Throughout this seminar class, we have watched many movies that revolved around the New York setting, with each film uniquely conveying its own message about this fascinating city. My favorite work, however, was definitely Wall Street by Oliver Stone. It depicted the corporate world of NY and revealed a very important truth about it: becoming a success in such a competitive environment often requires resorting to corruption and getting ones hands dirty. It’s unfortunate, but it’s inevitable, and like they say: it is what it is, right?

Stone literally (and accurately) portrayed Wall Street as a jungle: there exist people like Bud Fox, who are the vulnerable prey trying hard to survive and make a living, and then there are people like Gordon Gekko, who are the voracious predators destroying and eating anyone in their way just to make it big in the city.

And with such a jungle-like atmosphere inescapably comes the application of Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. Unlike Gekko, Bud was unfit for working in such a risky, dangerous, competitive world. On the other hand, Gekko, the opulent and legendary stockbroker who Bud aspired to become, took advantage of Bud, who was so desperate to become affluent like him, and got him to do insider trading for him.

In the end, Bud lost everything he ever really cared about. He lost his girlfriend, Darien, betrayed his father and led him to a heart attack, compromised his moral integrity, and was arrested and looking at jail time for insider trading. But what ever happened to Gekko you might ask? Nothing. What a joke! It’s sad, but truth of the matter is that rich people have money, and that equals power. And with this power comes privilege. Simple.

I really appreciated this movie for it showed how greedy the human mind really is (even though we often don’t want to admit it). One quote that really spoke to me from Wall Street was when Michael Douglass notoriously stated: “Greed is good.” And in class, I couldn’t help but notice that many people viewed this quote as something negative; after all, greed is bad, right?

But honestly, if you really think so, you’re just being a HYPOCRITE! Just like fear, anger, sex, and rivalry, greed is ALSO a natural human instinct. Greed is actually the mere gathering of resources that allow an organism to survive and reproduce, and the more the better! These resources range from food, to water, to shelter. Without these things, the organism dies. And in this capitalistic society, money becomes a very important resource for survival, because without it we can’t provide for ourselves.

And this is exactly what I loved about the movie: it showed the true nature of the human mind that we all possess and don’t like to admit we have.