Is it nature or nurture that allows some people to succeed while others fail? In the screwball comedy of manners, Trading Places, this debate is questioned and put to test to find an answer.

Authors Avatar

                

Sociologists have often wondered what matters most, environment, or genetics. Is it nature or nurture that allows some people to succeed while others fail? In the screwball comedy of manners, Trading Places, this debate is questioned and put to test to find an answer. Millionaire commodity brokers Randolph and Mortimer Duke, played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche respectively, are brothers who own the prestigious Duke & Duke financial firm. After a brief encounter with Billy Ray Valentine, played by Eddie Murphy, the two scheme to make a bet to find the answer to their long-standing “nature vs. nurture” argument. Randolph believes genetics really makes a good businessman, it is in the blood. However, his brother Mortimer is almost positive that it is a persons surroundings, the environment they are in which causes them to become a success. Out of pure curiosity to find the truth, the brothers decide to take the lives of two unsuspecting victims and turn them upside down in order to discover their answer.

The unlucky victim’s chosen are one of the Duke’s top commodity brokers, Louis Winthorpe III, played by Dan Aykroyd, and Billy Ray Valentine, a streetwise hustler. The brothers arrange for their undercover employee, Clarence Beeks, to frame Winthorpe for theft and drug possession, creating a reason for him to be fired. After he is arrested and put in jail, they take away his posh New York townhouse, cut him off from all his financial accounts, and force his fiancé and friends to hate him. Once Winthorpe’s life is successfully destroyed, Valentine is dragged off the streets and is brought under the wings of the Dukes. He is introduced to the proper life of the Dukes as they offer him Winthorpe’s home and job, bringing in a starting salary of $80,000 a year. The Duke brothers wonder if these new “environments” will cause Winthorpe to be no better than anyone else deprived of nurture, or “proper” surroundings, and Valentine to flourish as a successful businessman given the proper surroundings.  

Valentine moves into Winthorpe’s home and in time starts to act responsibly. He begins to take great interest in the house, which he realizes is now his. In many ways he acted no differently than anyone else of wealth. He even begins to flourish as a commodity broker at Duke & Duke, making them all sorts of money. His advice soon becomes so coveted that people stop what they are doing to listen whenever he speaks on economic matters, regardless of the color of his skin. He is now a man of prestige and therefore they will listen. A little common sense, some street smarts and a few “Grant’s and Franklin’s” in his pocket made him sound as logical and reasonable as any Harvard graduate would. Meanwhile, as this former con is succeeding, the former businessman is floundering. The uptight Winthorpe scrambles to make it on the streets, and soon befriends a prostitute, Ophelia,

played by Jamie Lee Curtis. The sympathetic prostitute takes him in and saves him from starvation – or worse.

In the end, after their lives have been dramatically altered, the two men discover about the scheming brothers’ plot, which was all carried out for a one-dollar bet. This enrages Winthorpe and Valentine and so the two unite to devise an even more fabulous revenge to prove their lives can not be controlled by the ever power-grubbing Duke brothers. The manipulated men trick the old millionaires into believing they have early information about the Department of Agriculture crop report on farm conditions. Armed with the false information the brothers plan to purchase as much fruit commodities as possible. After the actual crop report is released, the old shysters discover they had false information and have been completely ruined. Their seat on the exchange is repossessed and all assets of Duke & Duke are taken from them to pay for the tremendous amount of stock they purchased.

Join now!

        The poor man learned that money is not necessarily the answer to all his problems, and the rich man learned the true value of a dollar. Both men learned what real friends were. However, what really causes men to become poor and turn to a life of crime, or become great successes in the business world and earn generous livings? Is it the environment he is born into, or is it really in his blood to be a success or failure? According to the movie, Trading Places, it seems as though it is a man’s environment that determines whether or ...

This is a preview of the whole essay