Anyone who got that message from the film is completely oblivious to its point. A similar movie with a more extreme premise would be American Psycho. No one aspired to kill prostitutes after seeing that film, I have no idea why Wolf of Wall Street is different.
Re:Martin Shkreli indictment [pdf]
by discreteevent on Thursday December 17, 2015 @05:05PM
(#10754924)
I went to a talk by Alan Parker (probably more than 20 years ago). In it he talked about watching a screening of his film Midnight Express. There is a scene in the film where Billy, the main character, bites out the tongue of another man at the end of a fight. He intended the scene to be tragic. It was supposed to show how prison had brought Billy to a place where he had completely lost everything he used to be. But, to Parker's dismay, some of the audience cheered because all they could see was the vengeance that Billy was taking on the other character.
Parker said that he resolved after that not to use violence in a film in that way again.
To go anecdote for anecdote, I have never met anyone who has expressed admiration of or aspiration to what they saw in that film. I think your disgust and inability to relate is the more common view, but maybe I'm just naive.
A lot of people in finance think it's awesome, and generally speaking those guys run in different circles from computer people. Think coke and strippers.
OT but i'm happy to see someone else was also disgusted so much by that movie. I'm not a moralist but the glorification of such degenerated values in that movie was horrible to watch.
Re:Martin Shkreli indictment [pdf]
by scrollaway on Thursday December 17, 2015 @03:22PM
(#10754233)
The glorification in the movie was there to make this exact point. Be disgusted that people took it as some sort of how-to be successful guide. Don't shoot the messenger.
That's the meaning I actually took from the movie, but I'm still not sure that was the purpose of the authors. A lot of people didn't understand it that way anyway.
Edit: tried to take, because it's still hard to assimilate
Loved the movie. Doesn't mean I want to be like him. One of my favorite movies, The Talented Mr Ripley, leaves you feeling unsatisfied about the conclusion-- not a typical Hollywood ending.
Boiler Room is also a favorite, which of course is related to Wolf of Wall Street.
I loved the movie!
It was great inspiration for me to hope that one day I could hope to take a bunch of SSRI drugs and go on a murderous rampage in some random Wall Street hedge fund office!
(I'm mostly kidding)
Interesting analogy, and I'm glad you pointed this out. I was disgusted by Wolf of Wall Street, and even more disgusted by how exalted Belfort became after. So many friends and acquaintances admired and aspired towards what they saw in the film - that was the worst part of it for me. I just can't relate.