Gordon Gekko

 “The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.”

 It is the 25th anniversary of the seminal, iconic film Wall Street, and it would appear in our current state that we have learned little. Poor decisions from the actual Financial District have spiraled into scandal and contributed to economic struggles throughout the nation. Still, America loves to hate, and never was there a bitter love affair with a fictional character than in Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece, Wall Street. Traditionally, fictional characters gain esteem in literary form only; for reasons indefinable, it is simply a classier move to celebrate or lambast figures from the written word; Grendel from Beowulf is a villain we love to read about over and over, generation to generation. Then there is Atticus Finch, the classic hero in a white suit, who we also salivate over in print.

And then there is Gordon Gekko. An area as grey as his temples.

At first glance, the Michael Douglas character is a microcosm of 80’s greed-he is known foremost for stating that “Greed is good”. Gekko, with his bulky mobile phone and mortgage busting suspenders, is the mascot of a shameful era. With his slicked back coif and cigar smoking alpha male pose, he was big bad wolf that college finance professors warned us about and the dark dirty secret that these students aspired to be. Gordon Gekko was excess before it was cool, the P Diddy jetsetter before “bling” and “swag” hit our vernacular. But in reality Gekko was never an avatar for the times-the times aspired to become Gekko. Life imitating art.

Based on corporate raiders and Manhattan predators like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, Gekko has been labeled as the devil incarnate, as well as the offspring of what we all would be-if we could. Ruthless, callous and forgiving, he was the prototype of success in the 1980’s. A throat stepper with no regard, Gordon Gekko was a forefather of a dangerous school of thought-world domination, in designer clothing. And though he was created as a warning of what not to be, film goers embraced him emphatically. Just like an innocent girl forced to choose between a Boy Scout or the bad boy, or a conflicted man weighing the angel on one shoulder and a hellish serpent on the other; the dark side always looks a little juicier.

Gekko’s stats: A City College of New York grad, he garnered his wealth in the 1970s buying real estate. Corporate raiding followed, naturally, along with insider trading (“The most valuable commodity I know of is information”). Private Lear jets. A wife and numerous mistresses of the supermodel ilk. Italian tailors, bulletproof limos, gold plated business cards and literal gold plates to eat caviar from. His fall from grace came at the hands of Bud Fox, ironically a Charlie Sheen performance based upon morals and ethics, but at the end of his run Gekko remained king. In the sequel, he mirrored his rags- to- riches to rags-to even grosser- riches tale in a matter of months. According to AFI, he was the #24 villain of all time, though no research has been done amongst Business and Finance majors since 1988. According to Forbes Magazine, he is the fourth wealthiest fictional character of all time, an asterisk since his wealth is a reflection of the true bank accounts of real world counterparts-Gekko was not a Shah or a Prince, merely a self made man.

 Enron has fallen. Bernie Madoff has become the figurehead of society’s downfall. The American dollar is a punchline and without a bailout, GM would be SOL. The people behind the scenes of these occurrences are public enemy #1, dastardly heels whose names are met with disdain and words not suitable for church. But the man who these people are a fraction of, a man immortalized on screen and in culture, the narcissistic, enigmatic and downright heinous Gordon Gekko…he kind of gets a pass. Maybe it’s because he is (debatably) fiction. Perhaps it’s because he was Hollywood handsome while the true citizens of market ruin match their ugly exploits with equally unappealing aesthetics.

Likely, it’s because whether we like it or not, Gordon Gekko is that nagging little voice inside us all, hovering on the cusp of capitalism and morality. In public we label his kind an outrage, but in our private moments, should the opportunity arise to be him…well, that’s an answer only we know as individuals.

 “Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.” –Gordon Gekko