The IU Cinema screened “Dumb Money,” the first film in a new collaboration series with the Office of Financial Welfare and Education on Tuesday.
The collaboration, called “Healthy Investing in the Age of Crypto, Meme Stocks and Financial Crises,” aims to help students increase their financial literacy and education through real world events.
“Dumb Money” tells the true story of Keith Gill, a financial analyst and YouTuber on a Wall Street subreddit, who was behind the sudden, shocking rise in GameStop stock in January 2021. Played by Paul Dano, the film follows Gill as he invests his life savings into GameStop’s rapidly dropping stock while encouraging other internet users to do the same. This drives up the stock’s value and sends investors, who had bet against the stock, into a frenzy.
Those who stayed behind after the credits rolled had the chance to participate in a Q&A with members of the Office of Financial Welfare and Education. Sara Ray, the associate director for Financial Welfare and Education, explained why the organization wanted to show “Dumb Money.”
“This film really showcases what can happen when there is a kind of overexuberance and excitement around investing,” she said. “I think it’s a really good way to explore how students can be wiser investors, and just really demonstrating why financial education is so important.”
Ray said the film offered many lessons to students in terms of what they should and should not be doing when it comes to the stock market.
“When I see a student maybe thinking about a situation that I would maybe see as risky, I have to step back for a moment and just say, ‘OK, how do we approach this from an educational perspective?’” she said.
Phil Schuman, executive director of the Office of Financial Wellness and Education, said the series was a result of students becoming increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies and the stock market after seeing what happened with GameStop.
“We’ve received a lot of questions about this over the last few years, especially with the GameStop squeeze, just what all that looks like,” Schuman said. “So we wanted to bring this out here to start engaging in a dialogue around it.”
While passion is important, the directors don’t want students to just buy stock because they like the company, as the characters do in “Dumb Money.” To illustrate this point, Schuman asked the crowd if they would try to make their next car payment through bets on IU football games. The crowd laughed.
“How different is going into a stock that you may know little about?” he said. “They don’t make movies about the little guy who loses a bunch of money.”
The members of the Office of Financial Welfare and Education will be hosting walk-in appointments from 4-6 p.m. Sept. 10 at the Bloomington Township Center. Any members of the community with financial questions are welcome to attend.
The series will continue with a screening of “The Big Short” at 7 p.m. Oct. 1 at IU Cinema.
