Michael Douglas and the Confused American Man

Crispin's book never loses its sense of playfulness as it wades through the filmography of Michael Douglas

- Aditya Mani Jha

Director Oliver Stone's 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps saw him return to one of the most memorable characters he'd created: the ruthless, glib corporate raider Gordon Gekko from the 1987 film Wall Street. After serving time for insider trading, Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, is supposedly reformed. But soon, he's saying things like, "I tell you, the government's worse than a wife. They got all the power; they got half the money. Now they're working on getting the other half."

The American right-wingers of today lionize Gekko unironically, completely ignoring the fact that he was written as a cautionary figure. This is not a phenomenon restricted to the social media era. Popular movies have always been used as a loudspeaker to propagate our worst impulses, which is one reason I liked the central conceit of Jessa Crispin's new book of criticism, What Is Wrong With Men: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (Of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything.