martin S. Fridson in Robert B. Toplin, editor, Oliver Stone’s USA (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000), 130-131.
10 Paul Loukides and Linda K. Fuller, Beyond the Stars (Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Press, 1990), 106.

Wall Street sign found at Whitman School of Management, “Whitman Today,” http://whitman.syr.edu/HTMLEmail/Dean/wh… (accessed November 6th, 2008).

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