Am I Really Human? : The Dissection of the American Businessman

         The American business man, an image of clean, crisp suits, perfectly trimmed hair, and a wallet full of bills. An image of honor, integrity, hard work; an image that represents American values and aspirations. However, how "clean" and perfected is the actual American businessman? For years you've heard of
 corruption on Wall Street, financial scandals, swindling money, and just down right cheating people.

         Bret Easton Ellis, the author, and Mary Harron, the director, produced a satire of the American businessman, American Psycho, illustrating in extremes the corrupt nature of Americas working elite. American Psycho, produced in 2004, is a film in which Patrick Bateman, the main character, takes over his fathers business as an investment banking executive. Bateman is OCD, and obsessed with success, fashion, style, and image. He is also a serial killer who murders and rapes random strangers and people who he is in close proximity to. As the movie develops, the viewer gets an inside look at Bateman's obsession with competition, and being the best. Ellis and Harron are critiquing the reality of an honest businessman, displaying their views that competition and material prosperity destroys any real honor or integrity a person may have had. American businessmen are fueled by their thirst for wealth and status which in turn destroys any desire to help benefit anyone other than oneself.

          In the above clip, Bateman feels the need to convince himself of his own worth by wearing Valentino suits, flaunting his reservation to Dorsia, a 5-star highly acclaimed restaurant, and by believing that his haircut is always slightly better than the rest. Bateman's obsession with beating out everybody on something as miniscule as a business card illustrates the importance of such minute material details in the business world. As displayed through the look of failure on his face, Bateman's sanity hangs on his ability to be one step above the rest. The world he has placed himself in has taught him that if he is not the best, he is a failure, and the pressure of such a situation drives him to corruption. However, Bateman's inability to curb his appetite for success lead him to search for it in all the wrong places. He feeds his competitive hunger by achieving dominance over others through murdering and destroying them. Such aspirations of the "American Businessman" lead to unrealistic, unachievable expectations leading to corruption and malpractice in order to achieve them. The hunger for material prosperity, physical beauty, and the use of conspicuous consumption to display ones wealth destroys true human connections and emotions.

         Bateman is used as a critique of the corrupt self-centered nature of the American Businessman. His relationships with the people around him emphasize the distance and disruption that social competition causes. American Psycho satirizes such people and projects such disconnections. Bateman often confesses his sins and discrepancies to his coworkers and acquaintances only to be completely ignored due to the self obsession his companions have. A blind eye is turned  to everyone's actions unless it is beneficial to the individual. The destruction of the human is pinpointed to the desire to connect with others only to be able to hear oneself talk, and such self absorbtion destroys compassion corrupting ones influences and driving factors.
         David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross links the same ideas about loss of human connection and the corruption of values through competition as American Psycho. One of Mamet's main characters, Moss, says "the pressure's just too great...'I got to  close this fucker, or I don't eat lunch,' 'or I don't win the Cadillac...' we fuckin' work too hard" (30). Mamet is illustrating the pressure put on success, how it is chief in importance and comes before all else, including the well being of oneself. The characters in Mamet's play work non-stop, competing to win the Cadillac, the symbol of success.                                                          

 This constant competition wears on their ability to connect and make friendships. Mamet uses a technique called faux dialogue where each character is not really talking to each other, but is having a conversation with themselves and using each other as a tool to benefit their own desires. This illuminates his understanding of the corruption of such men.  These men have been programmed to look at a person not for who they are, but for how they can benefit oneself. Moss and Aaronow, two characters from Mamet's play, refer to certain customers as "Polacks and deadbeats". Moss says:

       How you goan'a get on the board sell'n a Polack? And I'll tell you, I'll tell you what else. You      listening? I'll tell you what else: don't every try to sell an Indian...They like to talk to salesmen. They're lonely, something... Never bought a fucking thing. (29).

 These men have been trained to discriminate in order to assure their own personal gain. Instead of looking at each human being as an individual, they are looked at as profit. Mamet suggests that the American Businessman has been trained to dehumanize themselves to their surroundings, clumping individuals into groups of worth just as Moss does by glazing over Indian leads, claiming they never amount to anything. Such perceptions destroy basic interactions such as how Bateman cannot have basic interactions without critiquing himself. Even as Levene is being accused of fraud and theft, Roma cannot let go of his desire for the best leads and tries to take advantage of Levene's situation, yelling "I GET HIS ACTION. My stuff is mine, whatever he gets for himself, I'm talking half. You put me in with him" (107). Roma's obsession with success impacts his ability to realize when it's time to forget about money and work and focus on the issue at hand. Although American Psycho is taken to new extremes, both Patrick Bateman and Roma lose their sense of honor and conscience to the race for material wealth.

