When I Grow Up, I Want to be a Wolf on Wall Street
I had it planned to a T. If I checked in for my flight exactly 24 hours before, I could get boarding group B. I could hurry to grab a front window seat, on the left side, so I could see Manhattan from a bird’s eye view. If I allotted 20 minutes to take off for my skyline viewing pleasure, I would still have exactly 3 hours and 10 minutes left to watch Leonardo Di Caprio’s greatest performance, The Wolf of Wall Street, which I had diligently downloaded the night before. Then, the minute we hit the ground in Dallas, I would put my shoes back on, grab my backpack, tighten my fanny pack, and scurry out of the plane as fast as I could to avoid the disastrous rush that was awaiting me on the other end of the passenger boarding bridge.
Unsurprisingly, my luck failed me, and I obtained a middle seat in front of a restless toddler that refused to stop kicking the back of my seat. But everything worked out since I was still able to finally watch the movie I had heard so many people raving about. What was so special about it anyways? I had been more or less forced by my ambitious family friend, whose life mission was to become the ultimate finance bro, to watch the film. I was about to finally find out why this extravagant movie appeals to so many young people and why it is so unrealistically inspiring.
As a Media, Cultures, and Communications major, my educational path always gets weird looks. I am seen as a ditzy, silly girl that just doesn’t know what she wants to do in school. On the contrary, my major is actually incredibly useful. The same theories and philosophies I study in my, albeit unbearable, classes are present in every piece of media we consume. Film is one of the most powerful mediums of dissemination, and, in the right hands, its influence can be wielded like no other. So I wonder, in relation to my forever crush Leo Di Cap, what does The Wolf of Wall Street as a form of media do right?
In case you missed it, Di Caprio portrays Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who founded the firm Stratton Oakmont. He soon begins to drown in a fortune that has resulted from various exploits, including fraud, money laundering, and stock manipulations. This film is loosely based on the real-life Jordan Belfort and his memoir that narrates a cocaine fueled, sex saturated tale of extreme wealth.
The fervor is understandable. What more could anyone want besides incomprehensible wealth, unbelievably easy access to pleasure, and euphoria at every waking moment of the day? The analysis of the efficiency of films, especially this one, pertains to psychology. In general, this is a critical question in mass communication: how much of our emotions and perspectives are influenced by mass media? I want to consider Cultivation Theory. This theory suggests that the media takes attitudes that are already presented in society and re-presents them to their audience. One of the primary aspects of the theory is that media and television rarely challenge the status quo, but rather cultivate it. Oftentimes, audiences are unaware of the extent to which they absorb media. The Wolf of Wall Street is seemingly unimpactful, but in reality, it bolsters a narrative that viewers literally eat up. This induced perception of a glamorous, sexy life on Wall Street influences audiences to continue putting Jordan Belfort’s supposed lifestyle on a pedestal.
But I think it’s even more than that. The Wolf of Wall Street is also about human drives and urges– the way we crave to satisfy needs for pleasure and self-indulgences. We are drawn to the power plays and manipulations that awaken something inside all of us that we deny even exists. It’s exhilarating to see the madness that the film delves into as the financial scheming and adulterous lies pile up. So when we want to breathe the breath of lawless chaos, we turn to media to be entertained by these possibilities. It’s our hidden desire for and need of deception, ingratiations, and calculations upon which human society thrives. And Jordan Belfort does all of this.
In any case, however, it isn’t possible to accredit any one mechanism of mass media to obtain an unambiguous understanding about film’s impact. This is because of the entanglement of various factors that mediate the influence of mass media. The Wolf of Wall Street may not be realistic or resonate with many people’s personal experience, but it enables a fantasy. Viewers can fall for charisma that simply oozes from Di Caprio’s character and lose themselves in their imagination. The movie allows them to feel like they’re marching into finance firms, clad in pressed suits and shined shoes, ready to make millions at the ring of a phone call.
Honestly, even after scouring the internet for insight and rifling through my media notes, I still don’t exactly know what makes this movie so special. Maybe it's just the fact that America loves a good rags to riches story and that's what Belfort gives us. It allows people to dream and hope that maybe if they bring their humble selves to the curb of Wall Street, they too can work their way to the top and, almost contingently, they can vicariously feel the thrill of evading consequences and playing dirty in a glamorized world of strippers, yachts, and private jets.
What I do know is that during the flight, the elderly woman to my right was extremely distraught by the fact that she saw complete nudity on my screen basically every time she looked over. But I can confirm, like the majority, the movie certainly captivated me. I truly, fully, wholeheartedly enjoyed it. So, soon enough I will be watching it again, to pretend for just a moment that I too am a glorious wolf on Wall Street.
