Summary
At home, Bud looks at the charts on his computer, when someone knocks on his door. It's a woman named Lisa who introduces herself as a friend of Gordon's. He invites her in, but she informs him that he's meant to get dressed, as they're going out.
Lisa takes Bud out to a limousine and tells him that they can go wherever he wants, before taking a bump of cocaine, as he pops the cork of some champagne. She then touches her leg seductively and asks Bud for some stock market tips. As he tells her what he's been working on, she undoes his pants and give him fellatio.
The next day, Bud greets his secretary before going into work. At his desk, he watches the market numbers, stressed and expectant. At 4 PM, Bud's stocks have not done well and a woman tells Bud that Gekko's office is looking for him. He's told to meet at the squash courts at 6, and the scene rapidly shifts to show Bud and Gekko playing a fierce game of squash.
In the steam room, Gekko tells Bud that he's a "City College boy" and that he's being edged out by Ivy League schmucks. "I just got on the board of the Bronx Zoo, it cost me a mill. That's what you've gotta understand about WASPs; they love animals, they can't stand people," he says. Seizing his opportunity, Bud tells Gekko that his accounts did not fare very well that day. "Well, I guess your dad's not a union representative of that company, huh?" says Gekko, portentously, and Bud is surprised that Gekko knows who his father is. Gekko simply says, "The most valuable commodity I know is information, wouldn't you agree?"
In the locker room, Gekko tells Bud that he doesn't like to try his luck; "every battle is won before it is fought." He then tells Bud to up his game, that it doesn't take a good MBA degree to be a good businessman; "I like guys who are poor, smart, and hungry," he says. Bud assures him that he should give him another chance. "You stop sending me information, and you start getting me some," says Gekko, before offering to show Bud his charts.
In the limousine, Gekko tells Bud about an English CEO named Larry Wildman, whom he wants Bud to spy on and get some information about. "Something big is going down. I wanna know where he goes and what he sees," he tells Bud. Bud is hesitant, telling Gekko that if he took on those tasks he could lose his license and even go to jail. "That's inside information isn't it?" Bud asks, and Gekko insists that it's no different than him giving him the information about his father's airline. "What about hard work?" asks Bud, but Gekko insists, "If you're not inside, you are outside." Gekko sets 50-100 million dollars in capital as the desirable living for a man, and Bud considers his offer. As they drive past a homeless man standing next to a businessman, Gekko says, "You think the difference between that guy and this guy is luck?" Abruptly, he kicks Bud out of his car, telling him he's late for an appointment. Before he leaves, Bud agrees to take on Gekko's assignment.
Bud waits outside Larry Wildman's office and follows him on a motorcycle as he leaves the office. At Wildman's destination, Bud just manages to get on the same elevator, and notes on which floor Wildman gets off. He then follows Wildman to a large French restaurant. When he tries to get a table, the maitre'd sends him away, telling Bud that they only take reservations. Bud waits outside the building for Wildman to emerge, then follows on his motorcycle to the airport, where he watches Wildman get into a plane. Feigning an important business errand, Bud gets an airport worker to tell him that Wildman's plane is going to Erie, Pennsylvania.
Bud tells Gekko over the phone that Wildman went to a junk bond firm before having lunch, then getting on a plane to Erie. Gekko notes that Wildman is going to the headquarters of Anacott, a steel manufacturer. Gekko gives Bud instructions on what to buy the next day, and to call the Wall Street Chronicle and leak the news of Wildman's purchase to the press. "Congratulations buddy, you scored," says Gekko, before telling his associates to "Buy Anacott Steel across the board, use the offshore accounts, and keep it quiet."
The next day at work, all goes according to plan. Bud advises his coworkers to go with Anacott Steel, and his boss, Lou doubts his self-assurance. Lou asks him what's going on, reminding him there are no shortcuts, but Bud insists that a firm has to get to the big time before it can do good. "You can't get a little bit pregnant, son," says Lou. Bud leaves, after once again advising Lou to buy Anacott Steel. After leaving Lou's office, Bud tells some more coworkers before leaking the news to the Wall Street Chronicle. The news spreads like wildfire.
