The Wolf of Wall Street

 Phil Dunphy:  I'm all about taking it to the next level.  
Claire Dunphy:  Really? I thought you were all about keeping it real.
Phil Dunphy:  Yes, but the whole point of keeping it real is so you can take it to the next level.  Did you really not know that?

As we swerve from America's kindest TV dad to Hollywood's incarnation of unfiltered, throbbing id in the film The Wolf of Wall Street we must ask a similar question - Do people really not see that the film is not - emphatically not - a glamorization of the character upon whom the film was based, Wall Street bad boy Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio)?  To even the consider the idea that the film tries to glamorize this man indicates how much greed has corroded the culture.  No, director Martin Scorsese does not superimpose a big red arrow atop DiCaprio's brow with a caption saying  THIS IS A BAD GUY, but surely anyone young enough to be  so distracted by the fast women and faster cars would not be allowed in the theatre without adult supervision.

We should know better by now.  The director of Mean Streets reminds us that his role of the artist is to be true to the characters, not to the demands of the self-righteous scold of your choice.
Jordan Belfort was a hotshot Wall Street broker who started humbly in an established brokerage but soon enough struck out on his own.  Stratton Oakmont (a gloriously BS name; there were never any such principals named that) made money the new-fashioned way - sweet-talking dim-witted 98%ers into making investments and then just pocketing the money.  Belfort made millions which he spent on a grand house in Long Island (reasonable enough), super sexy cars (not my thing, but to each his own), and women and drugs (as Gielgud said so wonderfully in Chariots of Fire, This is where our paths diverge.)

It's easy for most people to look down their noses at such a 'ludes guzzling whorehound.  I submit, however, that there are people in corporations who are every bit as greedy for money as Belfort was, but just happen to go home to the suburbs in the evenings, are (reasonably) faithful to their spouses, and are content with a tumbler or two of a good scotch.

How else do you account for people like the Koch brothers who spent millions to fight unions in Wisconsin, or the embarrassing, gruesome, fingernails-filled-with-skin battles over letting the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy expire?  Think about the adulteration to foods people in conglomerates sign off on (e.g. high fructose corn syrup) to keep share prices high, or McDonald's paying their employees' salaries with bank cards that charge the holders fees just to check their balances.

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No surprise to see Scorsese is still aiming for the fence but tons of continued admiration.  Is he given enough credit for the energy with which he imbues these worlds he creates?  Jonah Hill plays a kind of factionalized version of Belfort's right hand man (and partner in debauchery) Donnie Azoff. Hill has a relatable, natural manner of speaking that he uses to hilarious effect when he explains how he is not / is married to his first cousin.

And of course there's Leonardo DiCaprio's performance, which as of this writing has just earned him a BAFTA nomination.  Deservedly so; he's magnificent and gives a performance  the ages.  When he's making a "rally the troops" speech to his employees he does maybe two or three seconds - blink and you miss it - of Pentecostal holy dancing.  The only reason I didn't give him a standing ovation right then was not concern for disturbing the rest of the audience but simply because I didn't want yo miss whatever he was going to do or say next. 

And I'm wondering if something else didn't animate his portrayal.  A supremely talented and successful movie star (actor, yes, but star, too) has just as much access to goodies as Belfort; probably more.  What keeps a person in line morally when they don't have to be?  What keeps any of us in line?