Throughout this class, we have seen women in every type of role in the Mafia, from an uninformed wife to the boss of a local family to a main component of the anti-Mafia movement. Since the beginning of organized crime dramas, women have been reduced to only taking care of the family. The Godfather is a perfect example of the typical mob wife. Throughout the film, women were not involved in any of the business and were seldom shown. One of the main scenes that involved women was a large family dinner. The women were seen preparing the food and getting the children ready for dinner. They were not a part of the conversation that the men were having about their business. Once the dinner had started, the men had to stop their conversation because women and children were present. This scene showed how little the women know about what is happening but they are still forced to live with the consequences of what their husbands do for a living. This portrayal of women is still prominent in organized crime films today.
Italian Mafia films have evolved with the changing times. It is now not uncommon to see a woman involved in the Mafia. In Angela, Angela was the wife of Saro, the boss of the local Sicilian family. Angela was in charge of the shoe store which was the front of the local drug trade. This made her one of the most recognizable faces in the family. Although she was extremely well known, she still was not afraid of getting caught while dropping off drugs to people around the city. Angela was a stark contrast to the stereotypical Mafia wife since she was right in the middle of the business. Unlike the other Mafia wives we have seen, Angela’s life did not revolve around her child. It was mentioned that Angela and Saro had a daughter but she was never shown in the film. Angela is unique in the fact that it shows a woman doing the “dirty” work that is usually done by men. Another film that shows a woman in power is Galantuomini. The main character, Lucia, is the local mob boss. Lucia runs a very successful drug trafficking business. Throughout the film, Lucia is shown doing tasks that show how powerful she is, like talking to another boss about who is actually in charge. During this conversation, it was shown that the men did not respect her authority even though she had a higher rank than most of those men.
Another strong woman that was talked about in this class was Rita Atria (Mancusa in the film La siciliana ribelle). Rita broke the code of silence and decided to give her diaries to the police as evidence against the Mafiosi who she had known for her entire life. Those diaries were a large part of the Maxi Processo and getting many of the Mafiosi who were mentioned in the dairies convicted. Rita’s bravery showed a different type of Mafia women, one who controlled her own fate. Although Rita committed suicide at age 17, she stood up for what she believed in and never stepped back from a challenge.
There are many different roles that a woman can fall in to in the Mafia lifestyle. They could be a stay at home mom or they could be a local mob boss. It is interesting to see how the role of women has become more diverse throughout the history of organized crime films. The Godfather was set in the 1940s and 50s while the other movies mentioned were released in the early 2000s. These films have shown that the genre has embraced the increasing roles of women just like society has, although is it not uncommon to see a current organized crime film with women only being shown as a supporting character.
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