A Look at The Ethical Conflict in Oliver Stone’s Movie, Wall Street

The movie Wall Street starts out with Bud Fox, a young stock broker for a smaller firm, compared to ones like Pierce & Pierce or Goldman Sachs. For a while, Fox has been eager to work for a man named Gordan Gekko, a man who knows Wall Street very well and is, in turn, known for his great ability to close amazing deals. Fox finally finds his way into Gekko’s office, which is by giving him a box of Cuban cigars for his birthday. While in Gekko’s office, Fox unsuccessfully threw stock after stock at Gecko, not impressing him and then, with a desperate attempt, he persuaded Gecko to be a buyer for a company that his father works for, by telling him some insider information. Fox was able to catch Gekko’s attention, and was provided work under him, but he proved to be unsuccessful in this regard. Gekko decides to give Fox another chance, but this last chance Gekko gives Fox ends up being his downfall. Fox, who was brought up under a father who works hard, and who instilled in him a set of ethics, is faced with the moral dilemma of possibly ensuring a great future for himself at the cost of his father’s job, and career. While things were getting great for Fox with the promise of expanding the company and him being the president of it, Gekko actually was digging Fox’s hole since his true plans were to destroy the airline company. As seen in this movie, Fox’s immoral and greedy actions put himself and others in a horrible position by working for an immoral man who had no feeling toward destroying others’ lives for the value of large amounts of cash.

The movie Wall Street initially introduces its viewers to a market that has sustained a downturn in regard to its sense of morality that formerly were previously the foundation of business within United States. The film addresses numerous problems of morality. It depicts two individuals in specific, one being Gekko, an affluent, shameless, however significant, figure in the corporate world, and Fox, an inexperienced, but lively stockbroker. The primary focal point of the film in regard to the economics shows to its viewers how avarice shapes the society.

In order to understand the moral decisions made within the film, it’s critical to first analyze the main characters of the movie, namely Fox and Gekko, and explore their decision-making processes, as well as the factors that contribute to their decision-making processes. Bud Fox is a determined stockbroker who approximates to a rough fifty grand annually. Fox was brought up by his father Carl, who is employed at BlueStar Airlines. Although Bud had been proposed a position within BlueStar Airlines, he kindly refused since he had his own goals that he wished to chase after. Fox presumes he must shape himself within the industry to be a prominent individual, no matter what. It is ultimately due to Fox’s thirst for reputation that he is blind to what Gekko is truly doing to his father’s company. Fox’s purpose is to “bag the elephant” which translates to executing successful relations with one of the major players within the industry of Wall Street. As aforementioned, Fox is a determined person; he called Gekko, his target major player, every day for two months, and even brought a personalized gift of Cuban cigars on Gekko’s birthday, which finally won him entrance to a conversation with Gekko.

Gekko is a wrecker of businesses, and is the nightmare of businesses who are performing weakly, and coming across problems. What Gekko does is seek any details or data on particular companies in order to use that information to destroy that company. When a prospective company is discovered and bought out, people like Gekko can then earn high-income profits by the means of eradication of that company’s goods and resources. One could state that Gekko is impelled by avarice due to his carelessness of the staff of companies he ruins; he seems to only care about the ever-increasing profits. Gekko has riches that others can only dream of, yet he continues to hunger for additional wealth relentlessly. Gekko’s character reveres useful data above anything else, and believes that this necessary data should be secured at whatever the cost. As the movie continues, the viewer gets a better understanding of Gekko, and can easily come up with the conclusion that Gekko never saw any potential within Fox, only another way for him to easily increase his profits. Striving towards his purpose, Gekko targets poverty-stricken, but intelligent individuals who are able to provide additional efforts to obtain useful data for him. These additional efforts mainly consist of illegal and unethical activities, such as what Fox had to do for Gekko. Gekko acknowledged that his avarice will not be powerful nor efficient alone, and therefore, he made sure to infect all his staff with the same avarice he has. Similarly, by stripping Fox away from the values instilled in him, and strengthening his thirst for a reputation, Gekko caused Fox to commit acts against his own values.

In the film, the moral dilemmas that the viewers experience is mainly due to the dissimilarities between Gekko, Fox, and Fox’s father’s moral perspective. Wall Street depicts the powerful, and social circumstances materializes within society, where rivalry and the thirst to earn more profits have made people forget about the significance of moral decisions. The film puts its viewers through a rollercoaster of a moral dilemma which an ambitious, youthful stockbroker comes across when he encounters the viability of reality. To reach his goals of becoming a major player within the industry in Wall Street, Fox chooses against his own ethics and values. Ultimately, Fox comes to a realization of his wrong-doings, and although this realization dawns upon him too late, and he is sent to jail at the end, he at least has enough ethics left to expose Gekko on his crimes as well, preventing Gekko from ruining many other people’s lives due to his careless actions. One can conclude that like everyone else, Fox merely made an irreversible mistake in his life. As an inexperienced amateur within industry, it’s understandable that Fox was truly fooled by Gekko, and due to Gekko’s reputation, blind to his true actions. The most memorable scene of the movie is when Gekko tells the viewers that he finally realized he’s just Fox; no matter how much he wanted to be Gekko, he’s always going to be Fox.