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The Portrayal of Organized Crime in The Godfather vs. Reality

By Alex Abi Haidar

When it came out in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola’s classic film The Godfather divided opinions on the state of organized crime in America at the time. Viewers asked which aspects of the movie were accurate to what you would see in real life? Which features of the movie were simply added Hollywood effects to increase dramatic effect? Never before The Godfather  had American crime cinema made such an attempt to stay true to real world actions of those involved in the mafia. Crime movies before the 1970’s tended to be overdramatized gangster pictures utilizing actors such as James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart that generally did not attempt to keep it realistic to the style of the Mafia. The Godfather took the crime genre of movies to the next level with a crew that comprised of many Italian-American individuals whose goal was to keep the Corleone family in The Godfather as authentic as they could. Their work set the template for any mafia or crime movie coming out of Hollywood from that point on and their devotion to realism attained praise from critics all over the world. IMDb has rated it as the second greatest movie of all time and The Godfather set a record for the number of Golden Globes won by a film with five awards won. It is safe to say that this movie changed the game for any film coming after it in the future and was largely an astounding success. However, with all the content included in such a long film, there was sure to be some differences between real life crime and the movie that attempted to mimic it so closely.

 

The Corleone crime family in The Godfather  was considered to be similar to the Luciano New York crime family in real life. Specifically, the boss Don Vito Corleone was comparable to Frank Costello who was the boss of the Luciano crime family. While there was a vast amount of similarities between the crime family we see on the screen and the real-world crime family that they were based on, the themes we see in The Godfather differ from what we see in the real world. To start, one truth that comes from The Godfather actually turns out to be a Hollywood fabrication: mafia families do not deal drugs. In the movie, Don Corleone is seen opting not to support a drug dealing associate who wanted Corleone’s financial backing and political connections. Corleone states that he does not want to be involved in the trafficking of narcotics and that his political friends would not remain friends if he were to be caught pushing drugs. While Corleone’s opposition to dealing drugs may seem like a general rule, the real world of crime actually contradicts this. Figures in organized crime as far back as the 30’s have been caught pushing narcotics, such as Vito Genovese who was a New York family boss in the 1950’s. Genovese was considered to be one of the most powerful men in America during his time as Genovese family boss and was imprisoned on drug charges. In organized crime’s later years, a drug importing scheme that was created in part with the Sicilian mafia managed to bring in about $1.6 billion worth of Heroin into America (Anastasia, n.d.). In fact, the dealing of drugs throughout America resulted in one of the most lucrative forms of business for organized crime families. The opposition to dealing drugs that Don Corleone expressed most likely did not come from a moral opposition to drug dealing, but a political move that allowed him to keep his friends in politics as well as avoid legal prosecution from police and other branches of government. When we contrast this from what occurs in reality, many organized crime families had no problems partaking in the trafficking of narcotics and saw it as a viable means of creating income for themselves.

Considering the massive success that The Godfather achieved at the box office, it is clear to see that there was a vast audience that saw the world of the Corleone family. People across America and all over the world were witnessing this Italian-American subculture and the power that it possessed in the country at one time. This portrayal of Italian-Americans resulted in a side effect however: stereotyping. After the release of The Godfather, it became easy for Americans to begin making assumptions about their Italian-American peers. Due to the violent nature of the Italian mafia and the portrayal of the illegal lifestyle that the Corleone’s took part in, many people applied what they saw in The Godfather to what they saw in real life. Since there were such a large society of people who saw the movie and the depiction of Italians, generalizations were made across the board. Naturally, these generalizations were not correct and it did not make sense to apply these to such a large amount of people. There are millions of Italian-Americans throughout the country yet one movie focused on one very small percentage of these Americans cast a shadow of misrepresentation across the whole population. There were calls for this to be rectified since the assumptions being made about Italian-Americans were unsuitable and upset the general Italian population in America as well as those Italians involved in organized crime. Specifically, one man took it upon himself to end the stereotyping and generalizations made at the hands of Hollywood films and media. Mob boss Joe Columbo took charge of creating an association of Italian-Americans who were against the slander and assumptions that were being made about their heritage. It was called the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League and the groups goal was to control the way Italian-Americans were perceived by the general public, attempting to separate the Italian-American heritage with the Organized Crime aspect of their culture. Columbo repeatedly denied the existence of the mafia and even tried to completely erase the word “mafia” from the minds of people (Doyle, n.d.). Generally speaking, the effects of the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League were limited since they had to reach such a broad audience of people with limited awareness of the group. The Godfather reached so many people and so many different sets of eyes that it was a very challenging task to reel back the assumptions and perceptions that viewers had already made.