Bud goes out to Gekko's house in the Hamptons to get Gekko to sign some papers. When he arrives, there is a party going on, and Bud wanders in. Kate Gekko, Gordon's wife, introduces herself, before offering Bud a drink. Bud meets a number of Gordon's old friends, including a beautiful woman named Darien Taylor who catches his eye. Bud sits on the couch next to some women talking about getting bikinis.
Outside, Gekko receives a call from Larry Wildman, who insists on coming over to talk. Inside, Bud approaches Darien and asks her what she thinks of the art on the wall. She tells him she sees "purity, innocence," but he jokes that it's wasted money. "Well, I guess you can kiss your career as an art appraiser goodbye," she says, before revealing that it's worth $40,000. Bud cannot believe it and especially cannot believe that Gekko would waste his money on art. Darien tells Bud that Gekko is an astute collector and "only buys the best." Darien reveals that she's a decorator, a "great spender of other people's money." Bud jokes that she could really help him with his rental on the Upper West Side, then asks her out to dinner.
As Kate Gekko is inviting Bud to dinner, the doorbell rings. Darien tells Bud to call her next week, and Bud starts to go, just as Larry Wildman is arriving. Bud tries to leave, but Gekko instructs him to stick around and introduces him to Wildman, who seems to recognize him from the elevator. The men all go upstairs.
Analysis
Gordon Gekko's patronage comes with the threat of his anger, but it also comes with a number of seductive and salacious perks. After leaving Bud at dinner with a plate of steak tartare, Gekko hires Bud an escort without telling him. The escort picks him up in a limousine and worships him sexually while he tells her about his job. In this way, Gekko conflates Bud's professional exploits with some sensual pleasures in hopes of motivating the young upstart to work extra hard for these rewards. The other side of the stress and agony of Wall Street is the decadent nightlife—the drugs, the fancy meals, and the expensive women.
The world of finance and trading is filled with specific markers of status and symbols of deal-making. The gifts that Gekko gives to Bud are one example of the kind of symbolic tapestry that makes up a businessman's life. Sports, recreation, and the leisure activities that accompany them are the other. Gekko invites Bud to play squash, another sign that he trusts Bud and wants to take a chance on him. The game involves the two men sweating it out on the courts, as Gekko advises Bud to try harder in between serves. Squash is an aristocratic game, a pastime that belongs to the preppier, monied set, but it is also a fierce competition, a wild display of athleticism. The juxtaposition between the wild playing and the calmly whispered advice represents the evolving relationship between the two businessmen; it is at once competitive and paternal.
While Gekko is disappointed in Bud for not doing better at business, he also identifies with Bud, because, as he reveals in the steam room after their squash match, he is not a typical blue-blooded WASP businessman, but a "City College" boy, who had to fight his way to the top. The fact that Gordon did not inherit his position in business, but fought for it with his own grit and determination, adds a layer to his character, suggesting that he had to make some of the same sacrifices—family loyalty, ethical dealing—that Bud is having to make. While this doesn't necessarily redeem him, it makes him a more complex character than if he were a snobby Ivy League WASP whose fortune came to him easily. These personal traits align Gekko and Bud, while also raising the stakes of their association.
When Bud reveals that he is not doing very well with the accounts that Gekko has tasked him with managing, Gekko reveals his true ruthless core temperament, and delivers some tough truths about how he sees the business world. Every time Bud resists him in any way, Gekko fires back with the smoothest retort, insisting that it's not enough to just work hard or play by the rules, but that a businessman has to play tough if he wants to accumulate a significant fortune, the kind that will get one a private jet. In Gordon Gekko's world, "If you're not inside, you are outside," and the world can be split up into people who own the world, and people who don't. This hollow and ethic-less ethic is how Gekko has responded to his own feelings of inferiority in the world, and he seeks to pass it onto Bud, who has resisted his own father's more wholesome and ethical take on work.
Bud's ethical dilemma is explicated in the contrast between his interactions with Gekko and his interactions with his boss Lou. Lou reminds his young worker that a stockbroker cannot take shortcuts and must fight for the side of ethics, but Bud insists that one cannot start doing good until they've made it to the big leagues. Lou's position that one must stay the course and work hard is the complete opposite of Gordon Gekko's, which suggests that the only way to have success is to cut corners and play by one's own rules. Bud's journey in the film is his struggle to choose between these two poles. While he believes he can do both, as Lou reminds him, "You can't get a little bit pregnant, son."
