The popular portrayal of bloated plutocrats has changed enormously in the last 150 years, devolving from the 19 th century's ferocious robber barons, to that guy on the Monopoly box who was always chasing his secretary around his desk in New Yorker cartoons, to the addled and ineffectual potbellies of Depression-era screwball comedy.
The portrayal of plutocrats has greatly changed in the last 150 years.