Heroes and Villains

Research by Wunderman shows that when people lose a large amount of money and their dreams and hopes along with it, they go through a process similar to grieving for a lost relative.
It's going to be interesting over the next few months to see people going through the anger stage. How and at who will they vent this anger? Who are going to be the heroes and who are going to be the villains of the recession?
One might think that the bankers are going to be an easy target as we saw at the G20 riots, in the line up of Time magazine's "25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis" and my personal favourite, a blog dedicated to those pictures of brokers with hands on their faces. There is also a general feeling of disgust towards greed as we've seen with the recent spate of bossnappings and the viral online game about CEO pay.

So who will be the heroes of our age? Hollywood is set to glorify the vigilantes who steal from the rich, with the release of Public Enemies this summer and Robin Hood next year. Perhaps it will be people like The Yes Men - two con men who target big corporations. One of their biggest projects wiped $1 billion off Dow's stock price.

But when we move out of the anger stage of grieving will our feelings change as we come to accept what has happened? Will there start to be a feeling of sympathy for the high-flyers who lost everything? This is certainly what the makers of The Company Men will be hoping for by the time the film is released next year. The film stars Ben Affleck as a corporate high-flyer forced to downsize after losing his job, Porsche and six-figure salary and the strain this puts on his family's life.