"Greed is good—" this phrase from Gordon Gekko’s character in the movie Wall Street (1987) has become tremendously popular when referring to the ethics of Wall Street. Many films, documentaries and news reports have analyzed the financial world, but are they faithful to reality? Experts from the U.S., U.K. and Germany spoke on this topic in a conference on ‘Global Finance and the Moving Image’, organized by the Institute for Culture and Society, the School of Communication at the University of Navarra, the Social Trends Institute and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). The conference received funding from Zurich Insurance, Obra Social 'La Caixa' and Fundación Bancaria Caja Navarra.

"Many films dramatize the ups and downs of speculation, but they do not show the consequences for ordinary people," or so Graham Murdock, a sociologist and professor of culture and economy at the University of Loughborough (UK), claimed during the conference.

According to Murdock, market liberalization in the eighties gave great power to traders. For the expert, ordinary citizens end up suffering the consequences of their misdoings with subsequent austerity policies. "Criminal practices have been discovered, but they are not pursued to avoid damaging the reputation of banks," he criticized and continued, "Since banks are crucial to the economy, it seems that they are untouchable."

Field work

Karen Ho, an anthropologist and professor of cultural studies and financial capital at the University of Minnesota (U.S.), stated that, "there is continuous feedback between what movies present and Wall Street practices." The media help us understand the financial world by representing dominant ideas and allegories, but they do not explain the day-to-day, Ho related.

She worked on Wall Street and studied how finance workers see themselves. She found an elite social group that considers itself "the center of the economy." For Ho, it is vital to change this image because the family economy also depends on the financial sector: "Today banks speculate with savings accounts, pensions, scholarships, loans..." she warned.

Managing emotions

Meanwhile, Jörg Metelmann and Loren Scott, professors of culture and media studies at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), claimed a healthy culture in financial companies is possible thanks to cultural and social studies.

They teach future directors and managers to "acquire the tools necessary to get a better perspective on their own actions and positions and thus recognize what is at stake and decide accordingly," Metelmann explained.

For Metelmann and Loren, films reflect the inner world and the complexity of the economy. According to the professors, the emotions are also considered, which are key in the financial world. Wall Street has "an emotive structure," Metelmann claimed, that is based on "uncertainty and great pressure to create incentives."

Finally, Robert Burgoyne, a professor of film studies at the University of Saint Andrews (UK) and associate of Cinepoetics at the Freie University (Berlin), analyzed Oliver Stone’s film Wall Street (1987) and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

According to Burgoyne, they both contain a paradoxical effect with "a critical message about the figure of the broker, but that same figure is positively received by finance workers… Oliver Stone intended for audiences to reject Gordon Gekko, but he has become a hero for Wall Street employees," he concluded.