Flavian Philip

Professor Janelle Poe

FIQWS 10108

10 December 2018

                                                      The Evil of Ambition

        People such as Kim Jong-un, Robert Allen Stanford, Domenico Dolce, and Stefano Gabbana all have had one thing in common which is the ambition to advance their careers, even to the cost of being labeled as a criminal. In society having a lot of ambition is always deemed positively because it is always associated with excelling in life. However, no one ever shines a light on the fact that having too much ambition can perhaps cause a person to become corruptive. Within the 2018 film Billionaire Boys Club (which was a recreation of the 1987 movie) filmed and directed by James Cox, the main characters Joseph Hunt and Dean Karny (played by Ansel Elgort and Taron Egerton) are introduced as the the most unfortunate out of all of their former Harvard high school classmates. However, even though Karny and Hunt were both depicted as less fortunate, Karny was given more privileges than Hunt because his family ranked higher in socioeconomic class. Throughout this minor difference, the two friends then embarked on a journey to become two of the richest men in Beverly Hills and created a company called the Billionaire Boys Club, but due to their strong-willed ambition to further their careers, their journey to wealth led them to an even greater path of destruction.

        Within the film Billionaire Boys Club, the main character Joseph Hunt, also known as Joe, was depicted as an intellectual white male with an unfortunate upbringing, but with a substantial amount of ambition and charming personality he gained a massive amount of wealth when he created a social and investment club by the name of the Billionaire Boys Club, also known as the BBC, with his friend Dean Karny. Contrarily, the pair lost their sense of humanity striving to fulfill the American dream. It had always been Joe’s dream of to invest in the gold market, and when his best friend Dean had given him ten thousand dollars to start off, he felt overjoyed and didn’t hesitate to start his investments. However, shortly after, the market plummeted immensely. Therefore, it left Joseph and Dean the choice to either be honest and truthful to their former high school classmates or to sell them a fantasy to maintain their wealth. They chose to lie, but lies can only be kept for so long, this then marked the downfall for both the BBC and Joe Hunt’s entire life.

        Joseph Hunt was the ideal definition of “started from the bottom”. He grew up within a lower-middle incomed household and ended up becoming one of the wealthiest men in Beverly Hills. However, after a few months Joseph and Dean shortly began to realize that obtaining wealth in the 80’s was more of a facade than actual reality itself, and that to acquire great wealth required an even greater level of corruption. This all coincides with Robert Agnew’s strain theory which describes how society emphasizes on goals that are practically unrealistic and extremely hard to fulfill. Thus, it unintentionally motivates people (usually under the age of 50) to strive to successfully accomplish the goal/goals, but due to the lack of legal opportunities that are presented to obtain it  people then feel restrained from greatness and feel practically feel forced to engage in criminal activity. Sadly, Joseph was one of many people in America who had fallen into the society’s trap with his great ambition to become successful which  derived from the little acceptance that he felt within society when he was younger. His knowledge and his determination was not acknowledged because he was seen as a poor and struggling boy. Moreover, this led him to push even further with his career and create a name for himself to prove his worth to not only to people, but also to himself.

        Many fans of Joe Hunt believed and still believe to this day that he is innocent and that was falsely accused because of his less fortunate upbringings. Although Dean and Joe were partners Dean faced no prison time because he gained immunity. In court Dean was depicted as a person who couldn’t pose a threat because of his family’s financial stability, whereas Joe is currently almost 60 years old still facing life. After the release of the 2018 film, people have been discussing about releasing Joseph Hunt, who has been imprisoned since 1987, and even created a website by the name of freejoehunt.com, a site where people can sign a petition in attempt to get Joseph Hunt parole for him to be released. The website states all of the great things that Joseph has done in his lifetime even after his incarceration. It brings a light to the fact that out of the three people that were sentenced he is the only one that had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and also entails that while Joe has been imprisoned for 30 years he has never had an altercation in prison,  and that he deserves a second chance.