"I had a _______, but P$G bought it": New Money vs. Old Money in Soccer

Jokes on how PSG buy everyone or everything found on Soccer Memes

The idea of “new” money and “old” money has been seen in many ways in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, such as the two different suburbs, East Egg and West Egg, where Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby lived, the World Series of 1919, and the idea of rags to riches or the American Dream. “Old” money represented the people who earned their wealth from a long time ago and was passed down by generations, such as Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, who was born from a wealthy family and graduated from “New Haven,” or Yale, and was all about the traditional beliefs. “New” money, or also known as Nouveau riche, was represented by the people who just gained their wealth recently and made them rise up the social hierarchy. Unlike Tom, Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, represented the “New” rich people because he was once a person who lived in poverty and never went to a school like Tom’s, but used illegal crime and businesses to earn his wealth.

Although the conflict between “new” money and “old” money is an important theme in The Great Gatsby, it can still be shown in professional soccer nowadays. The most famous professional soccer clubs in the world have to face this conflict every day when people, such as news reporters, journalists, and critics, bring up the idea of how the “new” rich teams are buying their success by buying world class players. Most people and the media exaggerate the fact of this conflict between the two social classes by making fun of the “new” rich teams only being able to win because of their money, while at the same time, the “old” rich teams are as wealthy as the “new” rich but the people in the world don’t criticize the “old” wealthy teams because they have been doing it for generations and it’s more traditional.

The most notable “new” wealthy professional soccer clubs consist of Chelsea Football Club, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester City Football Club.

       

Roman Abramovich

Chelsea F.C is owned by Roman Abramovich, the 5^th richest man in Russia and the 50^th richest man in the world according to 2012 Forbes list, who has an estimated fortune of $19.6 billion as 46 year old. He started his ownership of Chelsea in 2003, and since then, he has made them one of the world’s richest soccer clubs. In April of 2012, it was ranked as by the Forbes Magazine as the seventh most valuable soccer club in the world, at $761 million. Chelsea has won around 9 major trophies since Roman Abramovich’s era of being the owner, and most people believe that by being one of the wealthiest persons in the league, he has the power to buy the most expensive players in the transfer market. Abramovich, in 2006, spent 43.875 million euros on Andriy Shevchenko, which was the British record transfer fee at the time. In 2011, he bought the Spanish giant, Fernando Torres, for £50 million, which is now the record for the British transfer fee and which made Fernando Torres the sixth most expensive player in soccer history. Chelsea is considered “nouveau riche” because of recently gaining their success by buying expensive players and coaches.  

                 

2011 was a big year for one of the most respected clubs in French soccer and in the world, Paris Saint-Germain. In May of 2011, Paris Saint-Germain, or PSG, Qatar Investment Authority attained 70% of PSG’s capital. After the taking of QIA, PSG became the richest club in France and one of the richest clubs in the world, spending €108m in the season 2011-12 and being the biggest spender in the world that year. The QIA provided the club with their wealth to become one of the best teams in Europe by spending an enormous amount of money in the summer of 2012 to buy 3 world class stars, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Thiago Silva, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The summer of 2012, PSG had a total of €146 million spent on players to construct a winning team. By spending a lot of money on these kinds of players, the social media puts a lot of pressure on PSG for tying games andlosing games because they rely on their newly gained wealth to win them trophies and are expected to win the UEFA Champions League in the upcoming years.

                 

Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan

 Another “nouveau riche” team is Manchester City Football Club, who is owned by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a United Arab Emirati politician and a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. He is the half-brother of the current president of United Arab Emirates. Since his takeover of the club in 2008, him and his wealth has made them earn the FA Cup and their first Premier League trophy since 1968. Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan spent £481.3 million on 30 players from 2008 to 2012. By Manchester City having so much wealth from the owners in 2009, it meant that they could buy experienced international players, which made them spend more money in one season than the other Premier League teams. Like PSG, Manchester City goes through pressure on a weekly basis when they don’t get the results they should be getting. With their wealth and players, people and media think they should be dominating the English Premier League

Shows that Manchester City are getting more popular after gaining a lot of wealth and buying success 

Manchester City and PSG spending a lot of money

                                                  

Although the “new” wealthy teams are pressured every day and looked down upon because of the money they have, it is not the same for the “old” wealthy teams who have tradition. Teams such as Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, FC Barcelona, and Manchester United Football Club. According to the Forbes List of the most valuable teams in sports, these three teams are in the top 10 of the list, with Manchester United in 1^st ($2.23 billion) and Real Madrid behind them in 2^nd ($1.88 billion). Although these three clubs are the wealthiest soccer clubs in the world, people don’t judge them because they’ve had this money for a very long time. These three clubs connect to Tom Buchanan of The Great Gatsby because Tom is all about the traditional beliefs and is “old” money. Manchester United, FC Barcelona, and Real Madrid have been successful and wealthy for generations.        

 

        

Here is an article about the last clash between these two teams, where the fact that these two teams have different economic traditions did not pass unnoticed by the press.