MovieChat Forums > The Big Short (2015) Discussion > Blaming “Poor People and Immigrants”

Blaming “Poor People and Immigrants”

posted 2 years ago by Tabbycat (748)
1 reply | jump to latest

“They’re going to do what they always do — blame poor people and immigrants.”

Loved the movie, hated when Baum said this near the end.
Where did that come from?

Unfortunately, it came from the partisan mind of writer/director McKay, who apparently can’t keep himself from dropping this irrelevant and tiresome cliché. There’s no substantiation for it in the film or anywhere else, other than from the mouths of a few banking executives trying to deflect blame.

Hearing this out-of-nowhere general-purpose liberal talking point spoken by one of the movie’s most credible characters really turned me off and served no good purpose.

[–] VanHellion (607) 2 years ago

I think Jared Vennett said that narrating the final parts of the movie. Or did he? Shit, I can't remember - maybe they both did. Anyway, as far as blame, there's a bunch of things you can point your finger at. It's not a left vs. right issue despite McKay (who is a hard leftist) - BUT, both "sides" are to blame. No one "made" someone sign their life away to a mortgage they can't afford. Bankers and Politicians got greedy. It's a good idea if you watch this movie, to also watch "Too Big to Fail" as well. It's not a counterpoint to this movie, but it offers a perspective to those who tried to stop the bleeding.

Key takeaway is, there were no heroes in any of this. The goal was to keep the machine from blowing up and knocking us back to the stone ages.