In the earlier months of 2016, before the dark results of the election were even a thought in people’s minds, Jodie Foster’s fourth feature length directing effort, Money Monster, was released. In a similar vein to The Big Short, there is disdain lobbied at the financial institutions and the few people who control them that seem to get to decide who and/or what becomes wealthier. The anchor to this theme is Lee Gates (George Clooney), the expectedly cheesy host of a financial investment advisement show called Money Monster (think Mad Money starring Jim Cramer). With the trifecta of male screenwriters behind the story, Alan DiFiore, Jim Kouf and Jamie Linden, there seems to be a heightened take on the culpability for everyone’s misery being placed squarely on the shoulders of the Caucasian rich man. In this case, it’s Walt Camby (Dominic West, always good in the “unwitting” dickhead role, just watch 28 Days for further proof), the CEO of the nebulously named IBIS Clear Capital.
After Lee claimed investing in Ibis was “safer than a savings account,” the company’s stock summarily plummeted due to, as stated vehemently by every spokesperson for the company, a technical “glitch” in the algorithm. But like all post-1999 movies involving Julia Roberts and George Clooney, there is some sort of political foul play afoot. Some sort of rigged game waiting to be exposed. And the person to do that exposing is everyman Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell, sort of an Ethan Hawke type), one of countless shareholders who lost a piece of the $800 million pie that went “poof” into the air because of the so-called glitch. But unlike the other shareholders, Kyle has chosen to be the only one “here with a gun” to seek recompense of some kind for all. He knows, however, that said recompense cannot come in the form of tangible payment. No, what he seeks is a level of justice that would prove far more satisfying: cutting off one of the most important tentacles in the giant octopus called Wall Street, the ultimate synecdoche for corporate America and the insensitive pricks who run it. That tentacle, in this case, is Lee, who can’t even compel his viewers to buy up the stock again as his life hangs in the balance because, as Kyle puts it, “Even you don’t buy your own bullshit.” With the realization that he’s easily one of the most hated men in America (of which there are so many), Lee begins to question the lies he’s readily swallowed for the sake of being a pleasing lackey, awakened to his easy and comfortable blindness with a homemade bomb now strapped to his chest as Kyle screams, “You just sit there behind their little fucking desk, like their little fucking puppet, buying into their bullshit instead of trying to figure out what really happened.” The thing is, Lee isn’t the only person complacent about readily receiving the spoon-fed lies of those that are in control. Sure, Lee’s viewers might “casually” question the reasoning behind failed investments with a wink and a nod, but, at the end of the day, they’re all going to go on with their lives excusing away the pain of financial loss with the belief that they were born into a certain station in life that can’t be altered–despite the theoretical tenets of capitalism insisting otherwise.
Kyle, a rare breed of working class white man, isn’t willing to be so complacent. Is in fact willing to die to find out the answers he feels he and every other gambler on IBIS is entitled to know. And while he might be able to get everyone momentarily on board with his cause, even stoic and endlessly professional Money Monster producer Patty Fenn (Roberts), the unintentional message Foster and the DiFiore/Kouf/Linden trifecta end up conveying is that when one story gets “put to bed,” it’s only natural for another to arise, continuing the endless cycle of the American monster called thirsting for villains to string up and watch hang until another pale-shaded body materializes. It’s simply how we deal with our contempt for impossible disparity that can seemingly never be remedied in a country so quick to falsely declare “unalienable rights” are given to everyone seeking “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The problem is, those already born into fortunate circumstances have the means to oust those attempting these basic goals with their own pursuit of money, more money and even more money. They are the money monsters–the boogeymen–that will always regenerate when his schemes and ill-doings are laid bare to the public. This doesn’t matter. Corruption has far more than nine lives and will eternally reproduce itself in one form or another. Luckily, the American industry of journalism in all its incarnations can, at the very least, feed and profit off of this self-evident truth.
