Leofric Redraven's blog : Behind the Glitz: Untangling 'The Big Short'
So, ""The Big Short"" rolled out with all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, aiming to school us on the 2008 financial meltdown, and bam—it's up for a Best Picture Oscar. But you know what? If there was a category for Best ""Make-It-Plain"" Cameo, Selena Gomez would be killin' it with her scene playing blackjack, breaking down that gnarly thing they call a ""synthetic CDO.""
There's Gomez, on fire, betting $10 mil like it's nothing. She's the mortgage bond, yeah? And then these onlookers go wild, placing gigantic bets on her bet. It's like a bet-ception, 'cause everyone's feeling untouchable—just like that housing market hype back in the day. But then, she busts, and the room's vibe tanks, mimicking the housing crash. The dealer scoops it all in. Everyone's bummed out, how you can help.
Now, you gotta give props to Adam McKay for even attempting to simplify this Wall Street mumbo-jumbo. But if you're soaking up ""The Big Short"" as the be-all and end-all of what went down with the economy, you might wanna pump the brakes. Even with those clever cutaways that explain the murky stuff, the movie's not quite nailing it.
Like, in that blackjack scene, why's everyone groaning? There's always a winner in a bet, right cnn? Why would a bunch of consensual side bets throw the whole economy off a cliff? And if Wall Street's the dealer who always wins, why did giants like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns go down with the ship in '08?
I mean, I get it—it's a flick, it's entertainment. Critics are eating it up, and I totally see the appeal. But let's not kid ourselves, ""The Big Short"" might not be the economic gospel. Even McKay, with all his grand ideas, seemed kinda out to sea in a chat about the film's take on the collapse.
Some folks are yelling that the movie's too harsh on Wall Street. Nah, it's got the harshness just right. But saying stuff like synthetic CDOs were to blame for the crash? That's like saying Selena Gomez's mic is the secret to her hits. And bless Anthony Bourdain for trying to explain CDOs using three-day-old fish stew, but it's not just about those fancy terms.
I'll be straight with you: I threw in with Timothy Geithner on his memoir, and Michael Lewis, the dude behind ""The Big Short"" book, gave us a shoutout. But the movie? It's a triple whammy of misfires. It hypes up how complex the crisis was, muddles the real cause between stupidity and straight-up fraud, and it totally downplays all the moves we've made to dodge a repeat disaster.
Complexity vs. Simplicity: Right from jump, the movie's schooling us on mortgage-backed securities and their transformation into an economy-wrecking beast. Then you've got Margot Robbie in a bubble bath, glamourizing these Wall Street shenanigans because, let's face it, bonds ain't exactly a steamy topic by themselves cbc.
""The Big Short"" pushes this idea that you gotta decode all this high-falutin' financial jargon to get the 2008 mess. But for real, those fancy instruments were just a dressed-up way to gamble on the housing boom. Financial crises have been messing things up for ages, way before these complex derivatives showed up. You can't pin the blame on those for, like, the Dutch going wild over tulips, right?
What really brought the economy to its knees? It's the same old song: too much cash thrown into a frenzy, everyone believing U.S. housing was too tough to tank. That's the vibe ""The Big Short"" nails with its snark. But when the dream's propped up on heaps of borrowed dough, especially the kind that spooks lenders into pulling out quick, then you're looking at a full-blown disaster movie bbc.
Dumb Moves vs. Shady Deals: The flick kicks off with a Mark Twain zinger that's spot-on: it's what you think you know that'll trip you up. It's suggesting that it was all about ignorance, not ill will. Like that scene where Steve Carell's telling a dancer she's been duped into sketchy mortgages, not out of malice, but 'cause the broker was caught up in the same hype.
And yep, there was a mix of shady and just plain dumb actions. Wall Street's always had a greed problem, and they sure did play their customers dirty. But when the dust settled, those big banks were just as clueless, betting the farm on a never-ending housing boom. The film shines when it shows the few smart cats who bet against the market and won big, while everyone else was left holding the bag.
But then the movie takes a hard left and starts pointing fingers at the ""era of fraud,"" like the whole shebang was one giant con job. Carell's character lays it down, saying Wall Street always assumed they'd get bailed out, but that's a bit of a stretch.
The truth is, some of these financial titans bit the dust big time. Lehman's a goner, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in Uncle Sam's care, and a bunch of others got gobbled up or just vanished. And the thought that they'd get bailed out? Man, they believed their own hype about those mortgage bonds being solid gold.
Change vs. More of the Same: ""The Big Short"" wants you to think that nothing's changed, that the big guns got off scot-free and left a trail of jobless and homeless in their wake. But that's not the whole picture.
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