The theory of alienation is a concept by Karl Marx, where he describes what he calls the alienation(Entfremdung) of man from his Gattungswesen — species-essence, or essentially, his true nature. Marx extensively describes how a man, living and working in a capitalistic system of society, gradually loses all connection to everything that form his essence — from the product of his labor, the act of labor, his human essence and finally, society itself. In this essay, I aim to explore this theory using the plot of a quite popular film, The Wolf of Wall Street. I would attempt to analyse the film, charting the character’s arc and drawing parallels to the theory.
For man, work is an essential defining quality of his/her individuality.In a capitalist society, the class division, between the bourgeoisie(or the owners) and the proletariat(or the workers), means that the workers ultimately do not work for themselves, thereby losing all attachment to their work. Workers attach no meaning to their labor, or the product of their labor — this is what Marx refers to as ‘alienation’. Eventually, the workers begin to disassociate from their own sense of self and then the society at large. This, essentially, is what the theory of alienation is all about.
The movie The Wolf of Wall Street, released in 2013, successfully depicts this theory through its protagonist Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker in New York City. It tracks Belfort’s career, from a young and ambitious newcomer, to one of the wealthiest people on Wall Street, to, finally, a federal criminal. The film was wildly successful commercially, and received critical appreciation as well, for depicting the very harsh, but oft-ignored reality of Wall Street.
Belfort joins Wall Street as an ambitious, young man, with clean intentions, looking to make an honest living in the field of stockbroking. However, he quickly finds himself entrenched in the “stockbroker culture” — comprising of drugs and prostitutes, primarily — and is repeatedly told that the only aim of a stockbroker is to make money. As the film goes on, Belfort adapts to this culture, using backhanded tactics to make money illegally and even succeeds in it, albeit for a short while, before crashing to the ground and hitting rock bottom.
The theory of alienation could not have been depicted in a more accurate and a more hard-hitting way. Wall Street has always been famous for the sort of ruthless, harsh work practices that have been depicted in the movie. As in the movie, so in reality, the aim of stockbrokers is, and has always been, making money. The actual process of stockbroking, the process of labor, has no meaning for the stockbrokers. After a point, even the money, the product of their labour, seems to become meaningless. The cruel, big-fish-eat-little-fish nature of Wall Street alienates the stockbrokers from those around them — rising to the top is their prime motive and everyone else is competition to be eliminated. The sheer emptiness of their job pushes them into drugs and meaningless sex — which provides a fleeting sense of contentment but goes on to numb them, in the long run.
Belfort goes through the same arc. There are multiple instances in the movie where the theory of alienation and the aspects of the theory can be seen directly at play. For instance, to cope with the emptiness brokers feel working at Wall Street, they often and quite extensively use drugs and sex to keep them sane. In the beginning of the film, on Belfort’s first day at Wall Street, he sees his boss openly using drugs. He goes on to ask him how he manages to work while using drugs. The boss’s reply is actually a very strong statement that sums up the culture of Wall Street; he replies, very matter-of-factly, “How the f*** else would you do this job? Cocaine and hookers, my friend”. The drugs, the sex — it effectively numbs them, to the point, where they lose all sense of self. In fact, this alienation from self culminates to a scene where Belfort is, for a brief period, in “a cerebral palsy phase”, because of the drugs.
Another example — Belfort’s rise to the top is, naturally, not just his hard work but also the “friends” he makes there. They are instrumental to his rise — he extensively and conveniently uses them to do his dirty work. Ultimately, it is a “friend” who rats him out to the FBI that leads to his arrest. The nature of the work at Wall Street is such that it does not allow for any emotions like affinity or love of any sort. Any sort of sensitivity is not approved of. Belfort’s “friends” are not formed out of respect or admiration as they would for the rest of us — his friends are all work associates who didn’t think twice before pushing him under the bus. There is no human connection at all — they’re completely alienated from the society around them.
Throughout the film, we see the character successively go through the various aspects of alienation. He works and lives in a deeply capitalistic system — while he did start off with passion, by the end of the film, his pursuit became meaningless — he is detached from his work, detached from the end product, detached from those around him and detached from himself.
The Wolf of Wall Street was successful not just because of the actors or Martin Scorcese’s direction — it was a success because of the reality it presents and the blunt way it is presented. The theory of alienation is quite simple and easy to understand — mostly because most of us find ourselves in the same situation. The accuracy of the theory is shocking, to say the least. It provides us with a strong framework to understand reality. We can, and we should, use it to change our lives for the better.
