Discussion
Financial Concepts in the Movie Pretty Woman
There have been a lot of movies that has a financial backdrop. The financial backdrop acts as a theme over the actual backdrop that brings out the real blend of the story. One such movie that has a financial backdrop but the actual theme of the movie being different is Pretty Woman. The movie lingers around mainly two characters, Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward. The financial concept and theory is seen in the background of Edward Lewis. He is a successful businessman who has his business among the states of United States. He is actually a Corporate Raider (Ruti and McGowan 2016). The term corporate raider refers to an investor who purchases a huge number of shares of an organization who is going through tough time and therefore, their assets seem to be undervalued. The purchase of large shares establishes a significant right to vote, that is influential in making various significant changes in the leaderships and management of an organization.
In this scenario, it is seen that Edward is the owner of a corporate raiding firm that purchases organizations that are going through a tough time period in the market and have been making losses in the long run. Edward and his organization investigate on the companies that are going through such a phase and then target them in order to acquire them. Edward mainly concentrate on the companies that had a high brand value in the past and try to acquire them so that they can be sold off to other potential customers who can add value and life to the sick organizations. The movie even reveals the corporate way that Edward establishes and maintains relationships with their other corporate allies in order to establish an effective networking in order to complete their business dealings (Pugh 2014). This situation can be seen in the movie when Edward takes Vivian for a polo match where he meets with his business colleagues to discuss about their dealings for acquiring a shipbuilding company.
The background of Edward and his company show that Edward is a corporate raider and he acquires and purchases the sick organizations by the using the financial concept of speculation. Edward can be described as a speculator. A speculator is a person who trades with commodities, derivatives, equities and bonds that have a higher risk in return on the average to earn more profit (Banerjee, Barnhardt and Duflo 2015). Speculators undertake huge risks specially with regards to forecasting the future movement of the price and with the idea of making large and quick gains. Speculators, as in this case Edward Lewis is a typical risk-taking investor who has potential knowledge about the market where they operate by making use of highly leveraged tools like options and futures.
Edward in this movie has the ability to predict the future and knows that the firm they will be purchasing will have immense value in the eyes of another investor and therefore undertakes the risk of purchasing (Lee and Raesch 2015). Edward acts as a middleman who gains a profit out of the dealings made to sell the company to other entrepreneurs. He utilizes efficient market theory in certain circumstances by selling the acquired organization in segments to various entrepreneurs that increases the profit level of the Edward and his company.
In the movie Pretty Woman, Edward is a strict financial person who only concentrates on making profit and enhancing the position of his firm. He is a risk taker and does not step back to undertake any sort of risk. He is a strict professional person and tries to make use any means to convince his parties to sell-off their sick organizations to them so that they can be in better hands and may see some profit in the near future. This situation is seen when Edward meets with a business tycoon who has a shipbuilding company, which is not doing well in the economy (Josiam et al. 2015). Edward like any other financial professional takes the help of efficient market theories and explains the future of the company to his current holder and tries to convince him to sell-off the firm to him.
Therefore, it can be seen that the financial backdrop of the movie suggests that Edward is a speculator and by taking risks after evaluating the market, he makes huge profit. He acts as a middleman by purchasing a sick company and selling it to others who feel they can make a change of it (Horowitz 2014). Edward is a good molder and with the use of efficient market theories and oratory skills convinces the entrepreneurs so buy or sell the company to or from him. It is a unique concept where the only issue associated with Edward is the risk pertaining to the acquired organization and no other risk is involved.
References
Ruti, M. and McGowan, T., 2016. Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Pugh, T., 2014. Truman Capote: A Literary Life at the Movies. University of Georgia Press.
Banerjee, A., Barnhardt, S. and Duflo, E., 2015. Movies, Margins and Marketing: Encouraging the Adoption of Iron-Fortified Salt (No. w21616). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Lee, M. and Raesch, M., 2015. Women, gender, and the financial markets in Hollywood films. In Feminist Erasures (pp. 129-149). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Josiam, B.M., Spears, D.L., Pookulangara, S., Dutta, K., Kinley, T.R. and Duncan, J.L., 2015. Using structural equation modeling to understand the impact of Bollywood movies on destination image, tourist activity, and purchasing behavior of Indians. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 21(3), pp.251-261.
Horowitz, N., 2014. Art of the deal: Contemporary art in a global financial market. Princeton University Press.
