Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
On October 19, 1987, the US experienced the biggest single-day stock market collapse in history, a 23 percent drop, an event that would come to be known as Black Monday. Less than two months later, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street would open in theaters on December 11. In the intervening years, it’s difficult to determine which event had a more lasting impact on how Americans view finance. Since then we’ve had bull markets, dot com busts, and subprime meltdowns, but one lasting constant has been Wall Street‘s supremacy among all subsequent films on the subject of finance. Rewatching the film on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, it isn’t hard to see why.
To begin with, Wall Street isn’t a overly earnest but ultimately boring attempt at explaining the markets to a wide audience (*cough* like The Big Short *cough*). Nor is it the most realistic depiction of the world of finance (that would be 2011’s underappreciated Margin Call). Rather, Wall Street succeeds because it is an amalgamation of the classic rags to riches parable, the Hero’s Journey, and a fairy tale. It manages to draw in the audience from the opening frames, immerse them in the world of the high flying mid ’80s bull market, and make them wonder if we’re rooting for the bad guy … and if there even is one?
We first see Bud Fox (Charlie Fox) on a cramped train during a sweaty morning commute, a lowly broker and the bottom rung of the industry starting literally at the bottom of Wall St, trying to claw his way to the top with the titans. Soon enough he encounters Gordon Gekko, who much like a genie from a fable, begins bringing Bud’s dreams to life (at a cost). In no time, Bud goes from a cubicle monkey cold calling to having all the trappings of success; a corner office, money, and Daryl Hannah on his arm. The audience loves this because that is the American dream; wealth and wish fulfillment without putting in time or much effort.
Second, Wall Street has something going for it that no film now can hope to also capitalize on: the ’80s. Much like how Hunter S. Thompson described San Francisco in the mid ’60s as “the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back,” so was Wall St during the apex of the Me Decade, a magical time period filled to the rim with junk bonds, corporate raiders, and unmatched excess (decades before Dodd Frank killed the party). The ’80s permeate every fiber of the film, from the walkie talkie-sized cell phones to the contrast collars with Alan Flusser-tailored suits; there’s even a makeover montage of Bud’s lifestyle and new condo set to “This Must Be the Place” by Talking Heads. We get to see a babyfaced Charlie Sheen walk around his new condo, with its gold leafed crown molding and imitation exposed brick, making sushi with his automatic sushi maker as Daryl Hannah spills wine and eats microwaved Häagen-Dazs. Simply put, it’s magic. Generations to come will scarce believe that flesh and blood yuppies such as these ever walked upon this earth.
The ultimate trump card, however, that Wall Street holds is Michael Douglas’ performance as Gordon Gekko, the ultimate embodiment of 1980s greed and excess run amok. Originally, the studio wanted Warren Beatty for the role, and the film’s director, Oliver Stone, reportedly wanted Richard Gere. Both turned down the role. Against the advice of many in Hollywood, Stone went with Michael Douglas, despite being told he couldn’t act and wouldn’t do the role justice. Not only was Douglas able to carry the character, he turned Gekko into a timeless icon (and ended up winning the Oscar for Best Actor).
An amalgamation of several financial titans of the era —Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and Carl Icahn among them— Gordon Gekko came to symbolize both success and greed in finance for subsequent generations. To this day, Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas say they continue to be stopped by people who work in finance telling them Gekko was their inspiration for pursuing their career. While ostensibly the villain of the film, Gekko is undeniably charismatic and not exactly a criminal (at least in the sense of most people’s understanding of the word). Unlike say, Jordan Belfort, who used pump and dump scams to rob mom and pop retirees in The Wolf of Wall Street, Gordon Gekko’s targets aren’t everyday Americans. His targets? Corporations and their management boards. Gekko delivers the kinds of monologues that both give Aaron Sorkin a boner jealous and offer the film some balance, preventing it from drifting into the kind of overly simplistic “money is bad” lecture that many lesser films have succumbed to.
Few films have stood the test of time that in the way that Wall Street does. Thirty years later, phrases like “Greed is good” and “blue horseshoe loves anacott steel” have become instantly recognizable touchstones, making the film almost a living, breathing time capsule for the era. Given Oliver Stone’s decision to build the solid foundation of the story around a cautionary tale, peppered generously with ’80s culture and an icon like Gordon Gekko, it isn’t difficult to see why Wall Street remains so memorable after all these years.
Comfortably Smug is a government relations professional with a focus on the financial services industry. He can be found on Twitter with his musings on all things finance and politics at @ComfortablySmug
