The big short as a pomo text

1. THE BIG SHORT
MEDIA CONCEPTS: MEDIA LANGUAGE
AND GENRE
By Ellie Lowes

2. THE BIG SHORT
• The Big Short is a 2015 American comedy-drama film directed by Adam McKay and written
by McKay and Charles Randolph, based on the 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the
Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis about the financial crisis of 2007–2008 which was
triggered by the United States housing bubble.
• The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Hamish
Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Finn Wittrock and Marisa Tomei.

3. WIKI DESCRIPTION
• The film is noted for the unconventional techniques it employs to explain complex financial
instruments. Among others, it features cameo appearances by Margot Robbie, Anthony
Bourdain, Selena Gomez and Richard Thaler, who explain concepts such as subprime
mortgages and collateralized debt obligations as a meta-reference. Several other actors also
break the fourth wall, most frequently Gosling, who serves as the narrator.
• The film consists of three separate stories which run concurrently with no plot overlap – they
are only connected by the commonality of the predicted housing market collapse

4. MEDIA CONCEPTS - GENRE
• The Big Short combines several genres. It has elements from drama (such as the narrative), comedy (through
breaking the fourth wall and making humour of the constructed nature of the text), and documentary
(following three individuals and their personal stories, and montage scenes).
• There are also aspects of music video, e.g when CB is at ‘Golden Sac’ – Shake Your Money Maker’, as well as
we got a montage of CB making deals .
• There are also aspects of music videos when Christian Bale uses playing his drums and listening to heavy
music to keep his mind calm as he predicts a market collapse and creates a credit default swap market. We
see him playing his drums and there are montages of him playing and listening to his heavy metal music.
• Here is a scene featuring this music video style:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BETKJq7tY5Y
Comedy – using
Margot Robbie
(model) to explain
long terminology,
which are boring
and hard to
understand,
however using
her to explain
these terms is
comical and
humourous.
Documentary – using a montage style of
editing to portray and show multiple
scenes and locations to set the scene of
where the film is taking place – New
York.
Music video/drum scene – here is the
scene whereby we see Christian
playing heavily into his drums and
immersing himself. The way this scene
is portrayed is more in the style of a
music video due to the wide range of
shots and variety.

5. MEDIA LANGUAGE
• The Big Short features a lot of post modern and non traditional media language. The film
heavily emphasizes its constructed nature. There are multiple examples of this:
• Black/white images of cheerleaders during Christian Bales flashback – emphasizing that it
is a flashback, but also reinforcing the constructed nature of the film. (1)
• Multiple uses of text on the screen to provide definitions of long/challenging terminology
– providing the audience with a readable visual example of the definition which they can
easily understand. Highlighting how the film is constructed to allow the audience to have
a deeper understanding of the financial industry and what went on (2). (another example
of this is Margot Robbie explaining terminology in the bath:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anSPG0TPf84)
• There are also very obvious camera movements – which look like they are ‘hand held’.
This contributes to the realism as this is based on a true story. This is also a very
‘documentary style’, as mentioned previously. This was particularly shown in the start of
the film, featuring a lot of point of view shots. (3)
• The constructed nature of the film really pushes the boundaries within this film and makes
it incredible emotive and thought-provoking, as it a constant reminder that this film is a
construction of a real event. The constant reminders and defining terminology to educate
you, and so you are aware permanently that this did really happen and most likely will in
the future again.
• Obtuse editing is also used when Christian Bale is looking through the mortgages and is
cut in-between other actions and stills of farms and other montages. This obtuse editing
makes the audience look at it it in a slightly uncomfortable way, and understands the
severity of the situation as it is brought to life.
• A great example of this is the use of stars again, such as Selena Gomez, explaining the
financial crisis - breaking the fourth wall. This reminds you that this is a constructed film,
(1)
ISDA Agreement:
An agreement that lets an investor sit at the
“big boy table” and make high level trades
not available to stupid amateurs.
(2)
(3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi
0QVF1DKHk - this is an the scene
whereby Selena Gomez explains the
financial crisis. This scene pops out of
the film essentially, and snaps you out
of the hyperreality of watching and
film and back into reality to learn the
terminology to better your
understanding of the financial crisis
and the narrative of the film.
(4)

