# Godfather series, supposed to be a tale of corruption? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2012, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829 "2012-02-05T05:00:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/21 "2012-02-07T03:15:08Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Yes, being a criminal and a killer is somehow less ethical than being a knight or a cowboy. Don’t know quite why that is. Knights and cowboys don’t kill people? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/22 "2012-02-07T03:38:06Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > Knights and cowboys don’t kill people? Swords and six-shooters kill people, not knights and cowboys! Seriously, some knights killed people, and some cowboys were murderers, but basically knights were the soldiers of their day, and being a cowboy was value-neutral … most were just folks. To be a “made” man in the Mafia, you had to kill someone. Not in self-defense, in cold blood. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/23 "2012-02-07T03:40:55Z")
Donnie Brasco is only a so-so Mafia movie, but the best parts are from Pacino playing Lefty Ruggiero, based on an actual person and basically the anti-Michael Corleone. He’s turned to crime for his entire life and he _still_ can’t make a half-assed living. (Reading the real guy’s story I was surprised they implied he was about to be murdered at the end; in real life he was picked up by the FBI and turned state’s evidence.) Of course _The Godfather_ is not supposed to be super realistic. Coppola’s main inspiration was opera: loud and opulent romance and tragedy. As for the novel, Puzo defended it always- he hated snobby critics dismissing it as pulp fiction which he felt it was several steps above (and I would agree and so would millions of others) but made few bones about the fact he wrote it for money after his more heartfelt books failed to make him financially independent. And while Vito is every bit as intelligent and cunning in the novel as in the film, you do see more of his absolutely ruthlessness, most particularly his sending a message to Capone [in a backstory chapter] where he sends a message by brutally killing Capone’s henchmen, and in his cover-up of Luca committing infanticide. Though even in the movie, you know from the first scenes that he got Johnny released from a contract through unvarnished thug tactics and that he’s capable of having a 600,000 (in 1945 , easily several million $ today) racehorse slaughtered with a chainsaw, again not for any real revenge but strictly as a “cry uncle” tactic to help a crybaby godson who’s already had more ‘big breaks’ than he needs; in G2 he shoots Fanucci in cold blood (not that Fanucci is a sympathetic figure, but he kills him in about as cowardly a way as possible, though also an intelligent way). He’s not just a victim of circumstance who’s being cruel that he might be kind, he’s a cold blooded hoodlum as well. I’ve said before that the worst thing to me about G3 isn’t how bad it is but how good some of it is- you see flashes of G1 and G2’s brilliance and it makes you want more. Some of the best acting Pacino has ever done was when Michael had his diabetic stroke and later when he confesses. Both times you saw beneath his insouciant Vulcan exterior and realize how tormented he is about Fredo. But not enough to openly confess to it of course. And also in that, Joey Zaza is more of the type hood that pseudotriton describes: flashy, barely literate, classless, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/24 "2012-02-07T06:55:04Z")
I guess I’m alone here. To me, the point of both book and movies is that what we perceive as two different things (“honest” society vs. the Mafia) are really just two different incarnations of the \*same \*thing: A system that works, protects the weak, seeks stability and safety for loves ones, and does the right thing when it can, but isn’t afraid to get it’s hands dirty when necessary. Michael starts out believing that there is a difference between honest society and the system his father was a part of. He eventually learns that there is no difference. And that is why he is so sad. It’s not a tale of corruption. It’s a tale of loss of innocence. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/25 "2012-02-07T14:44:25Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Seriously, some knights killed people, and some cowboys were murderers, but basically knights were the soldiers of their day … . Knights were thugs. They ran local protection rackets (“Nice little farm … how about you give me half of whatever you grow, eh?”), spent their days hanging out with their thuggish cronies, and squabbled constantly with the capos of neighboring territories. The mafia in its heyday was, essentially, a feudal system. So it’s not surprising it gets romanticized in exactly the same way. