The Associate: Film Analysis

The Associate is a film taking place in 1996, in the white male dominated Wall Street and portrayed the business discipline as sexist towards women as well as racist. The main character, Laurel Ayres, an incredibly talented financial analyst, was a black women trying to make it in the white male dominated Wall Street, but struggled greatly. She was unable to get a client to read her proposal, so she created a white male character named Robert Cutty that becomes her partner. Instantly, the proposal was accepted and she started to build a wealthy investment firm with the help of her fictional partner Robert Cutty. Cutty, quickly became the most talked about man on Wall Street, even though no one ever saw him, and it was really Laurels work and ideas the entire time. In the end, the truth comes out and all the investors on Wall Street find out the truth about Robert Cutty and how it was really Laurel Ayres, a black woman. Everyone was shocked, but she ultimately gained the respect she deserved and her company continued to

thrive without the help of Mr. Cutty. This analysis will discuss how the film portrays the business discipline, how the feminist criticism theory is displayed, and the concept of “glass ceiling” in the film.
This films main setting is on Wall Street with many male-dominated investment firms. This movie portrays the business discipline as sexist and racist with the story of Laurel Ayres. After quitting her job for being passed up on a promotion, her starts her own investment firm, but is unable to even get a client to read her proposal because of her sex and gender. As soon as Robert Cutty becomes her associate, the company becomes incredibly successful even though Cutty doesn’t exist and it was actually Laurel the entire time. Furthermore, as Cutty gained popularity, Laurels reputation didn’t, and all the credit for the company’s success went to Mr. Cutty. The movie portrays investors on Wall Street as racist and sexist since no one wanted anything to do with Laurel even though she was an equal partner with the fictional Robert Cutty. Even though Laurel became a some what respected member of the Wall Street community, all the credit went to Cutty and Laurel was merely his partner and was lucky to find him.
The feminism criticism analyzes how a film reinforces or undermine women in economic, political, and social oppressions.

This film definitely shows how the business world and Wall Street oppresses and undermines women economically and socially. In this film, two women Laurel Ayres, and Sally Dugan, a secretary were shown to be oppressed and unable to show their true potential under their previous investment firm. Laurel, as said before was passed on for a promotion and as a result quit in disgust. She was unable to start her company on her own, but with the help of Robert Cutty her company becomes incredibly successful very quickly. Sally, the secretary at the previous investment was also forced to push down her potential in computer skills in the male-dominated company she worked at. When Sally joined Laurels investment firm, she creates an incredible computer program that is able to organize all of Laurels ideas into one place on the

computer.
The “glass ceiling” is known as something being present but hard to see and hard to prove. An example of this is also seen in the film. Laurel Ayres had been training Frank Langella, in order to get the promotion she deserved. The company decided to give the promotion to Frank despite the obvious face that Laurel was more experienced and would have done a better job than Frank. Though the facts can be seen clearly, it is difficult to prove this because no concrete evidence would be found.
Later after she creates a white male character, her investment firm takes off, even though Robert Cutty, the character becomes the face of the company. Laurel continues to use her ideas and work in the background while Robert Cutty got all credit and became the most talked about man on Wall Street. This film shows that women were not given the same opportunities as men in the business discipline even though, as shown in the film, the women had better ideas than all of the males on Wall Street.
Another example of how the business world treated women in this film was with Sally Dugan, a secretary at an investment firm with no chance to move up. After joining Laurels investment firm, Sally’s creative mind goes to work and creates an incredible file organizing system that no one had ever seen before. This further validates the point that this film is trying to make about the unfair treatment of women on Wall Street. Even though this film was set years after women right equal rights as men, they continued to be discriminated again in the business discipline. In conclusion, the main point of the Associate was to prove that Wall Street was sexist and racist by showing how its members didn’t give an equal opportunity to everyone. This was shown with Laurel Ayres, a black woman who was incredibly talented was not even given a chance on her own.