If you like watching men in suits debate the values of dividends and interest rates, Leonardo Dicaprio tossing a midget while praising penny stocks, or Michael Douglas uttering the now infamous line, “greed is good,” then you may be a fan of market porn. There has been a long history of films depicting the volatile and alluring lifestyle of the Wall Street players. These films, like the recently Oscar nominated Big Short and TV’s the Billions and Madoff miniseries, are prime examples of America's continued love of market porn.
The question is, do we watch market porn to see greedy Wall Street crooks receive swift justice, or do we enjoy the fantasy of living an extravagant, yet hollow, life. “We both hate these people and what the represent, but we also get caught up in some of the action,” Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn said on Boston Public Radio Wednesday.
It is hard to watch the unscrupulous mortgage lenders and investors in the Big Short and not think, you time will soon come. There is an undeniable glee from knowing this information. At the same time, we wish, especially before the involvement of the FBI, that we could for one day live the life of a Gordon Gekko or Jordan Belfort. These movies depict how easy it is to become seduced by money and in turn, criminals.
Koehn agrees that is hard to not get caught up in the lavish lives of the Hollywood Wall Streeters depicted in market porn. “When it turns out that’s the case you feel both this sense of revulsion at what you’ve just seen and indirectly participated in by rooting for these folks and some moral outrage. We’re angry at them and in strange way, we envy them,” Koehn said.
Our love of market porn would suggest that in the end we are more envious of the money makers rather than angry by their criminal exploits. Even after watching Bud Fox sell out Gordon Gekko almost 30 years later, thousands still join Wall Street every year, and we still can’t watch enough of their mistakes.
Nancy Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School. Click above to hear her interview with Boston Public Radio.
