Black Monday and Corporate Are Leading a New Wave of Anticapitalist TV

Showtime's Black Monday opens with a panorama of Wall Street on Oct. 19, 1987--the date of the catastrophic stock-market crash that gives the show its name. A white-haired businessman crumples on a curb, sobbing. Two giddy punks spray-paint YUPPIES LOST on a pillar above his head. And a chauffeur clambers out of a Lamborghini limo the color of fresh blood just in time to watch a jumper in an expensive-looking suit slam through the car's roof.

Showtime's Black Monday opens with a panorama of Wall Street on Oct. 19, 1987--the date of the catastrophic stock-market crash that gives the show its name. A white-haired businessman crumples on a curb, sobbing. Two giddy punks spray-paint YUPPIES LOST on a pillar above his head. And a chauffeur clambers out of a Lamborghini limo the color of fresh blood just in time to watch a jumper in an expensive-looking suit slam through the car's roof.