Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone and realized you were wrong half way through, but didn’t say anything or even worse got even angrier?
That feeling you experienced pride. What exactly is pride, and why is it one of the seven deadly sins? Pride is a sense of self respect that can range from positive to negative; most times becoming negative. You can see pride in every day life in things as simple as thinking your opinions are more important than others, buying things just to show it off to others, or getting jealous when a friend does something successful. Specific films such as The Wolf of Wall Street, Scarface, and Star Wars offer a cinematic demonstration of how pride (and its cousin, greed) can manifest.
Greed serves as a driving force for pride, which can be easily seen through the character of Jordan Belfort, a real-life Wall Street trader, in The Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort, who begins humble, driven, and easily intimidated by his boss after taking on a new job, quickly excels realizing how much better he is at closing deals than his co-workers. From this observation, his pride is born. As he continues to get wealthier, his pride consumes him leading him to treat others as “beneath him” in, for example, mistreating his wife or using bribery to get things he wants.
“The year I turned 26, as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made 49 million dollars, which really (angered) me off because it was three million shy of a million a week,” Jordan Belfort.
Ericka, a regular film buff, has some thoughts.
“If Jordan would’ve lay low for a while, he could’ve gotten away with it, but is ego was too big to do that.”
Ericka’s observation underscores how Belfort’s growing greed overtook him, leading to his obsession with how much money he was making.
Tony Montana, the central character in Scarface, is another example of greed fueling his pride.
“I want what’s coming to me… The world, chico, and everything in it,” he boasts.
Both of these direct quotes from the movies show how these men’s greed and pride were working together to cause the downfall of both of their careers eventually causing the real life Jordan Belfort to go to prison and Tony Montana to be murdered.
Real estate broker and investor Ryan Fox says growing up she got a lot of inspiration from Tony Montanas’ ambition but as she grew up she realized, “Montana was consumed by his success.”
Pride not only affects the material but also the personal. For the prequels of Star Wars, George Lucas famously mirrored Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader to Lucifer’s descent into Satan. In the Bible’s book of James 4:6, it reads, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Anakin began showing arrogance in Episode ll as he got stronger and became a more trained Jedi. Anakin immediately started thinking he was better than his trainer, Obi-Wan, and deserved harder tasks than he was given.
“It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault. He’s jealous! He knows I’m already more powerful than he is. He’s holding me back!” he states.
Anakin’s pride grew more powerful in Episode lll when he secretly turned to the dark side, and then convinced himself it was to save Padme’s life contradicting how in the end it would turn into Padme trying to save Anakin from the dark side, which he refused and said her love for him was a lie all because he couldn’t accept that someone else could have different views without hating/ being jealous.
Since pride isn’t a disease that affects your physical health, unless you’re Anakin Skywalker, there is no medication or quick fix for it.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says that pride is the “Mother of All Sins.”Although Anakin ultimately faced the worse consequence to his pride, he is the only who repented unlike Tony Montana and Jordan Belfort who held on to it till the very end. In Return of the Jedi (1983), as Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) is dying in front of Luke Skywalker, he takes off his mask representing him surrendering his power to see his son with his own eyes for the first and last time. From these films, audiences can learn that the closet cure for pride is vulnerability, self-awareness, and taking responsibility for your choices.
Cinema helps everyone study and understand emotions in ways that seem impossible in the real world. For example, audiences are able to pause at a specific moment on a movie or show to digest and get a full understanding of the moment.
The Wolf of Wall Street, Scarface, and Star Wars are just a few of the many examples of pride in films.
Next time you feel entitled to something you want, pause. Don’t let your ego turn you into the villain of your own story.
