(Joyce) Ge Tian Mr. Jeremy Hartzell English 101-117 02-15-2011 A Deeper Look into Wall Street
For anyone studying history, Wall Street is the place where the Bill of Rights was initially passed and signed in 1789. For other citizens of United States as well as the rest of the world, Wall Street is the financial center of United States. The significance of Wall Street made New York City one of the main financial centers in the world (Fitzgerald), which consists of many headquarters of investment banks, financial banks, and brokerage firms (Answer.com). The first impression people have on Wall Street is money and power, a lot of these views come from the movie Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone in 1987. The movie Wall Street highlights the activities that take place from an insiders view of Wall Street at the time: the difficulties for a stockbroker to survive in Wall Street and the greed of a very wealthy and ambitious man. The storyline of Wall Street reflects many different perspectives of our society. In the beginning it expresses the difference between good versus evil, it also discusses the debatable topic: is greed good? In the end, the movie brings up the conclusion that money isnt able to bring people happiness. The director of the movie Wall Street, Oliver Stone, expressed in an interview There is no black [or] white, Wall Street is good, [or] Wall Street is bad (Capital). He does not believe that there is black and white on Wall Street. In Olivers movie, he uses the main character Bud Fox to show that theres no clear line drawn between good and evil, most people on Wall Street live in the gray area. Gordon Gekko represents pure evil and Buds dad represents pure good. Throughout the movie Bud finds himself stuck in the war between good and evil.
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Bud Fox is a junior stockbroker; he wants to be like his role model, Gordon Gekko who is like a big elephant to him: Bud wants power, money and fame just like Gordon Gekko. Bud wants to be rich and he knows that the only way for him to reach his goal is through Gordon Gekko. So he decides to trade his morals for money, to do unethical and illegal things in order to be rich. On the other hand, Bud is brought up by his father, who is an honest man who cares for others more than himself. Buds father teaches him to create wealth instead of taking from others (Wall Street). Bud would like to make his father proud, but he cant seem to understand his fathers logic. Unlike Gordon Gekko, Bud has the ability to feel guilty and finally realizes that his father has been right all along. Wall Street is all about trade: trade for stocks, bonds, funds, basically anything related to money (Capital). In Wall Streets trailer it says, Trade honor for power. Trade your piece of mind for a piece of the action. All it takes is a little inside information and you can trade everything you believe in, for everything youve ever wanted (1987). This sounds very tempting, and like a lot of people, Bud was compromised in order to become rich and successful. As soon as Bud decided to trade, his situation changed, he was promoted to a manager and he has great potential for future promotions, he got his dream house in upper Manhattan and a beautiful girlfriend. But he was not satisfied, he tasted the sweet and he wants more. Not only do the poor people want to be rich, the wealthy people want to become even richer: greed grows with peoples wealth. Gordon Gekko said in the movie, greed is good. Gordon was one of the wealthiest businessmen on Wall Street, he has everything that a man could only dream of having: wealth, women and power. But he is never satisfied; he is like a parasite that gains from other peoples losses. Gordon Gekko believes that only people with greed can become wealthier and more powerful, others will remain behind and envy what the greedy people have accomplished. In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, or Wall Street 2, Gordon Gekko gets released from the prison and he had no love, power or money, his situation proves his famous phrase, greed is good to be wrong. 2
Wall Street has the abundant power that no other individual company can ever achieve. It can create wealth and also take it back, which can be clearly seen from the financial crisis in 2008, the influence of Wall Street on every family of United States extends to the rest of the world (Capital). In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Gordon Gekko makes a speech at a university, and he says I once said greed was good, it now seems legal (2010). This is how Gordon Gekko describes the current business world and todays Wall Street. The financial Crisis in 2008 was caused by greed from both the banks and the customers. Banks were giving loans without going through proper procedures regarding credit checks. Oliver Stone, the director of both Wall Street movies said that Gordon Gekko has been replaced by the banking system, the bankers did in fact extend Gekkos notion that anything was worth doing in the name of profit. Money was the only goal (Raphael). Bad things do not only happen in the movie, people are greedy in real life and a lot of people would want to have Gordon Gekkos job, they wants to trade. Michael Douglas, who played Gordon Gekko in both Wall Street movies was interview, and said that there was one time when he visited Wall Street, some businessmen came and told him, that he was their role model and the reason they entered Wall Street (Michael Douglas). People are actually negatively influenced by Gordon Gekko and believe that greed is good. This may be the reason for the 2008 financial crisis. Greed may lead to temporary success, but on the long run, people need to act ethically in order to sustain wealth. Wall Street also raises another question: does money equal happiness? Nice suits, promotion, beautiful women and expensive apartment in Manhattan, what made Bud decide to give up all those and not work with Gordon Gekko, and instead seek revenge on Gordon Gekko? Family, he had a choice between saving his fathers company and becoming rich like Gordon while throwing away all his morals and losing his father. He decided to create his own wealth rather than taking money from other peoples pockets. Is Gordon Gekko really happy with his life? He was the man who had everything, but in a sense, he had nothing. He had money and power, but he lost his family, loved ones and the ability 3
to love. In Wall Street: Money never sleeps, when Gordon Gekko walks out from the prison, there is no one waiting for him. He lost all his friends: because of his greed in business, everyone tries to avoid him. He lost his daughter, she will not even dine with him because she looks down to him and believes that he will bring her harm. Money does not change Gordons relationship between his friends and family, it doesnt matter if hes rich or not, no one truly liked him. Because money does not matter in genuine and pure relationships, and money can never buy happiness. In the movie Wall Street, The director Oliver Stone shows us the decisions people face when working on Wall Street, he tries to make everyone understand that whatever happens the good will always win the final battle. The movie shows that greed is not good, and it does not lead to a good ending. And even though money is able to bring us power and wealth, it will never bring true happiness.
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Work Cited
Wall Street. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1987. DVD. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Shia LaBeouf and Michael Edward R. Pressman Film, 2010. Film. Douglas.
Fitzgerald, Alison. "New York Eclipses London as Financial Center in Bloomberg Poll." Bloomberg. 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? pid=newsarchive&sid=aEC0OYmvvcZM>. "Wall Street." Answer.com. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. <http://www.answers.com/topic/wall-street>. e ep1 h 01 (Wall Street ep1; Capital never sleep 01). Youtube.com. 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=zQ9e3od0Z8A>.
WALL STREET - HQ Trailer ( 1987 ). Youtube.com. 4 Apr 2008. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCctqbRrsBQ> Perf. Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas: "Wall Street" and Villians. Youtube.com, 10 Sept. 2007. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=uJmTgiCNJEo>. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Shia LaBeouf and Michael Douglas. Official Trailer: Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps. Youtube.com, 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 2 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=873PrTZkLsI>. Raphael, Amy. "Oliver Stone: the Making of Wall Street." New Statesman. 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=21&sid=71b32536-528d-47cd-9a420438cec2d7dc
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