Task 6
“An investigation into the on-screen gangster. How have traditional representation changed to reflect the shifting nature of masculinity?”
Introduction
This essay will discuss how the traditional representation of the gangster has changed to reflect the shifting nature of masculinity. We can agree that the gangster genre has come along way from Mervyn Leroy’s “Little Caesar” to Martin Scorsese “The Departed”, however such alterations would not have occurred if the drastic changes in society did not place. Such changes include equal rights for all individuals including ethnic minorities and a more recent change for homosexuality. A primary example that exemplifies these changes is “A Very British Gangster” which was produced in 2007 by Donal Macintyre. To outline the change in gangster films, I will compare my current text “A Very British Gangster” to Brian De Palma’s “Scarface”.
The gangster genre has been present for almost a century, due to D.W. Griffith’s “The Musketeers Of Pig Alley” (1912), who was the first to make a mark on the gangster/crime genre. More renowned texts produced by Warner Bros, who were famous in the 1930’s for producing gangster films, are William Wellman’s “The Public Enemy” and Howard Hawks “Scarface”.
The typical ethos behind any gangster’s actions is the ambition to get rich, after migrating from a poor country. A theorist who introduced this theory was Robert Warshow who stated “ all gangster films typically involves a poor immigrant so desperate for the American dream--money, position, flashy clothes and cars--that he falls prey to a life of crime”.1
In addition, migrants who are the gangsters, carry out criminal activity in order to achieve “The American Dream” which was a theory of Horatio Alger. He stated that often migrants commit crime in pursuit of wealth, status, and material possessions2, as many individuals around them have many of these things.
Traditional gangster films were loosely based on real life characters for example Howard Hawks “Scarface” which had similar references to the life of Al Capone, a mass criminal of the 1920’s. Such films allowed the nation to identify with characters however at the expense of bringing shame to he nation3.
Scarface, alongside other gangster films in the 1930’s gave rise to typical codes and conventions used in similar films. These conventions include smart suits, violent activity, murder, weapons and luxury items associated with the lifestyle such as cigars and liquor 4.
1 Historical gangster film with Robert Warshow theory
2 Crime and Gangster films
http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html
3 The effect of gangster culture on the gangster genre
4 Early gangster genre
http://www.slideshare.net/mjarry/early-gangster-genre
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