# From relative prosperity to total humiliation in films **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [March 26, 2022, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726 "2022-03-26T00:02:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/1 "2022-03-26T00:02:49Z")
Which films in our joint recollection begin with the main protagonist as a successful individual and end with his/her self-inflicted and total humiliation. For example: The Blue Angel When this sorry tale begins, Immanuel Rath is a respectable teacher at a high school. At the story’s end, aided by an obsessive liaison with Lola Lola, he is a clown in Lola’s troupe having eggs broken over his head every night. He dies, humiliated, destitute, and rejected. Carrie (1952) Restaurant manager George Hurstwood falls in love with Carrie but loses his family, house, and job after beginning a relationship with Carrie. He falls fast into poverty and the story ends with him starving and destitute. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/2 "2022-03-26T00:36:12Z")
I’ll see your _ **The Blue Angel** _ and raise you _ **The Blue Max.** _. Bruno Stachel has to die before being court martialed and disgracing the German officer corps, all because (aside from claiming kills that weren’t his) he trusts his mistress to keep her mouth shut. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/3 "2022-03-26T00:39:00Z")
_Nightmare Alley_ kind of fits this category, although he isn’t successful at the very beginning, he becomes very succesful, and, by the end, is about as low he thought he could be. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/4 "2022-03-26T01:16:44Z")
**Trading Places**? The two old gents get what’s coming to them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/5 "2022-03-26T01:30:30Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > **Trading Places**? The two old gents get what’s coming to them. Sure, but they’re not the protagonists like the OP had asked; otherwise, folks would’ve mentioned, what, dozens of Bond films by now? That said, I’ll add Jack Nicholson’s character, Jerry Black, in THE PLEDGE. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/6 "2022-03-26T01:46:35Z")
Thanks guys. I think Cleopatra’s transformation from trapeze artist to a specimen of poultry in Freaks fits in. Not exactly prosperous in the beginning she does marry a man with a sizeable inheritance. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/7 "2022-03-26T01:52:37Z")
Protagonist (we root for), _self-inflicted_ ruin, no third act comeback. Narrows the field ruling out even non-Hollywood formula like _The Last Laugh_ (1924 German), Balzac’s _Colonel Chabert_ (he gets screwed but not self-inflicted), and every Jesus movie (unless you consider the Cleansing of the Temple “If I dood it, I get a whippin’” self-infliction). Maybe any number of artist biopics, like _Bird,_ about Charlie Parker, or _The Comic,_ about Buster Keaton/Stan Laurel. American Indians like Ira Hayes and Jim Thorpe did themselves dirt IRL, but Hollywood softened it as much as possible, while casting them with non-Indians. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/8 "2022-03-26T01:58:40Z")
Von Stroheim’s _Greed_ “Mac” McTeague is a man who builds himself up from nothing into having successful dental practice. His wife wins the lottery, and the greed of him, his wife, and his best friend destroy them. In the final scene, he ends up in the middle of Death Valley, with no horse, no water, and handcuffed to his (former) best friend’s corpse. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/9 "2022-03-26T02:14:51Z")
**Barton Fink** starts with the title character celebrating the success of his newest play and accepting an offer to write screenplays for Hollywood. By the end of the film, his dreams of success have been thoroughly crushed, and his parents and uncle have very possibly been murdered. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/10 "2022-03-26T02:27:00Z")
Film noir seems like a good place to find some of these characters, like both Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson in _Double Indemnity_, and the less-prosperous Ned Racine in _Body Heat_. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/11 "2022-03-26T02:28:51Z")
Isaac in **Manhattan** quits his job as a TV producer, has to move to a crappy apartment, loses two girlfriends, finds out his best friend is a backstabber, and has his sexual secrets revealed to the world when his ex-wife publishes a tell-all book. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/12 "2022-03-26T02:30:01Z")
Lina Wertmüller‘s **The Seduction of Mimi** might qualify. The protagonist manages to steer clear of the subjugated life the mafia has slated him for, but when his wife cheats on him, rather than accept it since he’s already made a life with another woman himself, he has to seduce the wife of his wife’s lover. The fish-eye lens shot of the prelude to the act is not to be missed. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/13 "2022-03-26T02:57:02Z")
Lolita > **[Lolita (1962 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita_(1962_film))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Lolita is a 1962 psychological comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the 1955 novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov, who is also credited with writing the screenplay. The film follows Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature lecturer who becomes sexually infatuated with Dolores Haze (nicknamed "Lolita"), a young adolescent girl. It stars James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers and, as the titular character, Sue L... ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/14 "2022-03-26T03:39:09Z")
In _ **The Man Who Cheated Himself** _ (1950), a veteran homicide detective (Lee J Cobb) throws away his career and freedom trying to cover up a murder committed by his mistress (Jane Wyatt). It’s fun to watch his elaborate scheme unravel bit by bit—mostly at the hands of his own brother, who is also a cop. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/15 "2022-03-26T04:08:14Z")
That reminds me of the only Mickey Rooney movie I like: [Quicksand.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksand_(1950_film)) His character commits bigger and bigger crimes to cover each previous one. The only consolation: the woman he started the whole thing for promises to wait for him. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/16 "2022-03-26T05:17:38Z")
Women! Can’t live with 'em … pass the beer nuts, Woody. 🍺 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/17 "2022-03-26T09:34:41Z")
Terry Gilliam’s **Brazil.** The circumstances are extremely spoilery, but it’s enough to say that the prosperity at the beginning is ironic and very much “relative,” and the nature of the defeat at the end depends entirely on one’s perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/18 "2022-03-26T10:04:05Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > Which films in our joint recollection begin with the main protagonist as a successful individual and end with his/her self-inflicted and total humiliation. There is a great example of this in poor Lily Bart in The movie adaptation of _The House of Mirth_. She starts as a well-off socialite, but through a series of bad decisions and misapprehensions basically bankrupts herself and puts herself at the mercy of the people she looked down on at the beginning of the movie. Spoiler alert – she doesn’t get much mercy, though the movie is slightly kinder to her than the book. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/19 "2022-03-26T12:10:28Z")
Kyle in **Very Bad Things**. > **[Very Bad Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Bad_Things)** > > Very Bad Things is a 1998 American black comedy film written and directed by Peter Berg in his feature film directorial debut and starring Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau, Daniel Stern, Jeremy Piven, Christian Slater, Leland Orser, Kobe Tai and Jeanne Tripplehorn. > Kyle Fisher organizes a bachelor party in a Las Vegas hotel with his friends: Charles, Robert, and brothers Adam and Michael. Tina, a stripper/prostitute, is accidentally killed by Michael in the bathroom. Soon after, a security guard comes ... ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2022, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726/20 "2022-03-26T12:28:27Z")
From job and home to homeless and poor. Owen Wilson: [Bliss](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10333426/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-relative-prosperity-to-total-humiliation-in-films/961726.md?page=2)