Does depicting

criminal behaviour

equal endorsing it?

*Contains potential spoilers for two films currently playing in theatres*

Today I treated myself to not one, but two of the most critically acclaimed movies of the season–Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and David O. Russell’s American Hustle. In my estimation both earn the accolades they have been receiving for taking absurd-but-true stories and turning them into highly entertaining films that walk the line between “Can-you-believe-it?” drama and outright farce.

I especially enjoyed Scorsese’s film, which marks a return to the kind of narrative he perfected with Goodfellas and Casino. Like those two films it depicts the rise and fall of a man with extremely questionable values and ethics, who tells us his story in his own highly-colourful words.

It’s a tricky narrative to pull off because it comes with the risk that a part of the audience might come to assume that the intention is for us to sympathize with this character–even as he commits a series of increasingly deplorable acts.

And some commentators are already arguing that The Wolf of Wall Street does exactly that. Christina McDowell–an LA writer whose father was involved in the crimes the movie depicts–wrote the following in a blog for LA Weekly:

You people are dangerous. Your film is a reckless attempt at continuing to pretend that these sorts of schemes are entertaining, even as the country is reeling from yet another round of Wall Street scandals. We want to get lost in what? These phony financiers’ fun sexcapades and coke binges? Come on, we know the truth. This kind of behavior brought America to its knees.

And yet you’re glorifying it — you who call yourselves liberals. You were honored for career excellence and for your cultural influence by the Kennedy Center, Marty. You drive a Honda hybrid, Leo. Did you think about the cultural message you’d be sending when you decided to make this film?

Having just watched the film it’s hard for me to believe that McDowell saw the same one I did. While many moments in the film are played for comedic effect it’s always to its subject detriment, not his celebration. We laugh at Jordan Belfort, not with him–because his greed, hubris and values are so antithetical to everything a decent person knows to be right. The “sexcapades” McDowell describes are not portrayed as being “fun” but as absurdly and pathetically depraved–the natural consequence of what happens when assholes who (in one case literally) piss on society’s laws for their own enrichment act out with complete abandon.

Of course, not everyone is going to see this and will come to admire Belfort as a kind of anti-hero–just like they do Tony Montana, Gordon Gekko and Walter White. But is that the fault of the filmmakers? Do we blame them because some folks miss the cues that clearly indicate the protagonist is a skuzzball?

It’s interesting because I’ve yet to see similar criticism aimed at American Hustle, even though its depiction of its criminal characters actually is much more sympathetic than Wolf‘s. Russell eschews Scorsese’s ironic detachment for a more earnest and admiring depiction of the ingenuity of its grifter characters. Though he also employs comedy throughout the film, the only time it comes at the expense of lead character Christian Bale is in the opening scene where we see him meticulously create his elaborate combover–and even then there’s a sense of admiration in how he pulls it all together. It’s less a show of vanity than just another one of his cons.

By the end of the film *SPOILER* he and cohort/lover Amy Adams (in an amazing performance) have not only gotten away scot-free for the swindles that placed them in this situation, but also for holding the FBI ransom over $2 million in misallocated funds. They are shown having found happiness in their newfound legitimacy, while Wolf ends with Belfort out of prison, but in another kind of hell–forced to teach his treacherous skills to undeserving dupes as a public speaker in smalltime seminars. Like the end of Goodfellas, it insists that all of his crimes were a lateral move–they ultimately got him nowhere than where he was aways destined to end up to begin with.

Both films are expertly made and even feature some of the same amusing tropes (such as the use of foreign language cover versions of very-recognizable songs), but the question is do they endorse the criminal activities they document merely by depicting them? Is it possible to make a film about con-artists and thieves that doesn’t glamourize those unworthy professions?

And if it isn’t, is that a problem? Should they stop being made? Or should we just accept that sometimes we find ourselves entertained by stories of acts most of us understand are inherently wrong?