Greed is . . . Sorta OK

Bull

National Review Online, September 10, 2000

It could be time to sell. In 1987, Hollywood gave us Wall Street. The market promptly cratered. 1929 saw the release of not one, but two films with Wall Street in the title. They were followed by the Great Crash and the even greater Depression. Well, I don't want to panic anyone but this year we've already had one stockbroker movie, Boiler Room. Now TV is following suit with two Wall Street-themed shows, Fox's The Street (set for November) and TNT's new weekly drama, Bull. There's another reason for the market to be nervous. Wall Street is a place that Hollywood just loves to bash. Just think back to Gordon Gekko or Danny DeVito in Other People's Money. Boiler Room too was hardly flattering. At first glance, Bull seemed certain to follow the same course. Within minutes we have met Corey Granville, a bond salesman at investment bank Merriweather Marx. He is doing well, but behind his back, the firm's WASPily distinguished patriarch wonders aloud whether Granville understands that there's a "glass ceiling in [his] future". Corey, of course, is African-American.

The patriarch, Robert "the Kaiser" Roberts, is quickly set up as a monster, a Skull and Bones savage straight from central casting. We see him compounding his racism with hypocrisy (he loans Corey "his" table at Lutece) and casual sexism, offhandedly delegating this task to his "girl." The term, outraged viewers will know, is "administrative assistant." For extra flavor, there's an echo of Gekko. The Kaiser arranges an insider trade, organizing the transaction in such a way that, if it is discovered, Marissa Rufo, an innocent associate, will take the blame. The innocent associate is, naturally, ethnic, female and from a working class family. To put icing on the bottom of the cake, we discover later that Ms. Rufo's mother has Alzheimer's.

In another episode predatory financiers launch a greenmailing attack on the regular folks in a "real business." This "real business" is a familiar cast member in movies about finance, and is generally used as a proxy for the concerns of Main Street. In the 1987 Wall Street the sacrificial lamb was an aviation firm, while in "Other People's Money," the designated victim was an old New England wire and cable manufacturer. At some point a noble employee of the menaced company always makes a speech about how the investment bankers should "stop going for the easy buck and start producing something."

In Bull the threat was to Ashton Paper, the principal employer in an, of course, idyllic, Bedford Falls, Mayberry sort of town (red, white and blue bunting, Patsy Cline playing in the local diner). The moving speech is made, one of the investment bankers has the obligatory crisis of conscience, but then, and here's the rub, the greenmail succeeds. If that's not surprising enough, the greenmailer, "Lasky the Liquidator" (marvelously played by Stanley Tucci), works for the show's good guys, HSD Capital, a rival firm set up by defectors from Merriweather Marx and led by the patriarch's grandson.

Successful greenmail? Investment bankers as good guys? That's what I call popular capitalism. Bull is a drama for our 401(k) age, a CNBC lite for the new investor class (at times, confusingly so — there's a break in the show for a "Bull Report" containing real financial news). For at least as long as the current prosperity endures, the Oliver Stone, hostile approach to Wall Street is likely to be a hard sell. Bull's producer has been quoted as saying that "sixty percent of Americans own stock. Wall Street is not for the Gordon Gekkos of the world any more. Wall Street is us." Coming from Hollywood, that's pretty encouraging.

On the details, sadly, Bull is not very accurate. Viewers hoping to learn something about the capital markets might as well take up medicine on the basis of watching ER. Vaguely impressive sounding technical terms are thrown into the dialog, and, in one case, a seduction, but, like Star Trek's dilithium crystals, they wouldn't get you anywhere in the real world. The type of business that the firms do is also unclear, as is how they do it. Merriweather Marx is, apparently, a world leader, despite having a trading floor of only about 25 people (some of whom use cellular phones on that trading floor, a no-no in today's era of compulsorily taped calls).

The defectors, meanwhile, are able to open up for business overnight (impossible, given the time-consuming regulatory procedures imposed on new securities businesses). Their firm appears to be an M&A boutique with a sideline in commodities trading, an impressive achievement for a company with a payroll in the single figures. Then there's the wardrobe. Investment bankers these days tend to dress down, each expressing their individuality in chinos, blazers and polo shirts. The men in Bull, by contrast, seem to take their lead from an issue of GQ, circa 1985. Demonstrating the height of Milken-era chic, they wear power suspenders, and in one shocking incident, a yellow tie.

But this is to nitpick. The important thing is that a TV show is being made in which it is not, automatically, a sin to win on Wall Street. Indeed, when the grandson tells his team to go out and "grab some green," the audience is meant to cheer, not jeer. This is real progress. Seen in this light, the portrayal of Patriarch Roberts is a familiar plot device: villains have to be villainous. Of course, the fact that he is a WASP archetype is no coincidence in our PC times, and nor is the decision to make him both racist and sexist. In contemporary Hollywood, there are no greater offenses.

So, which will prevail, Bull's underlying positive message or the annoying political correctness in which it is clothed? Will it remain as entertaining as LA Law or will it descend into the soupy moralizing that wrecked the later M.A.S.H? After only three episodes, it's too early to say, but watching the development of a number of the key characters will give a good idea.

The most important of these is Lasky the Liquidator. Hunter Lasky, brought into the upstart firm as a rainmaker, looks like being the show's equivalent of LA Law's Douglas Brackman, a thinning-on-top older guy with an eye to the bottom line. His cynical observations are a way for Bull's writers to signal that they still have their doubts about Wall Street. If Lasky turns really nasty, that will be a bad sign. As it will be if his mistress, Alison Jeffers, the show's obligatory ambitious blonde, keeps failing to sleep with important clients. Alison dear, that's what ambitious blondes do. Corey Granville, meanwhile, needs to concentrate on his career. We've already had warning of a cliched "what does it mean to be an African-American on Wall Street" sub-plot.

Finally, and worst, potentially, of all, some of the HSD team is shown attending a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton. If these people are Democrats, Bull is a sell. Fortunately, there could be another explanation. The staff at HSD trade commodities, but not, judging by one episode, very well. Perhaps they were just going to our cattle futures-trading First Lady for advice.

Given her record in that field, that would be just fine, and so, for now, is Bull.