The phenomenon of Wall Street guys loving movies about what giant douchebags Wall Street guys are has a long and storied history. Wall Street guys idolized Gordon Gekko after Wall Street like gangsters idolized Tony Montana after Scarface, conveniently forgetting the endings of both movies. So it should come as no surprise that today’s banker bros also love Wolf of Wall Street, a movie which might as well be called Spring Bankers.
A writer for Business Insider saw the film within spitting distance of Goldman Sachs offices and reported that the bros in the audience weren’t exactly horrified by the bad behavior. A few spoilers to follow:
There’s a lot of talk about how Wall Street has “changed” since the financial crisis. Compliance is up, bonuses are down, the holiday parties are boring.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from what these guys were cheering at.
When Belfort — a drug addict who later attempts to remain sober — rips up a couch cushion to get to his secret coke stash, there were cheers.
Then, intercut with Popeye eating spinach, Belfort is irrevocably high on Quaaludes (or “ludes,” a muscle relaxer) and dumps coke into his nose to remedy the situation — more cheers.
The worst, though, mild spoiler alert … At one point later in the movie, the feds get Belfort to wear a wire to implicate others at his firm. Meeting with his No. 2, Belfort slides over a piece of paper: “Don’t incriminate yourself. I am wearing a wire.”
And the crowd goes wild. Don’t rat! Stand by your firm!
Finance guys love cocaine, who knew? Let’s be honest, we all could’ve predicted this. Wolf of Wall Street could’ve shown Jordan Belfort raping his own mother and some people would still think he’s a hero because he had a yacht. Is that Martin Scorsese’s responsibility? Hard to say. The real question is, was it worth inspiring a few future Jordan Belforts to give the rest of us this gif?
i think bros of any stripe are going to stand up and cheer during those triumphant moments.
also that movie was a few cartoon sound affects away from being straight up slapstick. still incredible tho. its full of stuff like that guy in the background of the gif with the mustache and suspenders being ridiculous. the random “fuck yous” and full frontal nudity. it just may be the best movie ever.
Believe it or not, that’s Ethan Suplee my friend.
From what I’ve been hearing, it sounds like Scoresese didn’t really portray Belfort as the huge a**hat he was for ripping off his clients.
This was probably due to the fact that they had to work with Belfort to get the movie made and he wanted to be portrayed as a bada** hedonistic king among men, not as the sh**bag he is.
History is written by the victors
It’s why Doctor Doom keeps cranking out those Latverian textbooks.
“History shall be kind to me…for I will be the one who writes it.”
-Winston Von Doom
Hmm. Most of the history majors I knew were losers.
Solid movie. Scorsese’s funniest movie by a long shot. Wish I’d seen it with some Wall Street bros for fact checks via applause.
Is that the guy from My Name is Earl, with a killer stache behind Decapio?
IMDb says Ethan Suplee is in the movie, so I’m going with yes.
Yes, it is.
What I really want to know is will there be an opportunity for a fartzilla gif to come out of this movie.
There should be a couple.
The entire trading floor of his firm is filled with guys who chest bump, wrestle each other on the ground, get into fist fights over calls & double-team hookers together. OF COURSE Wall Street is going to cheer! If they’re not doing all of that themselves, they are jealous & want to! Those good ol glory days are probably looked back on fondly by the guys who escaped being arrested, because they were able to have fun & party & make millions without being caught.