MOVIE NIGHT: A Guardians of Decay Primer
Brian DePalma's Take on Tom Wolfe's Classic: The Bonfire of the Vanities
Mentioned this earlier today during my live conversation with
, we were talking about narrative warfare, symbolic justice, and the subtle ways rot moves through institutions.This film nails it.
I saw Bonfire of the Vanities in the theater as a freshman in high school. It stayed lodged in my mind. Not because it was a great movie (though the cast is stacked: Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Morgan Freeman), but because of what it shows.
Not tells.
Shows.
It’s not about the ‘80s.
It’s about how systems decay.
It’s about how public sacrifice replaces private accountability.
How soft language hides hard tactics.
How perception replaces truth.
It’s also a masterclass in spotting Guardians of Decay, those individuals, institutions, and tones that uphold rot while pretending to fight it.
No spoilers. Just patterns.
Use this as a live exercise:1
Topic: What’s the various systems obsessed with, and what’s off-limits?
Target: Who gets chosen for the fall? Why them? And who really suffers in the long run?
Tone: Listen for the voice of destruction; it’s rarely angry. It’s polite. Controlled. Performed.
Trope: Identify the key players: the accuser, the moralist, the bureaucrat, the ladder-climber.
Tactics: Media swarms and circuses. False justice rituals. Narrative laundering. Elite self-preservation.
This isn’t popcorn and quotes.
It’s pattern recognition training.
Wolfe’s original novel goes even deeper. I highly recommend it if you want to understand how oftentimes the decay hides behind the mask of virtue.
He doesn’t preach.
He looks, sees, and documents.
Do not watch this for ‘80’s nostalgia.2
Watch it to sharpen the blade.
I call this “5Ts” and will be publishing more on it later.
To be sure, it is indeed an added benefit!
Never watched the movie nor have I read the book. Now you have heightened my curiosity and will have to do both.