Like practically all Americans with (meager) holdings on the New York Stock Exchange, I watched in dismay as my stocks plummeted on Friday. Oil prices spiked, which caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plunge by almost 400 points, just more than 3% of its total value. The Nasdaq echoed the Dow’s performance, losing 3% of its value as well. The amount of trading was the heaviest the market has seen since March, and the bedlam on both the trading floor and in the offices of the brokerage houses must have been truly remarkable.

In his film Boiler Room (2000), director Ben Younger attempted to capture not only the excitement of the investment brokerage world, but also provide some insight into the characters who inhabit it. I grew up in suburban Connecticut, about as far away from New York City as the fictional firm J.T. Marlin was located. There’s a certain class of suburban white male that romanticizes hip-hop culture but approaches it only in a peripheral sense, and my hometown possessed more than a few such teenagers. I’m not talking about wiggers, who slavishly imitate every outfit, accessory, and mannerism that they perceive as representing black culture and desperately yearn for acceptance from their idols, I’m talking about middle-class white youths who somehow gleaned the notion that inner-city life is infinitely more exiting and rewarding than their own mundane existence, but only experience it through music and movies, and never on a firsthand basis.

The Film: Boiler Room

The Song: “What a Thug About”

The Artist: Beanie Sigel

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