Anyway, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is not the first film to
face this problem. Watching movies is such a subjective experience that they
get misunderstood all of the time. Sometimes, this can be a good thing and it
can bring up issues that nobody talks about, like how to view people who
somehow make taking Quaaludes and snorting cocaine look hilarious. Other times,
it can show how dumb people are, such as those who root for Jordan Belfort.
Other times, misinterpretation can be dangerous when the irony is lost and life
imitates art.
Here are five other movies that often get misinterpreted:
The Graduate (1967)
“The Graduate” contains a gloriously false happy ending. Ben
Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) spends the whole film sleeping with Elaine Robinson’s
(Katharine Ross) mother, and then decides that maybe he wants Elaine instead.
So he crashes her wedding and they ride off on a bus together. Happily ever
after? After just a minute, their two smiles quickly begin to fade in the
shortest honeymoon phase known to man. “The Graduate” shows that impulsive love
doesn’t normally work out. Generations of rom-coms to come always managed to
get this ending wrong. The common misinterpretation of this ending is used as a key plot point in “500 Days of Summer.”
Taxi Driver (1976)
“Wolf” isn’t the first time that somebody has gotten one of
Scorsese’s films wrong. “Taxi Driver” is one of cinema’s most haunting and
ambiguous works of art. Excuse me while I go hit myself in the head with a
hammer after writing that sentence. Anyway, the disturbed Travis Bickle (Robert
De Niro) shoots up an entire army of pimps in his efforts to save a teenage
prostitute. Yes, he saves a young girl’s life, but in the process he becomes
one of the maniacs that he hates. In the end, newspapers declare him a hero and
he evades jail time. Some might believe this is how we should actually feel
about him, while others find it ironic that a psychopath would be venerated by
the media. In an even more extreme case, John Hinckley Jr. was inspired by the
film and attempted to assassinate Ronald Regan. Sometimes, misinterpretation
leaves the realm of silly intellectual debate and turns into something much
more frightening.
Wall Street (1987)
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” This is the
most famous quote from “Wall Street,” and many people took it as a life
philosophy as opposed to a stern warning. The Gordon Gekko case is a failure of
irony. Then again, I would probably trust anybody with a cell phone that awesome.
Fittingly, one of the many people inspired by “greed is good” happened
to be an idealistic young stock broker named Jordan Belfort.
Knocked Up/Juno (2007)
Both of these comedies from 2007 explore unexpected
pregnancies and in both there is a key scene where a character decides to keep
the baby instead of getting an abortion. Immediately, many conservatives hailed
the film as strongly pro-life, showing that political people never miss out on
a single chance to push their agendas. Rather, their decisions were necessary
for the films. If Juno and Alison had opted to get abortions, then both
“Knocked Up” and “Juno” would have been over within 20 minutes.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
The funniest scene in a very funny movie comes when method
actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) explains to action star Tugg Speedman
(Ben Stiller) that if you want to win an Oscar, then you “never go full
retard.” Some considered this an assault on the mentally challenged, and
protests ensued. It is unfortunate that many saw this joke to be a malicious
one, as it is really pointing its finger at actors who try and exploit
disabilities. Funny, nobody ever got worked up over the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is wearing blackface for nearly the entire duration of "Tropic Thunder."
3 comments:
Great write-up. On the Tropic Thunder note, I think most people were offended by the repetitive use of the word retard rather than the point they were trying to make (which is a point that I agree with, along with your statement of exploitation).
I for one don't use the word and I am a strong supporter of the End the R-word campaign. But... I understand that was the best vocabulary that could be used to get the humor behind the point, and it is not as if the humor comes from one character telling another character who has done something stupid that he is "retarded".
Fabulous points! The viewers' interest might lead to proper understanding or misunderstanding of a movie's plot. It’s important to open your mind to all those various meanings and lessons that the story provides. Anyway, that’s the art of those movies. They’ll be giving life lessons behind those memorable and well-said lines. Thanks for sharing those, Ian! :)
Simon Walker @ The ViewLorium
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