Trading Places remains as satirically sharp as it was when it was released in 1983. One of the few finance films to actually inspire real life legislation, Trading Places featured ground-breaking and justifiably award-winning performances from its two male leads, Murphy and Aykroyd. The secret star of the film, though, was Jamie Lee Curtis. Her portrayal of Ophelia was a revelation, a performance truly ahead of its time. Despite the movie coming out at a time when sex workers were often portrayed as victims of trafficking or forced to do sex work due to trauma, abuse, or addiction, Ophelia is entirely about making money. For her, it’s simply a job. This surprisingly progressive exploration of sex work is right at home in a film also grappling with racism.
VettaFi financial futurist Dave Nadig wrote, “Trading Places is possibly the finest and most nuanced criticism of capitalism ever put to screen, but you’d never know that because it’s a comedy. From the extremely progressive takes on homelessness and sex work to the surprisingly intricate insider-trading narrative, it calls into question the whole fabric of modern U.S. capitalism. As someone just a few years younger than Eddie Murphy, I can also tell you it’s a shockingly accurate portrayal of “club culture” at the time. It really is a snooty, aggressively white, ivy-league kind of club culture.”