6. MEDIA LANGUAGE
• Multiple uses of text on the screen to provide definitions of long/challenging
terminology – providing the audience with a readable visual example of the
definition which they can easily understand. Highlighting how the film is
constructed to allow the audience to have a deeper understanding of the
financial industry and what went on (1). (another example of this is Margot
Robbie explaining terminology in the bath:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anSPG0TPf84)
• Other onscreen quotes
• On screen quotation from Haruki Murakami's novel "IQ84": Everyone, deep in their
hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.(2)
• On screen quotation from Mark Twain: [On screen quote attributed to Mark Twain] It
ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just
ain't so. (3)
• There is also a blank screen as we hear the news report at the start, followed by a
series of still images. This shows the construction and makes a point to the
audience that they must now focus on what is to come as it interlinks with what
has just been said, and is important within the plot.
• There is also a very obscure shot of the USA flag at the beginning. Is it trying to
ISDA Agreement:
An agreement that lets an investor sit at the
“big boy table” and make high level trades
not available to stupid amateurs.
(1)
(2)
(3)

7. REPRESENTATION – GOOD VS. EVIL
• The Big Short challenges the conventional
representation of the hero/villain divide by no longer
assigning traditional characteristics/personality traits to
the hero/villains. Christian Bale’s character, for example,
is represented as a hero, but is very unlike heroic
characters we as an audience are used to seeing in the
media. He is socially awkward, compulsive, and lost an
eye as a child. These are all characteristics which would
traditionally be more likely attributed to a villainous
character type. There is therefore a more ambiguous
divide between good and evil requiring a engaged
audience to identify the character types. Many of the
central characters in the film make money at the
expense of others but this doe not really mean that they
are the viliians. Many other these characters do try to
warn people about what is happening but are not
believed. For this reason, The Big Short is postmodern as
it creates confusion for the audience regarding
conventional character types, challenging stereotypical
representations of character.

8. REPRESENTATIONS – BANKERS AND
THE BANKS
• The Big Short represents banks as corrupt, and the bankers
themselves as untrustworthy. The bankers are dressed well
throughout but are not shown to be trustworthy. This is because we
are made aware that they are sat on top of a financial crisis, giving
out loans that will never be paid back. They are oblivious to the
looming, self-induced financial crisis but consistently appear as
good at their job through their clothing and how they confidently
hold themselves. The bankers are shown as money-centered and
corrupt as we see them at times discussing how to hoard money
from society, but then spending all of this money on gambling in
Vegas. Representing bankers as untrustworthy, yet presentable, is
arguably not a postmodern feature of The Big Short and for this
reason you could argue that it explores traditional representations.
However the level of their deception and evilness is quite extreme –
they knew what they were doing was wrong but that the govt would
bail them out….
• The bankers were presented fairly stereotypically, in smart suits,
working in offices in big buildings with lots and lots of money to
their name. This representation is conventional and therefore not a
postmodern view as it is an idea that existed for most audience
members about bankers before engaging with the text.

9. AUDIENCE
• The Big Short explores an alternative representation of the
audience, even challenging the ‘traditional’ Postmodern idea
that an audience is intelligent and has a pre-existing
understanding of what the text explores before viewing it.
Instead, the film plays on the audiences lack of
understanding and collective lack of education within the
topic of finance and banking. This idea is conveyed through
the various scenes in which celebrities are employed to
explain the complex details to the audience.
• However this text is post modern in the way that it does not
provide reassurance to the audience – in fact it almost makes
fun of that idea. At the end we hear a voice over from Ryan
Gosling character explaining a fairy tale ending about how
bankers were punished and everything was fine but then he
goes on to say that was not the case and in fact banks have
started a similar bond scheme under a different name and
Bales character is now investing in water….. Only one banker
was punished and he was not a key figure in the crisis
Jared Vennett: In the years that followed,
hundreds of bankers and rating-agency
executives went to jail. The SEC was completely
overhauled, and Congress had no choice but to
break up the big banks and regulate the
mortgage and derivative industries. Just kidding!
Banks took the money the American people gave
them, and used it to pay themselves huge
bonuses, and lobby the Congress to kill big
reform. And then they blamed immigrants and
poor people, and this time even teachers! And

10. IDEOLOGY
• This is also Baudrillands ‘Truth’ and Strinati’s Meta narrative
• The Big Short questions morality in its discussion of good vs. evil. It
questions whether the bankers were behaving immorally when doing their
day to day job. Doing so meant that thousands of people lost their
homes, jobs and money.
• This challenges the audience to think and make their own judgment on
the morality. It is therefore an interpretative and subjective idea of
morality portrayed in the film which is a postmodern idea.
• It also challenges the concepts of capitalism – what the US economic
ssytem is based on. The basic idea that making money is good is taken to
the extreme here where all the banker care about is making money for the
banks and shareholder.
Mark Baum: I don't get it. Why are they confessing
Danny Moses: They're not confessing.
Porter Collins: They're bragging.
• Quote from the film where MB and others are researching the claim that
the house market is about to collapse.
Ben Rickert: Do you realize what you just did? You just bet against the
American economy.
• Characters in the film are challenging the dominant ideological belief in

11. IDEOLOGY
• Lawyer: Truth is like shit, it stinks badly and we have
to get rid of it fast.
• Very similar to Baudrillard quote….. Shows that the directors
and other people involved knew that they were producing a
pomo test
• Other quote that challenge dominant ideologies
• Mark Baum: We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in
banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even
baseball... What bothers me ins't that fraud is not nice. Or that
fraud is mean. For fifteen thousand years, fraud and short
sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once.
Eventually you get caught, things go south. When the hell did
we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really
did.
•

12. IDEOLOGY – SOCIETY
• Society is what we rely on to keep our lives going. It
helps us to feel comfortable, through its convenience to
us. It keeps us moving forward and progressing. This is
enforced but the film but also seriously questioned. We
as a society are often unaware of reality and this is
enforced through our lack of awareness of the corrupt
world of banking.
• Shots of designer brands, fast food chains and various
other consumer icons were presented in the film to help
explain how society could keep moving forward and be
totally unaware of the financial issues and the fact the
banking system is corrupt. Therefore the film conveys the
idea that society is a tool to distract from corruption. It
contains consumerism, which is a key element to our
unawareness of bigger issues. It this way society has
become a hyper reality.

13. HYPER- REALITY - MONEY
• Money has become a hyper reality in this film (and
our society). People with not income or ability to pay
were given mortgages and loans. They had no
understand of what the loans and mortgages
represented – money and repayments are no longer
real. Think about the stripper who had 5 houses and
a condo
• Mortgage Broker: Well, my firm offers NINJA loans - no income, no
job. I just leave the income section blank if I want. Corporate doesn't
care. These people just want homes, you know, and they just go with
the flow.
•

14. STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
• Within the film people who couldn't’t afford mortgages had 5 houses and a condo which
suggests that this was only given to them because of the way they look not because the
banks actually think they could have paid it off. Banks would leave the incoem sections of
application blank and no one questioned it.
• By having a house people had a appearance of being success and having money but in
truth they did not. They only looked like they were successful.

15. STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE…CONTINUED
• In one scene they show an Asian mathematician who has come to America to help them out and they
believe that he can’t speak English which is conveying to the audience at this point that he being an Asian
menas he is good at maths – he has the right ‘look/ style’ but in actual fact when he then turns round to
the camera and speaks directly to the audience, this doesn’t only break down the forth wall but it just lets
the audience know that he can speak English and it’s almost like some sort of secret.
• Jared Vennett: My quantitative. My math specialist. Look at him, you notice anything different about him? Look at his
face.
• Mark Baum: That's pretty racist.
• Jared Vennett: Look at his eyes, I'll give you a hint, his name is Yang. He won a national math competition in China he
doesn't even speak English! Yeah I'm sure of the math.
• Another way in which The Big Short has shown off the use of ’Style over Substance’ is how all the business
men (mainly men to show power over the industry) convey a sense of knowledge and that they are in
control and know exactly what is going to happen and everything is going to be alright. However this is
only for show and actually the substance behind it is conveying a sense of deterioration for the industry.
One of them even talks about how he was a bartender before he was a banker
• They also had a blonde hair, blue eyed women in a bath explaining how the money crisis came about. She
has not substance (is not a business person, have a degree in the subject etc) bug she sure looks good!
She even appears to be rich drinking champagne.

16. CONFUSION OVER TIME AND SPACE
• There are multiple storylines within this film which makes it confusing at times for the viewers.
However these narratives aren't interlinked throughout the film at all. The narratives are occurring
at the time which makes it even more confusing for the viewers.
• The three narratives are only connected by the theme of the housing crisis. However by including
the story about the family that lose their rented house at the end does make the larger story more
relatable. We could call this a micro narrative.
• There are lots of flashbacks within this film, mainly to what the money has been spent/wasted on
which has consequently ended with a financial crisis. So of the flashback don’t always seem to be
necessary (the ones at the beginning especially).
• At the start we aren’t sure if flashbacks and montage sequences are before of after the financial
crisis which makes it an uneasy watch for the viewers. This is a typical convention of a post modern
text.
• The three stories all transpire over different time frames but are mixed together so that it appears
that they happen at the same time.

17. BREAKDOWN OF THE DISTINCTION
BETWEEN CULTURE AND SOCIETY
• There are people who play themselves within this film for example
Selena Gomez and Margo Robbie
• We are also made to believe that this is meant to be a true story but we
don’t know how much is exaggerated or not for viewers entertainment.