Mike Harrelson

10/6/98

Sociology 110

Hollywood’s View of How to Succeed

According to Hollywood, the best strategy to get ahead in an organization or industry is to be deceitful to those individuals you are competing with, and be conforming and loyal to those who are in a higher status position within an organization or industry. This view can be seen through the plots of famous Hollywood motion pictures like, Tucker, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Wall Street. These Hollywood films center on a character’s success or failure in an organization or industry. They highlight homosocial behavior and "sucking up" to individuals in the organization or industry who have more status, and suggest using deceit as a device to achieve success. This behavior is what ultimately makes or breaks most of the main characters in these films.

Three films that graphically show how being deceitful, and loyal and conforming to homosocial pressures can influence one’s success are How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Wall Street, and The Hudsucker Proxy. In the lighthearted, musical-comedy, "How to Succeed . . ." a lowly, but charming, mailroom worker named Finch, climbs the ladder of success by undercutting those within the internal labor market of his particular organization, and "sucking up" to his superiors. Finch undercuts members of the internal labor market for junior executive jobs by telling others of their unethical behaviors, thus causing established junior executives to be fired. He then appears loyal to his superiors and conforms to their norms by wearing dark suits and making unnecessary comments to "suck up."

Wall Street is similar in that up and coming stockbroker Bud Fox employs similar unethical tactics to ensure success in the financial world. Bud uses illegal inside information to make important stock decisions and "sucks up" to Geico, a millionaire, to teach him more unethical ways to succeed. Geico promotes homosocial behavior by taking Fox to extravagant parties and making social ties for him, so that he would feel and act like a millionaire stockbroker. The Hudsucker Proxy follows the same theme of deceitfulness helping people achieve success, when Paul Newman’s character attempts to take over an entire company by destroying it financially. He uses the incompetent Tim Robins as a puppet president.

These themes seem to support the Kanter and Jackall articles about conforming and being loyal to superiors in order to succeed. Deceit does not really fall under Kanter’s and Jackall’s research. However, it does support their main theme, which is that honest, hard, work does not necessarily spell success.

Further supported by Kanter and Jackall’s research is the failure of Preston Tucker in the automotive industry, which is portrayed in the film, Tucker: A Man and His Dream. Tucker was unlike any other individual in the automotive industry at that time, in that he was more interested in giving consumers a better product instead of only making high profit. His revolutionary ideas rocked the established oligopoly in the automotive industry and caused them to conspire to ruin him. This theme that innovation, or being a prima donna should be thwarted, goes along with Jackall’s assertion that being team player and fitting into a occupational role is more important than being innovative and outgoing. Also the conspiracy against Tucker shows once again how deceit is used to get ahead, or in this case keep those with industrial power, empowered.

According to Hollywood, success is achieved through deceit and homosocial conformity. As shown in the first three films discussed and the Kanter and Jackall articles, conforming to homosocial pressures will gain one success in the business world, and not doing so will lead to failure, as in Preston Tucker’s case. However, I believe that the deceit tactic will not work in the real world, which is why Kanter and Jackall do not discuss it. Ultimately at the end of each of these films, the deceitfulness either backfires on those who use it, as in Bud Fox’s and Paul Newman’s character’s cases, or it allows for the vindication of those who do not use deceitfulness, as in Tucker’s acquittal at the end of the film. Thus, conforming to homosocial pressures, like being loyal to the organization and superiors and being a team player instead of a prima donna, seem to be the best strategies. They are endorsed by these Hollywood films and by Kanter’s and Jackall’s research.