The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street

        When analyzing the speech from Wolf of Wall Street I watched it a few times, each time looking and analyzing different aspects. Some of these aspects include objectives, structure and contents, techniques, and overall delivery.

        When critiquing the objectives of the speech, the first thing I took note of was the type of speech Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) was delivering. It was clear that it was a motivational speech to encourage the company employees to sell stocks. I also sort of analyzed Jordan Belfort credibility. When giving a speech you want to be a credible source of the topic. You wouldn’t want a football player giving a speech about how to shoot a basketball. I think Jordan Belfort’s credibility matched well with the topic and given audience. Jordan Belfort was obviously very knowledgeable on the topic of how to sell stocks as he was at the top of the company making more money than anyone in the audience.

When looking at the objectives of the speech another aspect to look at is the audience. Was this speech appropriate for the audience? The speech topic on selling stocks related directly to the audience, as it was their job to sell stocks. His goal was to simply motivate and inspire employees to work hard and get rich. When addressing the audience, there was no discrimination against a particular religion or race. When you take a close look at the audience, you see mix of different races and genders, and they’re all equally chanting and cheering together. But there was one factor I took note of. One being he was really focused on people becoming rich like him. He portrayed a negative outlook on being poor. One quote that exemplifies this is “there is no nobility in poverty. I have been a rich man and I have been a poor man, and I choose rich every ******* time”. Although he is being discriminatory against lower class people, the audience was primarily wealthy and seemed to agree with Jordan Belfort’s discriminatory view. So his trash talk about living in poverty had little to no effect on the audience.

When analyzing the objective of the speech, the biggest aspect to consider is whether or not the objective was achieved. Judging by the loud cheering and celebration of the audience when the speech was over, it was a clear indication that Jordan Belfort’s speech effectively motivated the audience in the way he intended.

In addition to the objectives, I also took note of the structure and contents of Jordan Belfort’s speech. The first thing I noticed was the way he grabbed the audience’s attention. He started off his speech by relating and connecting his speech to the audience. He begins by saying “See those little black boxes? They’re called telephones. I’m going to let you in on a little secret on these telephones; they’re not going to dial themselves. Without you, they’re just useless hunks of plastic”. Right from the beginning of the speech, the audience is initially engaged. Jordan Belfort sort of gives the audience a sense of worth, gaining their attention. He builds on this by referring to the audience as “my killers who won’t take no for an answer” and “my ******* warriors who won’t hang up the phone until their client buy or dies”. By using these strategies of relating the audience and giving them a sense of worth, they’re immediately engaged and start cheering.

The way he concluded he speech was also good. Since it was a motivational speech, it was good he incorporated a call to action. He tells them to be “ferocious, relentless… hit it out of the park”. This sums up his speech and rallies the audience and gets them on their feet.  

After grabbing their attention, Jordan then dives into the contents of his speech, which is an important aspect to analyze when critiquing a speech. One thing I noticed his speech contained a lot of hypotheticals. He described a lot of situations that could happen if the employees didn’t do their jobs and would be poor. One example is when he compared rolling up to a red light in a new Porsche with a beautiful wife versus an old beat up car with an ugly wife. This gives the audience incentive to work hard to get a Porsche with a beautiful wife, even though it might not be possible. This strategy worked well for Jordan, being that the audience cheered every time Jordan paused.  The overall structure and contents was good. The speech was well organized and flowed nicely. The contents were effective and related well to the topic and objective of motivating the audience.