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/26 "2012-02-07T15:18:30Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Knights were thugs. They ran local protection rackets (“Nice little farm … how about you give me half of whatever you grow, eh?”), spent their days hanging out with their thuggish cronies, and squabbled constantly with the capos of neighboring territories. > > The mafia in its heyday was, essentially, a feudal system. So it’s not surprising it gets romanticized in exactly the same way. Granted, with the codicil that knights had some excuse for operating in a feudal system. That’s what they lived in. A knight in a 20th century US system would be a thug. In 13th century England, not so much. So NOT “exactly the same.” ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/27 "2012-02-07T15:37:01Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > The movies failed (for me) to convey an appropriate sense of the evil nature of the Corleone family. I grew up among Mafiosi–they were ignorant, selfish, incredibly small-minded and unimaginative bullies and thugs, and the movies would have you believe they were a loving band of would-be poets, philosophers and good family men. Show Michael as a heavy-set creep with a bad toupee and six gigantic rings, with a bad eighth grade education, wearing a garish suit, and see how exotic the Mafia seems. No question, Al Pacino’s mobster in\*\*\* Donnie Brasco \*\*\*was a LOT closer to reality than Michael Corleone. As great a movie as _ **The Godfather** _ was, it romanticized the Mob a great deal. So much so that real life Mobsters embraced the movie, and started using phrases and following bogus “traditions” that Mario Puzo had simply made up! As I’ve noted in other threads, before mario Puzo, no Sicilian would ever have addressed a feared Mafia boss as “Cumpari” (Godfather"). To a Sicilian, “Cumpari” was an affectionate term for a pal or buddy, NOT a term of deference or reverence. Mario Puzo TURNED “Godfather” from a jocular, friendly nickname into somethign different. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/28 "2012-02-07T15:57:39Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Knights were thugs. They ran local protection rackets (“Nice little farm … how about you give me half of whatever you grow, eh?”), spent their days hanging out with their thuggish cronies, and squabbled constantly with the capos of neighboring territories. > > The mafia in its heyday was, essentially, a feudal system. So it’s not surprising it gets romanticized in exactly the same way. I agree, medieval feudalism was a stupid, violent and brutal system that’s way over-romanticized. In A Distant Mirror Barbara Tuchman described how knights loyal to competing “nobles” would descend on the peasants of noble enemies and cut off their hands and feet so they would not be able to work, but would remain alive and a burden to the noble’s society. Still, they did protect “their” peasants so long as they were sufficiently subservient, because “their” peasants as a group grew the food that fed them and made the clothes they wore. There WERE outlaws who simply stole from anyone they could manage to. But I still maintain that medieval knights were a step up from the Mafia, who simply kill when it is to their advantage to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/29 "2012-02-07T16:03:24Z")
How about a tear-jerker life story of the prostitute who is slain in the brothel to set up Senator Geary? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/30 "2012-02-07T19:14:01Z")
I also always assumed the L.A. henchmen hired must have threatened/terrified some servants or employees to get the horse’s head into Woltz’s bed. It’s not likely Woltz wouldn’t have had any kind of security on that stable or that somebody could take the horse out, cut it’s head off, and get it into a second floor bedroom without running into _somebody_. The thuggery is there if you look for it, it’s just that “the family’s got a lot of buffers” by this point. ---
**Author:** ![drpepper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@drpepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drpepper)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/31 "2012-02-07T19:56:43Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > “Now who’s being naive, Kay?” _Golf clap_: Bravo! