Gangsters

The figure of the gangster first appeared in news reports of the 1920s, and has since grown to heroic proportions, spurred in large part by a major presence in films and literature. Through powerful mass media exposure, the gangster image has provided guidelines on manhood and served as a cultural icon that has reflected the changing notions of masculinity in the United States.

The gangster, typically represented by a male figure, emerged in response to the evolution of corporate capitalism in the early twentieth century. Although criminal gangs had long occupied American cities, the Eighteenth Amendment (1919), which outlawed the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol, and desperate poverty brought on by the Great Depression provided opportunities for individual crime leaders to emerge and thrive.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the exploits of gangsters such as Al Capone, John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, and “Pretty Boy” Floyd became national news, fueling fictional accounts and capturing the popular imagination. As corporate capitalism promoted consumerism and widened the gap between rich and poor, Americans became infatuated with the gangster, whose stylish dress and fancy cars demonstrated a victory over humble origins and defied the boundaries separating social classes, thus confirming the notion of the selfmade man. Similarly, gangsters continued to appeal to the American public and attained folk-hero status by challenging the capitalist system through their autonomy and attainment of wealth outside of established channels. The gangster also counteracted the weakening of Victorian gender constructs by upholding traditional patriarchal authority over women through physical violence.

Representations of gangsters began to appear in American films during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Early films often portrayed gangsters as degenerate and overly feminized men, but later films recast them as men who wielded power through [Page 187]sexuality and guns. Historians have suggested that the gangster figure helped replace traditional qualities of ideal masculinity, such as honor, with traits such as violence, independence, and the ability to exploit the social system. This aspect of the gangster has captured the public imagination, especially male youths, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century.

Gangsters such as Al Capone became folk heroes during the Great Depression by forging an enduring American masculine style that emphasized self-made success, businesslike demeanor, lavish consumerism, fierce independence, violent pursuit of self-interest, and an unabashed flouting of the nation's social, economic, and legal systems. (© Bettmann/Corbis)

Films such as Little Caesar (1930) and Scarface (1932) established a lasting association in popular culture between the gangster and particular ethnic groups, including Jewish, Irish, African, Asian, and—especially—Italian Americans. The cinematic images of masculinity associated with these ethnicities served to stereotype and marginalize these groups. This marginalization was amplified in the 1960s and 1970s when, amid growing feminist criticism of conventional understandings of manhood, the ethnic gangster embodied the masculine qualities under attack.

Through books such as Gay Talese's Honor Thy Father (1971) and William Kennedy's Legs (1975), and especially with the films of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Brian DePalma, the American ethnic gangster became more rounded, more thoughtful, and less inclined to act violently. These depictions represent the efforts of ethnic groups to take control of their own story, and they also reflect advances in cultural analysis made by feminist critiques of masculinity.

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