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Organized Crime : Expression and Repression

18 February 202406 juillet 2007 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 3 minutes

This is post 3 of 5 in the series “Prohibition and Organized Crime” This series delves into the historical context of Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933), its impact on society, and how it catalyzed the rise and establishment of organized crime.

Organized Crime in America
Evolution of Organized Crime
Organized Crime : Expression and Repression
Organized Crime and the Prohibition
Organized Crime: Repression and Censorship

There is a parallel between Organized Crime and the movie industry. Organized Crime was one of the ways for social climbing, of getting out of poverty and ethnic matters.

In the main Hollywood studios, many directors were ethnics: Samuel Goldwyn and Louis Mayer (M.G.M. studios: Metro Goldwyn Mayer), David O. Selznick, Charles Chaplin…

The cinema was a new technology founded by the elite, the ethnic entrepreneurs and the W.A.S.P. businessmen. Some innovative sections of business were opened for the same reason (legitimate, profitable). These people found a renovation of the American Dream either in Organized Crime or in cinema.

Producers did not push gangster films for the simple reason that it was not that popular at the time. They gave the public what they wanted (and the WASPs were rather conservative). It is only when it generalized that gangster movies “took off”.

Another connection: several actors became movie stars because of their ethnic origins: James Cagney was Irish. (Public Enemy), Paul Muni was (Scarface)…

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They brought the ethnic accent to the screen. They would have never been movie stars in classic films. It is thanks to the gangster movies and to the parallel made with Organized Crime.

Organized Crime and the Prohibition

18 February 202406 juillet 2007 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 7 minutes

This is post 4 of 5 in the series “Prohibition and Organized Crime” This series delves into the historical context of Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933), its impact on society, and how it catalyzed the rise and establishment of organized crime.

Organized Crime in America
Evolution of Organized Crime
Organized Crime : Expression and Repression
Organized Crime and the Prohibition
Organized Crime: Repression and Censorship

Introduction

You cannot rely on newspaper articles. Recently, it featured the confessions of repenting organized crime members, i.e. the distorted truth for their interests. The police distorted the figures to get credit and money from the Federal Government.

Organized crime was considered a kind of un-American activity. Since more gangsters were ethnic (Jews, Russians, etc), calling them “un-American” was a way of dismissing American roots.

In Scarface, the motto “the world is yours” highlights the ironic vision between the American Dream and the gangsters.

The structure of organized crime is that of a bureaucratic and corporate model. It looks like a company organic line, with a complex hierarchy and a division of labour.

Responsibilities are carried out in an impersonal manner and the function is more important than the person.

Organized crime is a mirror of monopoly capitalism and from earlier gangster movies, it is considered as a business.

In Asphalt Jungle, “crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavour”.

The difference between organized crime and any corporation is that you cannot use written support: it relies on secrecy and personal networks.

Organized Crime in America

18 February 202406 juillet 2007 by Matt Biscay · Lecture: 5 minutes

This is post 1 of 5 in the series “Prohibition and Organized Crime” This series delves into the historical context of Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933), its impact on society, and how it catalyzed the rise and establishment of organized crime.

Organized Crime in America
Evolution of Organized Crime
Organized Crime : Expression and Repression
Organized Crime and the Prohibition
Organized Crime: Repression and Censorship

Organized Crime in America (1929 – 1951)

1929: Wall Street crash, which forced gangsters to find a new way of making money in a time of recession. 1951: middle of the Cold War.

Kefauver hearings started the huge mystification of the Mafia, discovering that organized crime was still on in the U.S. First TV debates on organized crime.

In history, gangsters and Organized Crime did exist. Between history and culture, there are matters of ideology: in what way does that interact with what was seen on screen?

Presence of censorship and self-regulation for films. Sometimes people wanted to ban or censor gangster films: interactions between politics, culture and crime. Movies influenced the war against crime.

The history of Hollywood is that of people for and against those movies. Creation of compromises: “production code” (not censorship) to see what people disliked and to escape post-censorship.

But how censorship is possible in the US? (c.f. the first Americans and the liberty of expression). It was considered as a commercial venture. A way of skirting the censorship was to show 2 shots to see a person killed instead of one (the latter was prohibited).

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