English 103
Professor Luke Vasielou
November 14, 2010
Trading Places : A True look at New York City in the 1980’s
The movie Trading places gives a realistic view of New York city back in the 1980’s. The reason being because it greatly depicts the to extreme spectrums of the class system in it. Showing a young, wealthy, white, stock broker who is on the up and up. Then showing a young, homeless, Blackman who is living day by day.
Back in the early 80’s the economy was trying to rebound from a horrible stint coming out of the 70’s. Stagflation a term that describes when unemployment and inflation rise, was raising through out the 70’s until it hit it’s all time high in 1980. Also the misery index in which adds the unemployment rate and the inflation rate together also hit it’s all time high in 1980 (wikipedia.com), so you could just imagine the poverty face by people in the early 80’s. Especially in New York city where the unemployment rate was above 9.7% in 1983(labor.gov.ny). That making the city worst off because it had already been in great debt from the 70’s.
But even though the economy was in turmoil things were becoming better little by little. Mostly on Wall Street where a phenomenon was being formed and it was called the “Yuppie”. “Yuppie” as they were called stood for young urban professional (Urbandictionary.com). Yuppies were just graduated from college and weren’t upwards the age of 24, they started to become popular in the early 80’s on Wall Street. As represented in the movie by Dan Aykroyd’s character William Winthorp yuppies were very wealthy. They usually live in upscale parts of Manhattan and were very well pampered.
Yuppies even though young did very well on Wall Street and were seen to be at that time the saviors and front runners to bring the United States economy back to fruition. Just look at this quote made by Jean Baudrillard;
“The Yuppies are not defectors from revolt, they are a new race, assured, amnestied, exculpated, moving with ease in the world of performance, mentally indifferent to any objective other than that of change and advertising.” Jean Baudrillard (Strangewoundrous.net)
But yuppies like William Winthorp in the movie were pretty much middle to upper class white kids who really probably never had to work a hard blue collar day in their life. With that type of reputation they were obviously resented by other people during that time where some many people in the city were fighting tooth and nail for every cent they could make. This made them a big target for robberies and thefts.
In the early 80’s robberies sky rocketed especially in 1981 where there was a reported 120,344 robberies (disastercenter.com) which was the largest amount reported up until that time. The race and class of people who were doing the robberies were lower class Hispanic and Black people. With that being stated there was a fear of those people as shown and very well depicted in a scene where Eddie Murphy’s character Bill Ray Valentine and Dan Aykroyd character bum into each other outside a meeting of the members of Duke & Duke a big Wall Street firm. In the scene as said Valentine bumps into Winthorp who is automatically gets the thought in his head that he was just robbed because when he was bumped his suitcase fell into valentine’s lap and without hesitation he screams for the police saying he is being robbed but even with valentine trying to give back his briefcase and reason being his so quick to think that is because that valentine is a Blackman and is in raggedy clothing.
Race relations in New York City or anywhere in America wasn’t that great in the 80’s. With the introduction of Ronald Reagan and his administration in the white house, Blacks were about to go through a time to where they would see the government basically forget about them and cut many programs that were implemented to specifically to help them, Hispanic Americans, and any other poverty stricken people. Ronald Reagan and his administration were hated and criticized by Blacks during the 80’s, people like Thurgood Marshall who was the first Black supreme court judge appointed ever to the supreme court who said this about Reagan;
"I think he's down with Hoover and that group…when we really didn't have a chance."(Encyclopedia.com)
Louis Farrakhan even going as far as saying that America should pay Blacks they’re reparations since they are not going to be taken care of;
"If America does not have the will to bring about a change within a permanent underclass, then…what does America owe us? Reparations must include the freeing of all blacks from state and federal penitentiaries. Then let us ask our brothers and sisters in Africa to set aside a separate territory for us, and let us take the money that America is spending to maintain these convicts and [invest it in] a new reality on the African continent."(encyclopedia.com)
Even though his policies and tactics were controversial, they did help the economy for whatever reason.
One of the places Reagan’s policies helped was Wall Street as I talked about with the yuppies. Wall Street is the worlds biggest stock trading Mecca. Back in the 80’s Wall Street was very corrupted in the fact that there were many illegal things being done. In the movie it shows this as the owners of the Duke & Duke Randolph and Mortimer pay a sort of informant to get them secret information for them to win a bet they had with some other stock broking firms and also for their company to become even wealthier. In the 80’s though there were many firsts and innovations that helped out with the frantic non stop buying and selling of stocks. In 1982 Wall Street had it’s first ever 100 million share day (NYSE.com) and also in 1984 the Super Dot 250 was implemented and it’s purpose was to connect the heads of stock broking firms to their trading floor people to better their buy and sell effectiveness (NYSE.com).
