It would be ironic if Adam McKay, better known for masterpieces like Talladega Nights and Anchorman, wins an Oscar for The Big Short — a film profiling the Wall Street misfits that made billions betting against the housing bubble at the heart of the financial meltdown. But it would also fit the script of an emerging trend in film. In the midst of a political season celebrating ‘outsiders’, cinema has similarly focused its gaze on outliers— unlikely stars working against the grain to illuminate deep social blindspots.
Three films have surprisingly defined this Oscars season, presenting vivid portrayals of the invention, integrity, and adversity that a cast of prescient outsiders face when taking on the powerful systems we are all embedded in: Concussion, Spotlight, and The Big Short.
“This is far beyond me.” Will Smith on boycotting the Oscars
Of course, a cruel and ironic twist in this year’s outlier script — a case of art imitating life in reverse — Concussion makes its presence in absentia. Despite a knockout performance in an unconventional role playing the shy, accented Nigerian-American forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu, Will Smith wasn’t nominated for Best Actor. Yet, like outliers, unappreciated in the moment but often belatedly recognized, the film might end up making the greatest societal impact from its position on the sidelines. Stay tuned…
“Fight the System” movies
These films might appear in your Netflix queue organized in the “fight the system” category, but they are slightly different than the narrative of a righteous minority taking on a corrupt machine. Yes, Bennet Omalu takes on the institution that “owns a day of the week” (NFL Football Sunday), while the team of investigative reporters in Spotlight challenge The Church. Finally, the oddball hedge fund analysts in The Big Short focus on the decider of worldly fates, The Global Financial System. Yet, beneath this David and Goliath narrative is a more subtle story about idiosyncratic figures who, by virtue of their liminal position, “make sense of the world in ways others cannot” — Malcolm Gladwell’s definition of the phenomenon from the book Outliers.
In the process of discovering the degenerative brain condition experienced by some NFL players Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), we learn that Dr. Bennet Omalu is deeply spiritual. This paradox — of synthesizing science and spirituality — informs his method of communicating with victims during forensic evaluations. In the film, Omalu’s unique method, combined with a lack of infatuation with “America’s game”, allows him to probe subjects with an added layer of inquisition when compared to colleagues.
Similarly, Spotlight profiles the stoic editor Marty Baron and the Boston Globe’s formidable, almost covert, deep investigative research unit Spotlight. Mr. Baron is an outsider, a Jewish editor from The Miami Herald, thrust on scene in Boston’s tightly woven Irish Catholic community. Meanwhile, the Spotlight reporters, a Dunkin’ Donuts chugging crew of investigative journalists who pursue research outside the demands a 24/7 news cycle, are becoming a rarity in American media by the time of the story in 2001. Yet, as this transition to digital hits news, the team is also beginning to experiment with new forms of data gathering and archival analysis to inform their investigations. Marty Baron’s socially liminal position and Spotlight’s mission of pursuing deep investigative stories, combines to create the journalistic infrastructure and editorial mindset needed to comprehensively interrogate a systematic cover up of child sexual abuse within The Catholic Church.
Finally, the eccentric analysts in The Big Short — led by the neurologist turned trading Scion Michael Burry, don’t fit the script of your average Wall Street traders. Burry, who has Aspergers, is stubbornly focused on seemingly insignificant details that allow him to notice patterns in foreclosure data well in advance of the market. Similarly, the analysts who follow Burry’s lead all sit on the outside looking in at Wall Street. Some, like the character Mark Baum, have chips on their shoulders looking to pick a fight with large financial institutions, while others like Jared Vennett create ironic distance from their colleagues, preferring to hang out with “fashion friends” instead of bankers. Meredith Whitney, featured in the book, is a History major known for prophetic calls on the housing market rather than a pure ‘quant’, while the Cornwall Capital team beat the market from their basement fund. Sitting on the outside, with a predisposition not to take Wall Street at its word, these outliers were able to see what many in power were incentivized to ignore but looks obvious in retrospect — there was a huge housing bubble!
While all three movies draw attention to the idiosyncratic qualities these prophetic outsiders exhibit, the films also highlight the heavy price that outliers pay when they question the authority of powerful social forces. Bennet Omalu and other scientists who led the discovery of CTE were ostracized by leaders in their profession, told to retract research papers, viciously attacked by the NFL, and marginalized in future funding requests. Similarly, The Boston Globe team had to confront tremendous social pressures and threats to the paper’s reputation when investigating a beloved institution at the core of their tightly knit community. Finally, as the housing bubble deflated, the teams in The Big Short faced criticism from investors and intense financial pressures from banks to prematurely liquidate their short positions against toxic CDO’s. Paradoxically, the more correct these outliers became, the more intense the pressure against them to equivocate.
“My mother was one of the greatest entertainers of all time, but she paid a huge price.” — Lisa Simone Kelly
To appreciate the enormous pains that outliers face when challenging dominant social conventions, one needs to look no further than this year’s Best Documentary Oscar nominees. What Happened, Miss Simone? and Amy present devastating stories of artists who faced intense scrutiny when deviating from the ideal image of the auteur. Nina Simone, a black classical pianist turned jazz superstar and then civil rights activist, faced intense racism when trying break into the music industry as a child, and was ostracized from the industry when her songs took on a political note in response to civil rights abuses and the assassination of Martin Luther King. At some points in her career, because of her activism and idiosyncrasies, she was nearly homeless — and throughout was deeply alone, writing songs like “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” almost calling out to express this experience. Meanwhile, Amy Winehouse, a reclusive Jazz and Blues prophet in an age of pop superstars, could never escape a media feeding frenzy that the musical press and reality TV programming demands from our unconventional stars.
Nina Simone and Amy Winehouse were outliers who were consumed by their deviation from the script. The documentaries, deftly directed by Liz Garbus and Asif Kapadia, call on audiences to reflect on the ways that our society can sometimes be so inhospitable to the outsider. We seem unable to fully appreciate their singularity until they’re gone. In retrospect we reflect, but in the moment we all too often fail to fully embrace their messages. This is perhaps why a 2015 film slate celebrating the outlier is encouraging — not least because studios like Participant, First Look Media, Plan B, and Scott Free produced stories that previously may not have been considered to be commercially viable. It presents a hope that we can celebrate unorthodox perspectives, gaining insight from their challenges to the status quo rather than a tragic retrospect. Perhaps the films also allow us to recognize and embrace the outlier qualities in ourselves — new research suggests that there is after all no such thing as ‘average’ — and follow our own deep convictions.
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