The 1% has their way with Hollywood's "Water for Elephants" [View all]

[ProfessorPlum]

I just watched the film version of "Water for Elephants", which is a story about life in a Depression-era train-bound circus, among other things. One change made from the book version had me almost stopping the movie at the very beginning.

In the book, the protagonist is going to college. His parents are immigrants and are killed, and they have a big nest egg of money saved in the local bank. However, the bank is mismanaged and is wiped out by the stock market crash, and because there is no FDIC and no deposit insurance, all of their money is wiped out when the bank goes down. The main character is left with nothing, no house, no money, no degree. He runs away and inadvertently joins a circus and hilarity ensues.

It struck me at the time I read the book how horrible it was for all of your savings to be wiped out because of some moronic bank managers, speculation, and fraud, and how glad I was that people today are (slightly) cushioned from that by at least having the FDIC.

BUT . . . in the movie version, an avuncular man from the bank sits our lead character down and explains that his parents were terribly irresponsible with their money. They accepted "eggs and chickens" for their services, instead of money, as a kindness to their clients in the time of the Depression. He shakes his head at these people, their irresponsibility, and advises the hero that "the Depression is going to last a long time" and only those people who are ruthless are going to survive it.

This burned me up on so many levels. First, it completely whitewashed the fact that the parents were scrupulous with their money - but it was the deregulated BANKS fault for losing it, with no safety net. Second, it blamed the parents for accepting bartering items. Presumably, it would have been better for them to hold out and demand money from their clients, (and not helped them, of course), and then gone out and bought eggs and chickens with their cash instead. I'm not sure why this was superior. Third, accepting payment in kind is a very smart strategy in an environment where there is no money around. Is all of commerce supposed to stop just because the rich are hording the currency?

Finally, I wonder who was leaning on the screenwriter to change that line in the script? Because it really changed the tone of the circumstances of the lead character, from a victim of the banks to a victim of his parents' "irresponsibility". Even in "liberal Hollywood" there must be people watching out so that the banks don't even get blamed for the Great Depression and the terrible destruction it wrought.