Friday, October 23, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Okay, wow, it's been a hard year for Mike McDougal, MBA. After losing my board position at Goldman Sachs and having to mortgage, then mortgage my mortgage, then time-share (I cringe to think) my properties in Dubai, Vegas, and Manhattan, I was feeling pretty low. I almost had to stoop to taking taxis instead of limos (key word: almost) and even started shopping at Whole Foods instead of Dean and Deluca. Not gonna lie, that was a tough, cognacless three days.

So you'll have to pardon the lack of film-reviews–I was almost on the streets for a while there. Thank god for the commie-in-chief and his "bailout package." They should've called it the "increase-McDougal's-stock-options-package." I was practically force-fed cash by the feds, to the point that I'm sitting pretty again, working a couple hours a week, and even had enough stimulus cash to buy a yacht of my own (I needed somewhere to bang interns that was less conspicuous than the office or the wife's bed). I take back everything I ever said about that terrorist bastard president–he truly is one of Us.

Anyway, I popped this DVD into my HDTV flat-screen in the bar of my yacht while I was doing blow and getting a beej from a 22-year-old Columbia student intern, so my memory of the film's just slightly hazy. But from what I saw between Grey Goose martinis (BUD: 50.55 buy!) and unprotected sex, this latest in the Harry Potter franchise couldn't've been more relevant to our times. What better film to renew our hope in the capitalist system?














Is that a WSJ they're reading?


I know what you're thinking here. You're thinking, "Mike, what the fuck does Harry Potter have to do with capitalism?" But bear with me a second.

Now I don't know if the movie was all that different from the book (I don't read so-called "literature," outside of the good book--that is, the Journal!) but this film was absolutely a parable about capitalism. Think about it. What is it that the little wiz-kids are fighting against? All those earth-toned, turtlenecked Slytherins and dark wizards and hobbits and whatevers don't represent just a fairytale. They represent socialism.

Consider Harry Potter's life story. Poor kid, grew up in a broom closet, inherits a vast fortune from dead parents, now he's a famous for being famous a lá Paris Hilton. See what I'm saying? He's a trust-funder!–an inheritance baby, like me and my kids and most of Wall Street. Harry Potter is the epitome of the American dream, and proof that you can be rich by doing no work whatsoever. Hell, that's what American capitalism is all about.

But Harry's a swell little motherfucker, and he definitely deserves all those sacks of galleons he's squirreling away. (I guess they don't have estate taxes in the wizard world, or else really good interest rates in the Goblin banks). And so far, he's turned out to be a pretty good investor. That broomstick he bought (FBOLT: 12.3 Buy! Great product placement), the military-prototype invisible shield bullshit, his security detail and his grades and girlfriend and drugs (I'm just assuming) seem to be working out pretty well for him.

Voldemort, on the other hand, is a poverty case-in-point. He's got tons of followers but no investment strategy. If he's so "powerful," why does he seem to be squirreled away in old squats, rather than raising money from his legions? Doesn't he have a business plan? If I had enough investors who'd drunk my Kool-Aid (KOOL: 23.03 Sit on this one), you can bet I'd run my empire out of Bermuda, that's for sure, not some dingy dark recess.















You know who else wears all black? Socialist Beatnik freaks. Prof. Snape pictured, with former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright


The only real reason I can think of that Voldemort wouldn't take advantage of his power to raise capital is that he's running some kind of grassroots organization. The movie hints at this, but it's clear that Voldemort doesn't want money, just people to believe in his cause. Yeah, you heard me–he's essentially a community organizer. And everyone knows they never win.

If you haven't apparated yourself out of this mental recession yet, I highly recommend Harry Potter. Nothing beats watching a scrappy young trust-funder weasel his way out of various crimes just by using the power of his name. What can I say, I can relate–I do it every fucking day.
-MMD, MBA

Rating: $$$$$ (4 USD/5 USD)
Buy: Grey Goose (BUD) Firebolt LLC (FBOLT)
Hold: Kool-aid (KOOL)

PS: Since writing this article, I uncovered some more literary evidence that Voldemort's character is a metaphor for Marxism. According to the Wikipedia article I had my underlings summarize for me, Voldemort's apparently also a "half-blood." Half-wizard, half-human. Probably that kind of biracial upbringing contributed to his fucked-up views. Remind you of any other socialist starlets?