Wolf on Wall Street: Jordan Belfort's Communication Behavior

This past week in Intercultural Communication, the class voted on a film to evaluate and compare to the course concepts in the textbook. The chosen film was Wolf on Wall Street, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of the infamous Jordan Belfort. For those who do not know the tale of Jordan Belfort; he was a famous stockbroker who pleaded guilty to fraud and other crimes that were related to connections with the stock-market in 1999 (Riel & Yatsldis). The film exposes Belfort for his manipulating personality and the culture behind Wall Street.

Throughout this analysis I will discuss the character of Mr. Belfort and a few important scenes that relate to the course concepts. For the audience observing Wolf on Wall Street, Jordan Belfort represented a multi-million dollar scam artist who lived out a luxurious lifestyle due to his brokerage firm; Stratton Oakmont. Belfort viewed the world as his oyster; anyone and everyone could invest in his stocks if he wanted them to.

“This right here is the land of opportunity. This is America. This is my home! The show goes on! (‘The Wolf of Wall Street’)”. He believed he could take advantage of everyone he came across and he did. Toward the end of the film, he was convicted for fraud and money laundering. Consequently, he was sentenced to two months in prison and reimbursing two-hundred million dollars. Belfort’s attitude throughout the film can be described as confident, determined and secretive.

In addition, the three best scenes that relate to the course concepts would be when Belfort first begins working on Wall Street, his view towards women throughout the film and his motivational speeches at the office.

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I chose the scene that Belfort first begins his position on Wall Street, because I can relate this scene to how his communication behavior was learned in this environment. Secondly, I chose his view on women and his verbal notions while communicating. I noticed on multiple occasions throughout the film that Belfort would only address the men in the office, even though there were many women employed as well. He also had a tendency throughout the film to treat women as an object. Lastly, Jordan’s body movement is very important in his business. Everyone wants to be Belfort and his presence has a determined manner to it.

The film initially begins when Belfort receives his first “real” job on Wall Street at age twenty-two. Although communication behavior is linked between biology and culture, culture is a huge influencer for Belfort at this time and age (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2013). Entering the world of Wall Street, he met many individuals that taught him numerous behavior patterns, which taught him how to communicate with the public. One of these individuals was Mark Hanna. Mark Hanna was Belfort’s first educator on the stock market and Wall Street. “Number one rule of Wall Street. Nobody…and I don’t care if you’re Warren Buffet of if you’re Jimmy Buffet. Nobody knows if a stock is going to go up, down, sideways or in fucking circles. Least of all, stockbrokers, right (‘The Wolf of Wall Street’)?” Even in his office, he learned how to speak to his co-workers by cussing. He carried this on to Stratton Oakmont as well, where his employees learned to speak with each other using slang and cusswords. However, it is obvious that Jordan did not learn this behavior in his previous years. When he first got on Wall Street it was a new world for him; people spoke differently than what he was taught. This is an obvious example on how communication behavior is learned.

Furthermore, playing off the idea of communication behavior, is gender roles. In the beginning of the film Jordan loved his wife and treated her the way she should be treated. When he began working on Wall Street he became consumed with women’s looks. Naomi is just one example. From a slight glance from his balcony, Jordan ignored his wife and continued to flirt with Naomi. The two women are represented completely different. Belfort is extremely selfish in this film, so choosing Naomi over his wife was a no-brainer because she was what was best for him. Her attractiveness gave him attention. In addition, the female characters throughout the film are degraded by the male characters. The acts of Belfort and his companions are seen as “tolerable.” The film portrays dishonesty and unfaithfulness as a norm for a relationship, but it also shows women as only objects. Belfort even encourages his employers to carry-out the same actions and behaviors. Even when speaking to Naomi, Jordan has little contempt for her feelings. This is portrayed in a scene when Jordan drunkenly lands his private helicopter on the lawn that Naomi perfected. “Oh my God! You had to deal with the golf course people too! What a Greek tragedy! Honey oh my God! You probably had to pay them cash with your hands! What a fucking burden you actually had to do some work besides swiping my fucking credit card all day? Huh? Cause I can’t keep track of your professions honey! Last month you were a wine connoisseur and now you’re an aspiring landscape architect, isn’t that right (‘The Wolf of Wall Street’)?” This is a portrayal of what women are viewed as in this film as well as they way they are spoken to and treated.

Although Jordan treats the women in his life this way, it still does not take away from his body language and demeanor. Body movement is extremely important to this film because there is so much more to Jordan than his words. Throughout the film, Jordan uses his hands, head and body to communicate expressively (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2013). This is called kinesics; the study of how movement communicates (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2013). Most of his body movements are clearly intentional. He gave powerful presentation that rallied his brokers through his body language. He showed excitement through banging a microphone against his head, dancing with co-works and jumping around with joy.

Aside from these three scenes, there are also cultural interactions between Belfort and other companions in the movie. Belfort is very opinionated when it comes to people of different cultural backgrounds. One example of this is when Belfort was on his yacht with the FBI investigators, who have a different cultural economic standpoint on life. “I’m sure. Good luck on that subway ride home to your miserable ugly fucking wives. I’m gonna have Heidi lick some caviar off my balls in the meantime. Hey, you guys want to take some lobsters for your ride home. (‘The Wolf of Wall Street’).” This is an obvious opinion about the lower economic class from Belfort. Another cultural background opinion of Belfort was of his Swedish banker. He thought extremely high of his Swedish banker because of his ways around the law. The country of Sweden benefited him greatly, so he thought highly of them. So, he bases his cultural prejudices off of how beneficial someone is to his personal gain.

In conclusion, the three scenes that I chose were easy to relate to the course concepts. The three best scenes that relate to the course concepts would be when Belfort first begins working on Wall Street, his view towards women throughout the film and his motivational speeches at the office. Besides the three scenes that I previously discussed, Belfort also displays obvious opinions towards culturally different people. The two that were visibly clear in the film was his view on lower economic status individuals and higher economic status individuals.

There were so many course concepts that could have been discussed in this essay, but I thought the ones I chose were shown the most throughout the film. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and the way it brought everything together that we have learned throughout the chapters.