When Film Critics Attack

So, recently, I was on Twitter, when Bob Chipman, better known on the Internet as MovieBob, retweeted this article by Devin Faraci. In it, he makes light of the backlash that the Wolf of Wall Street was made. Also, he refers to another blog/letter, saying, and I quote, "I can call you Marty and Leo, right? It's all the rage with dummies penning open letters to you guys."

Now, I love a good laugh, and the article was actually funny. I figured the linked article was someone missing the point that, even if the film may somewhat aggrandize the lifestyle of the scumbags the movie is based on, it will also condemn them. I figured that the author of the piece missed that.

Boy, could I not be more wrong.

The linked article was written by Christina McDowell. The name shouldn't sound familiar, but her former last name, that of her father, Prousalis should. He was a former associate of the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort. In fact, in his trial, Belfort was supposed to be a key witness, but his testimony was silenced to avoid further revelations of even deeper corruption.

No, this was not a critic of the film, it was a critic of the morally bankrupt Hollywood looking to take a horrible slice of many people's lives, film it in glorious technicolour, and then go about collecting accolades for being "brave" and "risktakers." She was attacking the fact that Fox Pictures paid the Wolf 1 million dollars to obtain the rights to his story, even when he had a judgement outstanding for the $110.4 million he stole from those he conned.

And yet, she is the "dumb" one.

I saw this as a total lack of class. I called him on it via Twitter, and their responses were.... well....

@the_moviebob @pawkeshup it's pretty clear she didn't even see the movie, so she's a dummy for going out w/ a public statement like that
— Devin Faraci (@devincf) December 28, 2013

@Pawkeshup @devincf no, she "deserves" it for her, frankly, DUMB level of cinematic understanding.
— Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) December 28, 2013

Then one of their friends jumped into the extended conversation with this gem:

@the_moviebob @Pawkeshup @devincf accusing Marty and Leo of trying to "profit" off of her misery is just the lowest, most ridiculous thing.
— Andy Crump (@agracru) December 28, 2013

Oddly, when I reminded all these fine gentleman that the villain of the film, the Wolf himself, had actually profited yet again even in just obtaining the rights (forget any other ways he could parlay his new-found resurgent infamy into something more), they all fell oddly silent.

You see, before you start preaching about how people don't "get" cinema, you should first realize that when you talk about a movie based on real events, featuring people who have living relatives and, in this case, living victims, sometimes you should show some goddamn base level of respect when they object to paying and glorifying a piece of scum like the Wolf of Wall Street.

Edit:

As of this writing, the movie was already nominated for an award and had drawn about $22 million, not yet clearing the $100 million production costs. It would be nice to see it stagnate at around the $50 million mark, making it a loss for the studio overall.

Edit #2:

Well the Twittering continued between myself and Andy Crumb. And while I think we disagree on some points over the film and what it could me, I can say that from my side I do respect his insights and think that, honestly, he can at the very least see mine.

This movie, as even he said, is going to start a civil war of words, and that might be the best thing that can come from it. The one thing that we both do agree on is that anyone who comes out of this film feeling as though they want to be Belfort, they should immediately feel ashamed to lower themselves to the level of scum he truly is.