ABSTRACT
In 1987 Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street opened in theaters on the heels of the insider trading scandals that sent several American stockbrokers to prison. The movie introduced the fi ctional character Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a Wall Street titan who became an iconic representation of greed and power. Twenty-three years later, in 2010, Stone made Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps , a response to the 2008 Wall Street debacle considered the worst economic crisis ever. 1 In Money Never Sleeps , Gekko reappears after a stint in federal prison for insider trading, wanting to reconnect with his estranged daughter and to reinstate himself in the fi nancial community. Both Wall Street movies tell fi ctionalized stories set against real historical events, use culturally specifi c locations and interiors, and involve family relationships. Given that Stone’s father worked as a broker on Wall Street, both fi lms were personally meaningful.