A major aspect of The Godfather was the display of the underground life and the workings of a high-level crime family. Characters were seen murdering others, operating their business, and collecting money from their various income sources throughout the film. Confrontations with the police are shown throughout the movie as well. What The Godfather  glorifies in the movie is beating the system and working around the law to make money. The significance here is success can be attained by pushing the limits of the legal system. This mentality was romanticized by the film, and is arguably what made The Godfather such a game changing movie. This all ties in to the realism of the movie, as many films that came before this never really showed the bad guys being ahead in the world. Most films in the crime genre ended up with the antagonists dying or falling into legal trouble. These films were made at a time where the mafia had its peak amount of power and influence, yet they showed us the average gangster who never really ended up in a good spot. The Godfather portrayed a different picture than this, where the “bad guys” were actually in a position of great prominence on a path to being involved in legitimate businesses in the later Godfather movies. That outlook was probably one of the biggest reasons for the movie’s success. It showed viewers the glamour of being anti-establishment and anti-government while still being able to have a respectable place in society and attain success (McCreesh, n.d.). This made some viewers become big time admirers of what they were seeing and it has been said that there was even a vicarious thrill that came from seeing the characters of The Godfather go about their daily business living outside the limits of the law. The film turned characters who behaved in ways that go against society norms into icons that were revered for their lifestyle and envied by viewers, which is what was so powerful about the movie and was greatly attributed to its accomplishments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews of Other Group Projects by Alex Abi Haidar

Group 1: I thought that the first group’s debate had a very good effect on the class. The debate was very engaging and the points being made by each of the debaters had a lot of relevance. It was cool to see a project that made an emphasis on white-washing in varying forms of media. It was easy to see that the debaters really believed in the stance they were pushing and the flow of the conversations were very organic.

Group 2: Group 2’s documentary was extremely well made. The editing made the video flow well and was very easy to follow and know what was going on. The interviews also allowed us to get real perspective from the community they were observing. They also showed us how LGBTQ characters are portrayed in media and the stereotypes that follow characters who are part of this community.

Group 3: I really enjoyed the Cards Against Misogyny spin-off of Cards Against Humanity. The format fit very well with this social issue and this group did a great job of curating the phrases that were used on the black and white cards. The game was also quite informative and engaging and was very informative even when playing with a group. This was a well thought out game that seemed like a hit across the classroom.

Group 4: This group created a board game for their project and I actually got to play this one. The topic was female education in 3rd world countries and I thought this group did a great job of keeping the game realistic. It was extremely difficult to move forward in this game and to actually be able to reach a full education which was the way to win in this game. The statistics on each of the playing cards were also a good addition since it gave us some facts about what women go through in 3rd world countries to receive an education.

Group 6: Group 6 had created a board game to bring awareness to women sex workers in an unregulated working environment. We as a class got to hear about what sex workers go through across the world and the hardships they have to deal with. The cards they created were darkly humorous which kept the game light, but it was also very poignant when you think about the real life implications of the scenarios that were portrayed in this game.

Group 7: This group’s project was a health-based Instagram account that sought to inform readers on eating healthier and generally learning how to have a more healthy lifestyle. They included tips on what to eat to get a certain kind of vitamin or what kind of replacement snack foods you could consume instead of less healthy alternatives. This was a great project because there is potential for this group to grow it and take it to the next level if they wish to. The Instagram format is a powerful tool to get your message across and to increase the amount of views your content can get.

Group 8: Lastly, there was Group 8 who combined the games of Jenga and Jeopardy to create a game that aimed to bring awareness to the obesity problem in our country. I thought the mix of Jenga and Jeopardy was unique and ended up being effective and engaging for the class to partake in or watch. It was also interesting to see a group use the Jeopardy game show format since this was one of the directions our project could have went. I felt that this game was informative with its use of statistics and the addition of participants doing actual exercises during the course of the game made this project comprehensive. Overall this was a well-executed project that was fun to watch.

