Are Gordon Gekko and Bud Fox (two characters from the 1987 film Wall Street) symbolic of embittered relationships between Generation X siblings, blood and step alike? One blogger/author thinks so. She contends that the movie is the "background for Generation X’s many miserable brothers and sisters..." She's written a book, Moms Loves You Best: Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships. The following is an excerpt from her most recent blog post:
Generation X children strapped on backpacks and marched lockstep back and forth between their parents’ homes. They had Mom’s house and Dad’s house but no home of their own. The nest that was so tightly woven against the cruel winds of the economic meltdown and was kept together by previous generations blew to pieces for Generation X. This launched bitter sibling I Hate You stories that play out today as the new I Hate You Stories in Mom Loves You Best, Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationship, New Horizon Press.
From Gordon Gekko and Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps:
"You’re all pretty much fu****. You don’t know it yet. But, you are the NINJA generation. No Income, No Job, No Assets. You got a lot to live for too. Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said greed is good. Now it seems its legal. But folks, its greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he can’t afford with no money down. And its greed that makes your parents refinance their two hundred thousand dollar house for two fifty. Then they take that extra fifty and go down to the mall. They buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers, a SUV, hey why not a second home while we are it, cause gee whiz we all know the prices of houses in America always go up, right? And its greed that makes the government of this country cut interest rates down to one percent after 9/11 so we can all go shopping again. And they got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credits, CMOs, CDOs, SIVs, ABS. You know I honestly think that there’s maybe only seventy five people in the world who know what they are. But I’ll tell you what they are - WMDs, weapons of mass destruction! That’s what they are."
Photo Credit: pamhule via Flickr with Creative Commons License
2 comments:
Even though it's typical Hollywood drama, I think Gekko is right, dead right, as a matter of fact.
Haven't seen the movie yet, but my question is what will Gekko's relationship be with the Shia LeBeouf (sp?) character? Will it be one of mentoring and leadership? If it is, I'm certain it won't exactly be selfless.
That's the ticket for me. As a card-carrying member of GenX, I'm convinced that our best time and energy investment and a source of hope is to invest in the Millennials.
So yeah, Gordon. Life kinda sucks right now for GenX and Millennials trying to get ahead. Now what?
Saw the movie and it is a little different than the first obviously. I was just glad to see one of my heros - Gekko (I know that may be sick to some of you but I am not afraid to admit it). I believe many Gen x'ers identify with the character as well. The movie portrayed Shia's character as quite idealistic for a young wall street type which was much different than Bud Fox's character. Is this the current mindset of most millenials as Stone portrays? If it is I can see one reason why there is a ninja generation because idealism does'nt necessarily pay the bills. Shia's character leaves a firm because his boss does'nt go with promoting his cold fusion idea? A little too idealistic I must say. Bud Fox would have stayed at the firm no problem and collected his check!
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