Please read the following:
From Morning in America Chapter 1985 Brooklyn, New York
From Morning in America Chapter 1986 Wall Street
From Living in the Eighties Reagonomics: The Rebirth of the Free Market
Article from Newsweek December 1984 (attached)
The Year of the Yuppie
Watch the following clips from Wall Street (1987) Gordon Gekko is a well known character in American cinema (and loosely based upon real estate developer Donald Trump of the 1980s). Gekko purchases controlling interest in companies and either breaks them up to make more money in the short term, or forces mergers with other companies to grow the business over the long term.
Wall Street (4/5) Movie CLIP Greed Is Good (1987) HD
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Bud Fox is an ambitious young trader in his early 20s that is being mentored by Gordon Gekko.
Bud Fox finds a home, This Must Be the Place, Wall Street.wmv
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Consider the film American Pyscho (2000). It is based on the book by Bret Easton Ellispublished in 1991. The scene is a satire of the greed and ambition that were reflected in the 1980s that enabled a brutal pyschopath like Patrick Bateman to go relatively unnoticed.
American Psycho -Business Card Scene
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PROMPT
Films like the movie Wall Street (1987) and literature like The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) were inspired by the resurgence of wealth and opulence that was celebrated by a Reagan economic Renaissance. Consider where the Reagan economic bonanza did not necessarily trickle down throughout the 1980s? Also, what connections can you make to the celebration and envy of the conspicuous consumption of the 1980s to 2022? Please be sure to avoid generalization and instead provide textual evidence from your current and previous readings / viewings.