This Is Why You Should Never Take Moral Lessons From Films You Stopped Watching Halfway Through

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Jordan Belfort (aka the Wolf of Wall Street) went to the 92nd St. Y to talk about how great and innocent and redeemed he is. The whole night was a predictable shit show with casual sexism and the like, but this bit struck me as particularly funny:

Belfort said people should realize that the actions portrayed in the film were bad and not something they should follow. “If you’re in this audience and you can’t go to see The Wolf of Wall Street and realize that that’s bad, then there’s something wrong with you. You are fundamentally screwed up. It’s obvious,” Belfort said. Belfort said that he idolized Gordon Gekko’s character in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. He said that had perhaps Gekko fallen, then he would have felt differently. “At least in The Wolf of Wall Street, I lose everything. My life is destroyed. I go to jail,” Belfort said.

In the end of Wall Street, Charlie Sheen wears a wire and narcs Gekko to the feds. Gekko is sentenced to more than a decade in prison and, upon his eventual release, a year of hard Shia.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate