And the Oscar Goes to...
(Media Watch)
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By David Connell
Media Watch looks at the
Oscars and Sex in the City.
Wilder for insurance
Hollywood impresario Billy Wilder must have had a thing for insurance agents,
and with good reason. During his career, Wilder directed three films centering
on the industry. They garnered a total of 19 Academy Award nominations, winning
six. Unfortunately these films--Double Indemnity, The Apartment and The Fortune
Cookie--have not always shown agents to be the most moral of men.
Double Indemnity, which Woody Allen dubbed "the most perfect movie ever made," was adopted from the James M. Cain novella of the same name. The film tells the story of agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who conspires with Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a millionaire's bored second wife, to kill her husband for a $50,000 double indemnity policy, which Neff has sold the family.
The movie is considered one of the first--if not the first--film noir and was nominated for an Oscar for best picture in 1945. Stanwyck was nominated for best actress for her groundbreaking portrayal of a seducing murderess, while Wilder collected his first Oscar nomination for best director. He and writing partner Raymond Chandler, who penned some of the best hard-boiled crime novels around, also picked up a nomination for best original screenplay.
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Wilder went on to win a best director Oscar in 1961 for The Apartment, a bittersweet comedy about love, anonymity and greed. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, an insurance clerk at a large New York firm who lends his apartment to company executives for illicit affairs. In the film, Baxter is seen as a lonely, anonymous cog in a corporate culture--namely an insurance corporation-that condones using employees both for monetary and sexual gratification. This is not one to use in your executive training films (or in your sexual harassment seminars).
The film won an Oscar for best picture and Wilder earned a statue for best screenplay. Both Lemmon and Shirley McLaine were nominated for best actor and actress, but lost to Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry and the irrepressible Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8.
In 1966, Wilder turned the tables on the industry and made insurance the victim in The Fortune Cookie. Here, Matthau plays Willie Gingrich, an ambulance chaser with a slightly injured brother-in-law Harry Hinkle (Lemmon). Gingrich convinces Hinkle, a photographer, to sue his insurance company for $1 million after he is bowled over while covering a Cleveland Browns football game.
Matthau won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role as the smarmy lawyer who spews such lines as: "What's wrong? Insurance companies have so much money--they have to microfilm it," while convincing the good-hearted Hinkle to pull a scam.
Beyond Wilder
In 1998, Jim Carrey took the good-hearted insurance clerk to new levels in
The Truman Show, which chronicles the life of a man whose whole life has been
watched by millions. Carrey's character is so over the top with goodness,
Salon film reviewer Charles Taylor described him as "leaving his picture-perfect
suburban home, he strolls out into a picture-perfect yard … and goes
to work at a picture-perfect insurance company." Now there's an industry
stereotype we can all live with.
Truman, as played by Carrey, is then transformed into a reluctant hero as he discovers his life is merely a television show and begins to rebel against the program's producers.
Carrey was famously snubbed by the Academy Awards in 1999, but Peter Weir received a best director nomination, Ed Harris was nominated for best supporting actor, as was Andrew Niccol for best screenplay.
This year, the insurance industry returns to the red carpet in their film noir formalwear, with the massively creative Memento, the story of an insurance investigator with short-term memory loss. In the film, Leonard (Guy Pearce) is searching for his wife's killer and is hampered by the fact that he cannot remember what happens from one day--or sometimes one moment--to the next. To compensate for his short-term memory loss, he snaps Polaroids, scribbles notes and even tattoos clues to his body.
One thing Leonard does
seem to remember from his past is his career as an insurance investigator.
He once agonized over, and eventually denied, a claim from a man suffering
from short-term memory loss.
Memento is nominated for best editing and best screenplay at this year's Academy
Awards.
Caught on the Tube…
Recently, the hit HBO series Sex and the City conspired to teach all financial
advisors the value of younger clients. The show's main protagonist, love columnist
Carrie Bradshaw, is a chic, fashion-conscious woman in her early 30s living
in New York City. However, when it comes time for Carrie to buy an apartment,
she finds that there is only $1,500 in her checking account, less in her savings
and she is "not an attractive candidate for a loan." How can a woman
who wears $200 shoes not qualify for a loan? Well, the answer lies with those
shoes. After doing the math, Carrie realizes she has sunk $40,000 into pumps,
heels and boots, which are not exactly liquid assets.
The rampant success of this show signals that many 30-somethings, particularly women, identify with Carrie and her lifestyle. In this respect, advisors may find that these potential clients are in similar financial straits and in need of their help.
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