The working class gangster

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

We talked about nature vs. nurture with In Cold Blood. Thomas Firestone, in “Mafia Memoirs: What They Tell Us About Organize Crime” talks about the differential association theory, which “argues that people become criminals because they ‘learn’ criminal behavior from role models, usually friends or family members.” That seems like environment more than nature or nurture. It’s part of both but not really either. As I see it, nature is something inherent in the person, and nurture is something that is done to the person. What I get from the theory is that the nature of the environment nurtures criminality in the individual. The gangsters in Goodfellas were the neighborhood symbols of success, a thing to aspire to be.

This strikes me as similar to Monster Kody Scott’s situation. I’m not sure to what extent the Crips represented success in those days, but it was better to be part of a gang than to be independent (a victim). The gang offers a sense of community, a family, and gives direction and purpose, however senseless those might be. The life doesn’t end well, but does anyone else’s? It reminds me of William Fly – he had to have known that he would be killed at sea or hung on shore, since no one retired after a successful pirate career. It was just better to be able to do what he wanted, even if only for a few months, than to endure the life of a worker at sea.

Goodfellas also shows a different side of the Mafia from most gangster movies. They tend to focus on the top guy, the gangster royalty, the Little Caesar, the Scarface, the Al Capone, the Godfather. The characters in Goodfellas are the working class mafia. According to Firestone’s analysis, I should be classifying them in feudal rather than corporate terms, but serf doesn’t sound right. Henry appeared to be wealthy, but in the end he was just living from score to score. Jimmy made a lottery level score with the Lufthansa heist, but looked like he was working on skid row more than easy street afterwards. And Paulie, the closest thing to a boss man in the movie, was working a grill in a restaurant before he got picked up by the police. So it’s like the Fly life – it looks good when it’s going good, but it only ends up bad.