“The Wolf of Wall Street” — the Movie
As we recently saw with my review of Jordan Belfort’s bestseller The Wolf of Wall Street, there are many pronounced Jewish themes in the memoir. Frankly, I’d never noticed the book, but this year I did get the DVD of the film based on the book, and that alerted me.
Begin with this howler: As the diminutive Jewish stock fraudster Jordan Belfort, director Martin Scorsese chose none other than six-foot-tall, (sometimes) blond-haired Leonardo DiCaprio. This has to go down as one of the most egregious miscastings in Hollywood history.
Why did it happen?
I will argue that this is a classic case of Hollywood deceiving the public, and I have plenty of evidence for this.
In the film, at exactly five minutes into the story — just after DiCaprio’s character has snorted cocaine with a hundred dollar bill and done a little trick by making us think “this shit” (cocaine) will make you invincible, when it fact he means the money he is using as a straw — he launches into a speech as he enters his busy trading floor:
See, money doesn’t just buy you a better life — better food, better cars, better pussy — it also makes you a better person. You can give generously to the church, or political party of your choice. Save the fuckin’ spotted owl with money. [emphasis added]
“To the church.” In his memoir from which the film springs, Belfort is refreshingly forthright that he is Jewish — and that all but one close associate is Jewish — as are the majority of his traders. Now in the film — which “happened” to open on Christmas Day 2013 — we are informed that rich people like DiCaprio’s Belfort can give “to the church,” not synagogue or ADL or Jewish think tank. It is this kind of subtle deception that would, in my view, prevent the vast, vast majority of Gentile viewers from understanding that these financial criminals are Jewish. Read more