Sources for America’s History: Printed Page 758

30-3  |The Eighties Culture of Greed
Wall Street (1987)

In the 1980s, Hollywood drew attention to the cultural celebration of wealth in movies like Wall Street, which starred actor Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, an investor who tries to orchestrate a hostile corporate takeover of a failing company. In the movie’s iconic scene, Gekko, based loosely on real-life corporate raider Ivan Boesky, gives a speech to shareholders where he complains that modern corporate America has become a “survival of the unfittest.” He tells shareholders that “you either do it right or you get eliminated.” In the film’s most famous line, Gekko boasts: “I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works.”

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Source: “Wall Street,” The Granger Collection, New York.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    What perspective on 1980s culture emerges from the evidence of Hollywood movies like Wall Street? What can you conclude about the era from the evidence provided by the movie still and Gekko’s speech?

  2. Question

    To what extent do you think the character of Gordon Gekko, shown in this still from the movie, became an emblematic figure of the 1980s? Who do you imagine would have embraced his worldview? Who would have condemned his business and social philosophy?

  3. Question

    What interpretive opportunities and challenges do movies present to historians seeking to understand the period when they were produced?