Wallstreet movie critisim
It is difficult to discern whether the movie Wall Street is intended to be a scathing critique of modern bureaucracies in general or the men and women who work within them. Oliver Stone uses the traditional American coming of age story to attack modern perceptions of success and power in the corporation. Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a small town guy whose father worked his whole life at a blue collar job to provide him with all the opportunities his limited income could provide. Empowered by his father's drive and an NYU degree in finance Bud sets his sights on striking it rich on the New York stock exchange. But Bud's unbridled ambition combined with his resistance to advice of those around him eventually lead him into the shady world of big business fraud and insider trading. It is within this context that Oliver Stone uses Michael Douglas character Gordon Gecko to show what it takes to be successful in business as an individual and a corporation. Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) is smart, driven, powerful, incredibly wealthy and everything the Bud aspires to be. He proudly espouses, in true m
Directors like Oliver Stone often use film as a medium to enhance social mores they support and to violate ones they disdain. During a speech he makes to a company he is taking over he states this plainly saying "greed it good, greed will save this company and greed will save the United States". From the beginning of the movie the primary goal of his corporation is the express manifest goal of making money, lots of money. This was shown in the case study in Men and Women of the corporation. Gordon does an excellent job of establishing boundaries between the "in-group" and "out-group" within his organization. In one sense his secretary serves as the overt gatekeeper that won't allow non-members access to Gecko's private office. But in a more metaphysical sense Gecko tells Bud that he must get a new suit and change the way he talks if he is going to manage money for the "Big Boys". In reality bad character and universally accepted discriminatory practices are far less of a threat to actual success of a business organization. As time progresses Gecko's unyielding drive for more comes to symbolize not only his own unscrupulous methods for personal advancement but for all major corporations in general. The way that Gordon objectifies and subjugates women also provides substantial foreshadowing throughout the movie that his bad character will eventually lead to his demise. Watched with a critical eye Gordon embodies many characteristics that typify a successful bureaucratic organization in the real world. Is he with the 99 percent of hard working laborers who are being robed of the production of their efforts or the 1 percent that lives the life of luxury those efforts provide. His fight for personal success combined with guile for those around him is not the only character flaw that Stone characterizes immoral in the film. Gordon is singly focused on amassing wealth and power and all other goals, it seems, are latent.
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