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/32 "2012-02-07T20:02:48Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > Knights and cowboys don’t kill people? Now whose being nai…god damn it ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/33 "2012-02-07T20:15:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > This has always been my problem with the Godfather – it glamorized the Mafia – but the fanboys never seem to “get” that. Yep-the real life Mafia was considerably dirtier that what was portrayed in “The Godfather”. But I have to admit that the Mafia did have one (albeit small) positive role-it organized and rationalized crime. In the period 1865-1920, crime exploded in American cities. You had Irish, Polish, German, Jewish, Italian, and Nativist gangs-these people fought eachother and killed a lot of people. With the advent of the Mafia, the crime was organized, and a system of sorts was set up-areas were allotted to bosses, who were responsible to the upper manangement, who paid the bribes to police and politicians. Under this system, the chaos was avoided, and non-participants were (relatively) safe.Under the Mafia system, things went more smoothly, until the late 1940’s-when (as predicted by Don Corleone) the burgeoning drg trade cased the system to fall apart. Now in places like Miami, Haitian, Cuban, Central american, and Black gangs are repeating the old, pre-Mafia lawlessness. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/34 "2012-02-07T21:32:50Z")
Here are some ways the Godfather series glorifies the mafia. Michael orders the murder of innocents. Michael commits murder himself. Michael can’t get though one single movie without ordering the murder or being the cause of the murder of a member of his own family. Michael abuses Kay, she divorces him, his son wants nothing to do with him, Connie only stays for the money and then turns into a scheming murderer herself to stay close to him. He has all the money and power in the world, yet he dies cold and alone. Yeah, totally glorifies the mafia. When Sofia Coppola is the only one who loves you for being you, you are living your life wrong. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/35 "2012-02-07T22:44:09Z")
[Sofia Coppola](http://www.realsea.net/420_Sofia-Coppola/) can love me for being me _all… day… long…_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![fjs1fs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fjs1fs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fjs1fs)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/36 "2012-02-07T23:23:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Donnie Brasco is only a so-so Mafia movie, but the best parts are from Pacino playing Lefty Ruggiero, based on an actual person and basically the anti-Michael Corleone. He’s turned to crime for his entire life and he _still_ can’t make a half-assed living. (Reading the real guy’s story I was surprised they implied he was about to be murdered at the end; in real life he was picked up by the FBI and turned state’s evidence.) > > Of course _The Godfather_ is not supposed to be super realistic. Coppola’s main inspiration was opera: loud and opulent romance and tragedy. As for the novel, Puzo defended it always- he hated snobby critics dismissing it as pulp fiction which he felt it was several steps above (and I would agree and so would millions of others) but made few bones about the fact he wrote it for money after his more heartfelt books failed to make him financially independent. And while Vito is every bit as intelligent and cunning in the novel as in the film, you do see more of his absolutely ruthlessness, most particularly > > his sending a message to Capone [in a backstory chapter] where he sends a message by brutally killing Capone’s henchmen, and in his cover-up of Luca committing infanticide. > > I’ve said before that the worst thing to me about G3 isn’t how bad it is but how good some of it is- you see flashes of G1 and G2’s brilliance and it makes you want more. Some of the best acting Pacino has ever done was when Michael had his diabetic stroke and later when he confesses. Both times you saw beneath his insouciant Vulcan exterior and realize how tormented he is about Fredo. But not enough to openly confess to it of course. And also in that, Joey Zaza is more of the type hood that pseudotriton describes: flashy, barely literate, classless, etc.. I disagree. The WORST thing about G3 was that it was a TERRIBLE film, and it desecrated the name of two of the best films of all time. I’ll never get this whole “tormented about Fredo” thing. Fredo was a traitor who tried to have him killed. Brother or not, in the line of business they were in, Fredo had to be killed. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/37 "2012-02-08T00:25:39Z")
The “tormented about Fredo thing” is one of the major themes in Godfather 3… what’s there not to get? ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/38 "2012-02-08T00:51:56Z")
