Humor and heuristics: culture, genre, and economic thought in The Big Short

This article uses the 2015 film, The Big Short, to explore the limits of representing and critiquing Wall Street culture on film. Critics have praised the film, suggesting that it offers an account of the 2007–2008 financial crisis that both critiques Wall Street culture and democratizes financial knowledge. I argue that the film is an early representative example of a public narrative based on behavioral economics. A popular movie informed by this discipline has a good deal of political potential for challenging injustices produced by neoliberal approaches to the financial services industry. However, I also argue that despite this political potential, The Big Short is unable to fundamentally challenge the belief in efficient markets that justify many of Wall Street’s practices. I also argue that the film uses unexamined and problematic understandings of both class and gender in characterizing the film’s protagonists.