         The Billionaire Boys Club case was one of the most popular cases that occured within the 1980’s and although many people actually adored and admired Joseph Hunt for his extreme brilliance, determination, and ambition to obtain wealth. There were and still are many others who strongly dislike him, and do not think that he is at all innocent as many believe. Within the television documentary “Dominick Dunne’s Power Privilege and Justice” it portrays Hunt as suspicious, conniving, and guilty, and even though Hunt’s lawyer was one of the best in Beverly Hills his attempt to try to get Hunt off of the Ron Levin’s case fails and the case is practically thrown away once Ron Levin’s father, whom of which is very rich and powerful, stated on countless occasions that him, his wife, and son were extremely close, and that he must’ve been murdered because he always reached out to them at least once a day. Levin’s father demanded that Hunt be put to death and wanted see him become executed. Although Joe didn’t end up receiving the death penalty, he was sentenced to life in prison which  the court ended up sentencing to life which is practically a more torturous death sentence. This made television watchers begin to believe that Joseph deserved the prison sentence that was bestowed upon him. Even though everyone else that was affiliated with the case served 12 years to no time at all, Hunt was given life, but why? What made him the bad guy? Why was he truly imprisoned? Was it because he was the only one from a poor family? Or was it because he actually had committed crimes that no one else in the BBC had committed?

        I quite admired Joseph Hunt within the film, he was a very ambitious man trying to fulfill the American dream of acquiring wealth, getting beautiful women, driving exotic cars, wearing expensive clothes, and buying big houses. However, it was his great ambition that led him to imprisonment. Once he had achieved  his goals he was then accounted for all the conspiracies that had been made within his company that he partially founded. Over the course of watching the documentary and film, I have come to an understanding that the evidence found in the Levin’s case was not enough to indict him, and that he may have possibly been overlooked and ostracized  by the court because he didn’t come from a family of wealth. Finding only a piece of paper that was written by Joseph in Levin’s home does not mean that he, himself had killed him. Moreover, Hunt was being used as a pawn for Levin and was a victim of fraud as well. The only thing that he could’ve rightly been charged with was burglary and fraud.

        I believe that Joseph Hunt didn’t deserve to get life in prison. However, certain decisions that were included within Dominick’s documentary made him seem extremely suspicious. Firstly, he refused to be on the stand in his defense on the Levin case but spoke with extreme poise and respect during the case of the death of Eslaminia. Joseph actually spoke as his own lawyer on the Eslaminia case and had the case dismissed without any charges. Why did he not do the same thing during the case about Levin was it because he felt saddened by his old mentor’s death or because he felt a great sense of guilt?

        At the end of the film Joseph states that no one in America truly cares how a person acquires their wealth, and that they only care about the fact that a person has it. I strongly agreed with this quote because even though Joseph grew up in a different state and decade than I have, the same American mindset is seen today especially within the minority communities. Many black and hispanic men have the same mindset as Joe Hunt did, they believe that they need to be overly ambitious, and sometimes end up scamming or selling drugs in order to live an expensive lifestyle. This is all because money is seen as the most important thing to have when living in America, everyone wants and uses it on practically a daily basis. Although it is great to have money and wealth, sometimes it can make a person perform irrational decisions because of the societal pressure to become madly successful. Ambition is the greatest thing a person can have to achieve their goals. However,  as the saying goes having too much of a good thing is bad. Therefore, it is important to recognize the limitations of ambition, and create a fence between striving to become a success legally without shame and becoming a corrupted businessperson.

 

                                                         Works Cited

     Cox, James, director. Billionaire Boys Club. Billionaire Boys Club, Vertical Entertainment,2018.

     Documentaries, Crime. “The Fall of Billionaire Boys Club (Crime Documentary).” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Feb. 2018, m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLxYaalMlVA.

     Garner, Lisa Karen. “Billionaire Boys’ Club: Billionaires by Crime?” HeinOnline, heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/laent10&div=23&id=&page=.

     Floyd, Pilar. “The True Story of the Billionaire Boys Club – Filthy Lucre.” Https://Filthylucre.com/, Google, www.google.com/amp/s/filthylucre.com/billionaire-boys-club/amp/.

     Timnick, Lois, and CAROL McGRAW | Times Staff Writers. “Leader of Billionaire Boys Club Convicted of Murder.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 1987, articles.latimes.com/1987-04-23/news/mn-720_1_billionaire-boys-club.

    Plante , Yourianne. “The World’s Most Corrupt Millionaires.” 20 Jobs That Will Be Replaced by Technology, Microsoft, 26 Aug. 2016, www.msn.com/en-in/money/photos/the-world’s-most-corrupt-millionaires/ss-BBuB0lg#image=7.“Ambition Is Evil.” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbitionIsEvil.

     “Home.” Free Joe Hunt, freejoehunt.com/.

      Audiopedia, The. “What Is GENERAL STRAIN THEORY? What Does GENERAL STRAIN THEORY Mean? GENERAL STRAIN THEORY Meaning.” YouTube, YouTube, 2 Oct. 2017, m.youtube.com/watch?v=YzXgdWQ-Fwg.