Group Project Reflection (Group 5) by Alex Abi Haidar

In my group, we decided to do a hangman style quiz game after deliberating between a documentary and a Jeopardy game. We started with an idea about featuring the homeless in our project. We were going to make a documentary showing the situations of homeless people across Portland are dealing with however, we felt that a game show or some other type of game would be more engaging to the class and more informative as well. We then moved on to Jeopardy, which was a very solid choice since we could create teams to add a sense of engagement to the class. Besides this, Jeopardy is naturally a very informative game based on its format so we figured it could be a good learning tool. We didn’t end up going with Jeopardy due to having a limited time frame, so we could not make the game as comprehensive as we would have wanted to. The final choice was our hangman game. The format of this quiz game made it easy to be able to touch on a lot of different social issues in a limited amount of time and still be able to make it engaging for the class. The added incentive of candy for whoever knew the right answer to our questions helped out with making the class more involved with the material as well. The great thing about our group though is that we agreed on a project to create in a respectful and efficient manner, considering all of our project options. The work was very well divided between each of the group members. We all put in an even amount of time and each of us also had similar quality. It was very easy to work with this group since the ideas were always flowing during the brainstorming stage and my group mates were very receptive to differing points of views and willing to try out different project ideas. Overall, I felt that the group was well chosen and I had a good time working with my team on this project. The presentation of the project went well in my opinion. Going in, we were worried about not having enough time to get through all of our speeches and the corresponding questions, but the speaking stage took up less time than we initially thought it was going to so we were able to get through the entire presentation. I felt that overall, a different format of project would have been more engaging for my classmates to participate in. A true game show format would have been preferred since there is more tension and there is the group dynamic that could be included. These aspects would have gotten the class a bit more interested in the project and more receptive to what they were hearing during the presentation. Either way, our quiz/hangman game went to plan and still proved to be a good way for the class to learn new information about the social issues we chose to speak about.

Blog Post #5: Fake It To Make It Game Review by Alex Abi Haidar

This week in Pop Culture, we were told to choose a game from the website gamesforchange.org, a program that consists mainly of games with educational value or themes of social change and other social topics. I decided to play and review a game called Fake It To Make It. This game was a simulator which puts you first-person into the life of a blogger. Fake It To Make It allows you to run your blog your way, finding or writing articles to be able to generate the most amount of hits and views on your posts. This is all under a monetary system where you can buy items for your lifestyle such as a car or the deposit on an apartment. This adds a good incentive for your blog to do well since you are going to have to support your lifestyle and be able to pay back the items you spent your money on. What is interesting about the game is how it plays on the “Fake News” trend that has been in the media recently. In the game you are given a variety of stories written that cater to certain audiences, political or otherwise. For the most part, these articles tend to be very sensationalist with titles such as “Celebrity Dies, You’ll Never Guess How” or “President Going on Another Golf Trip”. Some of these stories have a factual basis while many are only partially true or have no truth in them at all. There appears to be a lot of stories designed to draw views and attention, much like what happens in real life through the various news stories we see. These kinds of stories have been the trend in news media, so it was interesting to see the effect of pushing these news stories on your virtual blog and being able to see the kind of buzz and reactions that were generated from an article.

I feel like the purpose of this game was to give players an inside look into what news media has become today, and the challenges that bloggers or modern journalists have to face. In many cases, the livelihoods of writers and bloggers are tied to the success of their blogs or websites. If the quality of their writing is off or the audience that is reading their content does not agree with what they are seeing, that can have a huge impact on the blogger lives. Also, this simulator game walks players through the process of creating a thriving blog or website and expedites the process so the player can see what really goes into being successful in that industry. Finally, Fake It To Make It did a great job of staying realistic with what is really going on in America right now as far as journalism trends go. This game really made me a fan of using video games as a medium for social change and awareness. I can really see the merit of using video games for this purpose, since games can give you first-hand perspective of a situation like few other mediums can. In a game, you are actually experiencing a situation whereas a movie made to draw awareness about a subject or a TV show cannot immerse you in the situation with the same effectiveness.