Never bothered watching III or IV. Heard they were crappy and for me the end of Part II neatly wrapped up the Godfather saga anyway. Michael was a sad character from beginning to end. Not once in both movies did he laugh or even so much as crack a smile. Even when he said something funny. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/39 "2012-02-08T00:53:35Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > The movies failed (for me) to convey an appropriate sense of the evil nature of the Corleone family. I grew up among Mafiosi–they were ignorant, selfish, incredibly small-minded and unimaginative bullies and thugs, and the movies would have you believe they were a loving band of would-be poets, philosophers and good family men. This glorification was intentional, of course. The movie, especially, depicted the story as a Greek tragedy. It was completely deliberate mythmaking. > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Possibly, but I’ve also heard that the old generation - second and third generation Sicilian immigrants, often - did know something about honor. > [@spooje](#): > > As long as they weren’t in the Mafia, they did. Yeah, I don’t believe that for a second either. Thugs, thieves, and killers are thugs, thieves, and killers. > [@msmith537](#): > > I recall reading a critique a long time ago that said (paraphrasing) there was really no such thing as an “anti-war” war movie. [Roger Ebert’s review of _Platoon_](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19861230/REVIEWS/612300301/1023): > [@](#): > > It was Francois Truffaut who said that it’s not possible to make an anti-war movie, because all war movies, with their energy and sense of adventure, end up making combat look like fun. If Truffaut had lived to see “Platoon,” the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion. Here is a movie that regards combat from ground level, from the infantryman’s point of view, and it does not make war look like fun. > [@](#): > > At the end of the day, people want to be like Michale Corleone, Tony Soprano, Henry Hill, “Ace” Rothstein and “Nucky” Thompson. The all-powerful gangster who does what he wants, when he wants with an army of goons to carry out his bidding. Actually, at some point, I started rooting for Tony Soprano to get killed but good. I think David Chase should be congratulated for skillfully turning this around. By the time Tony hit his blackout, I was cheering. (And [yes, he’s dead](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4kgxbTqz_Y).) > [@zbuzz](#): > > Here are some ways the Godfather series glorifies the mafia. > > Michael orders the murder of innocents. > Michael commits murder himself. > Michael can’t get though one single movie without ordering the murder or being the cause of the murder of a member of his own family. > Michael abuses Kay, she divorces him, his son wants nothing to do with him, Connie only stays for the money and then turns into a scheming murderer herself to stay close to him. > He has all the money and power in the world, yet he dies cold and alone. > > Yeah, totally glorifies the mafia. > > When Sofia Coppola is the only one who loves you for being you, you are living your life wrong. You’re forgetting that the language of art appeals more to emotions than rationality. Yeah, these are facts that show the Corleones are bad, miserable people. But the entire portrayal of them is so stately, so honorable, so tragic. You can’t be this naive … (dammit!) ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829/40 "2012-02-08T04:05:25Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You’re forgetting that the language of art appeals more to emotions than rationality. Yeah, these are facts that show the Corleones are bad, miserable people. But the entire portrayal of them is so stately, so honorable, so tragic. You can’t be this naive … (dammit!) I don’t necessarily disagree that Michael’s character arc in the first film is tragic. He chooses to forgo being his own civilian self and becomes his father (and maybe it’s even more tragic because he becomes a worse version of his father). But by the 2nd and 3rd he’s just a robot with one pre-programed response- to wipe everyone out. So by that point, I am emotionally repulsed at virtually everything Michael does. You aren’t? You feel some sort of sympathy for his character throughout the whole series? I’ll put it another way- do you feel Michael’s soul is redeemed after confessing to the Cardinal? Which gets me to the point of my first post- that the intent of films is not to glorify the mafia life as it is presented. When using terms like stately and honor, I think you yourself might be forgetting the language of art, specifically subtext. Yes, the Corleones have stately manors and compounds, Michael is a leader of men and business and his honor must always be satisfied. But that’s the gilded part of his life. It’s not like there is anything of substance. To keep up that thin veneer costs his soul, his family and dead hookers. The underlying theme is of a loathsome, deplorable person and what is glorifying (or stately or honorable) about that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godfather-series-supposed-to-be-a-tale-of-corruption/611829.md?page=3)