The Yuppie image in the media - Wall Street and American Psycho

The term ‘Yuppie’ was a 1980s acronym for 'Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Person'. The word was coined by the advertising industry to capture the essence of a particular type of person, who embodied the work hard, play hard, ambitious minded career person who generally resonated within the city. 

With all these stereotypical characteristics listed above It could be suggested that wall street was seen as a haven for the yuppie, especially within the 1980’s, and it was especially depicted in this way within the media realm. 

An example of someone who perfectly embodied the characteristics of the yuppie would be Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film “Wall Street”. Through Gordon Gekko, “Wall Street not only encapsulated one of the most recognisable stereotypes of its era, but also captured that era’s culture of aspiration, social-climbing, greed and excess brilliantly.” The yuppie trait of being overly obsessive when it came to work could suggest their anxiety of acquiring their ideal status in life, even if it meant sacrificing their families in the process.

In American psycho however the film takes a different approach to the Yuppie, From the images above we clearly see the stark resemblance of both characters, the slick back hair, the colourful suits with braces, which all epitomised the image of the yuppie. Besides appearance that’s where most of the similarities stop. In the case of the main protagonist, Patrick Bateman, he has to envision killing people in order to fill a void in his life. What’s interesting about this is that not only does it exemplify the delusions of the main protagonist, but also the shallowness of the Yuppie lifestyle and this can be shown by how such minor materialistic items take such an importance in his life as well as his colleagues.

In the book by Jane Feuer, she suggests that the yuppie depicted within tv and film does not really represent the yuppie culture directly, nor do they aim to necessarily flatter the yuppie audience.

Sources: https://georgesjournal.org/2011/10/28/yuppies-sequels-geeks-and-gekkos-the-10-ultimate-80s-movies

Feuer, J. (2017). Seeing Through the Eighties. [online] Google Books. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xzgKEVSVLYkC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=jane+feuer+yuppie&source=bl&ots=Cm7F_K1MdS&sig=Hssn5qI-VyGi-iLqYQ3Y73NPTuE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw1OHapZ3TAhVDD8AKHX_WCX0Q6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=jane%20feuer%20yuppie&f=false [Accessed 30 Jan. 2017].