Now for all the good that happen for Wall Street from 1980 to 1986 in 1987 Wall Street crashed. It’s illegal ways finally caught up to it. “Black Monday” as it is known was back on October 19,1987.
The Rent at the time in New York City was also high. Which made it even more difficult to live in the city. With some many people either not making just enough money to scrap by or not making nearly enough money and having to move to public housing and other cheaper venues. This is depicted well in the movie when Jamie lee Curtis’s character Ophelia takes Winthorp to her apartment in the slums of the city and when talking about her home she says “ it’s not big ,but it’s cheap” which about sums up how it was in the city back then with rent.
Here’s the full plot summary of the movie:
In the movie Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, two men from
different backgrounds, ethnicities, financial circumstances etc… and shows how they’re surroundings dictate they’re behavior and personality. Trading Places takes places in the winter of 1983. The movie shows a young, wealthy, successful stock broker William Winthorp(Dan Aykroyd) working for a company Duke & Duke. This stock broking company he works for in the movie is controlled by two brothers; Ralph and Mortimer Duke. As I said before William Winthorp is a very successful stock broker,he lives in a very classy and rich neighborhood. He has a butler that also doubles as a his limo driver. He plans to marry to the Dukes niece and he is on the fast track of becoming even wealthier. On the other hand we have Billy Ray Valentine(Eddie Murphy) who is a crook and con artist. He’s a homeless man who rolls around on a wooden plank with wheels on it and beg or cons them into giving him money. His con is saying that he’s a lost his legs and his sight in the Vietnam war. He does whatever he has to do to survive. William and Billy cross paths when Billy is stopped and questioned by two cops in the park to see if he is a local con artist that they have had reports about and to do so they took away his rolling wooden plank to see he can walk and his glasses to see if he can see and they find that he was lying but let him go. Then after his plank gets taken away he walks back out of the park he was in and bumps into William and knocks him down to the ground by mistake William. When Billy says sorry to him he freaks out and says that Billy tried to rob him most likely he accuses him because of his race and the way he’s dressed as a bum. So when William accuses Billy of the robbery the same cops that let him go come back and arrest him with the Duke brothers looking on. The Duke brothers seeing this Randolph bets his brother that he could make Billy into a great executive and human being saying that Billy is a product of his surroundings and if the surrounding were changed that he would be a great executive, They also bet that William would resort to criminal activity if pushed to the brink and put around unsavory surroundings. So the Duke’s make the bet which is only for one dollar and set up a plan to where William is caught stealing money from the firm and will be arrested. When William is found the next day with the supposed stolen money on him he is immediately taken away by the cops and banished from the Duke’s firm. While in the mean time the Duke’s bail out Billy to see if he could be civilized and lose his criminal ways if put in a suitable and non hostile environment, so the Duke’s take him and tell him they will give him a Job at the firm and they also will provide him with a house, car, servant, etc.... Meanwhile that’s taking place William is in jail until he is bailed out by the Duke’s niece and then in which is gets his wedding engagement called off by her when the Duke’s henchman pays a prostitute to kiss him. That prostitute is Jamie lee Curtis’s character Ophelia which takes in William when he tells her about his situation. Billy and William live a couple a days in each other shoes and the Randolph Duke is proven right by in which Billy turning out to be a very bright businessman and William crashing the firms Christmas party trying to plant drugs in Billy’s desk and then pointing a gun at him making threats. But Billy finds out what the Duke’s did and goes and seeks out William and tells him about the bet and everything the Duke’s planned. So then Billy, William, Ophelia, and the butler create a plan to trick the Duke’s into selling stock which will eventually make them go broke and while they buy it and the money goes to them. All in all the plan works and Billy and William take down the Duke’s.
The 1980’s were a turbulent time in New York City everything considered. The movie Trading Places definitely depicts the city in the way it really was back then.
Citing page:
"Race Relations." American Decades. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (December 2, 2010). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3468303126.html
Highest Statewide Unemployment Rate Since 1983 Number of Unemployed in New York State Reaches New High . Albany: , 2009. Web. 2 Dec 2010.
"New york crime rates 1960-2009." disastercenter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2010.
"Quotes about yuppies." Strangewondrous.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2010.
"Firsts and records." NYSE.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2010.
"Yuppie." Urbandictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment