Gangs of New York and the Whitewashing of History
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Social Education 67(4), pp. 213-216 © 2003 National Council for the Social Studies Historical Fiction to Historical Fact: Gangs of New York and the Whitewashing of History Mario Tursi c/o Miramax Films Benjamin Justice ers. Gangs of New York celebrates this have forgotten our own past. history in a bloody pageant of histori- Scorsese’s movie joins a long list of cal fiction set, for the most part, in the popular historical films of the last two “America was born Five Points district of Manhattan during decades that have attempted to cash in in the streets,” 1862-63. The film’s thesis, put simply, is on the public’s fascination with history by or so proclaims the menacing publicity that before modernity, American civil settling on controversial topics—Vietnam, poster for Martin Scorsese’s recent film, life was wild, mean, and bloody. Even the assassination of JFK, the Holocaust, Gangs of New York. Before the advent of during the Civil War, the great turning and D-Day to name a few. And like the professional police forces, social services, point in American history, the Union was best of its ilk, the film aims for super- and housing codes, urban slum-dwell- hardly unified. Within that context, Irish realism, right down to the buttons. This ers led their lives in chaotic, desperate, immigrants won a place for themselves emphasis seems to go hand in hand sometimes violent circumstances. Gangs through heroic acts of violence and resis- with an unstated assumption about big- of roughs warred over territory with tance on the streets. In our twenty-first budget historical films: that they are gangs of competing police and firefight- century comfort, we (the film’s audience) historically truthful. Although they are May/June 2003 213 unregulated, and produced by large cor- the poor and working class whites who not to mention the horrific violence porations for the sole purpose of making opposed the war were usually racist done to blacks during the riots. Scorsese money, historical films carry a certain “natives” while Irish immigrants opposed throws a few pitiful bones—a token black weight in the public consciousness. Direc- it only when they faced a draft. The narra- member of an Irish gang, a priest bonk- tors boast of the accuracy of their films, tor is an Irish gangster, and lest we make ing an Irishman on the head for shouting and go to great lengths to make good. any mistakes, Team Hibernia is the good at a “nigger” to leave a Catholic church, Scorsese filmed Gangs in Italy for the guys. The script makes Irishmen impish, and a random camera pan past a lynch- sake of period architecture, injected a cheery, and morally righteous; it makes ing. However, none of these has any lexicon of nineteenth-century jargon in the “natives” who oppose them intoler- meaning within the film, except maybe the script, and put lavish detail into the ant, somber, and greedy. Middle class to stave off the critics. As one reviewer hair, costumes, and characters. Given the Protestant reformers are boobs. has put it, the film “got the hats and the script’s thesis (that we have forgotten our The trouble with focusing on the knives right, but the main lines of the true past and that this is it), all this atten- Draft Riots, though, is that the fact story don’t make much sense.”5 After all, tion boils down to a single point: Scors- does not sustain the fiction. The Draft how sympathetic would the good guys ese wants to educate the public, and he Riots were race riots as much as attacks be if they were even more intolerant and expects it to trust his credibility. Barring a against the government, and the fac- racist than the bad guys? How boobish massive attack on that credibility, the film tions were not white Irish versus white would the urban reformers be if we saw will become a major source of the public’s Protestants, but white Irish men, women, them as abolitionists fighting for the understanding of the past. and children (and some white Protes- rights of slaves? In the opening dialog The trouble with this scenario, how- tants) against blacks.1 For four days and of the film, the audience is supposed to ever, is that while Gangs is accurate in nights, these angry mobs picked many sympathize with the Irish immigrant’s detail, it is distorted and mistaken in its targets—police stations, newspaper offic- right to live peacefully in America. The larger characterizations and interpreta- es, homes of the well-to-do—but they film groups good guys and bad guys tion. This should not be surprising: Gangs visited consistent and bloodthirsty vio- around their acceptance or rejection of of New York is a moneymaking enter- lence on African American men, women, this central premise. But in refusing to prise. The public likes heroes and happy and children everywhere. “It seemed to acknowledge the vicious racism of Irish endings. Yet because the film purports be an understood thing throughout the gangsters themselves, it denies African to be historically accurate, the result is city that the Negroes should be attacked Americans the same dignity. It’s as if to the creation (or perpetuation) of a new wherever found,” reported The New say being prejudiced against Irish people feel-good mythology about the past that York Times.2 Mobs terrorized, assaulted, makes one evil; being prejudiced against replaces the old feel-good mythology and murdered. The Christian Recorder black people is irrelevant. Without the of a noble, united North that Scorsese reported that “many men were killed and veneer of historical righteousness, objects to. And for the most part, this thrown into the rivers, a great number Gangs is just another Scorsese blood- new mythology has been accepted, and hung to trees and lampposts, numbers bath among white men. It’s the sheen even praised, by those who are supposed shot down; no black person could show of historical “truth” that lends nobility to alert us to credibility problems: the their heads but that they were hunted and sympathy to the characters. press. like wolves.”3 A mob including many women and children looted and burned The Popular Press The Film a black orphan asylum to the ground. In spite of its flaws, Scorsese’s film The setting of the film, New York City The day after the riots subsided, The New does provide one of those “teachable on the eve of the 1863 Draft Riots, is York Times tried to quantify the carnage: moments” we history teachers crow incidental to Scorsese’s larger vision of “Hundreds [of blacks] have been killed about—a rare chance to engage students reminding Americans of their violent in the public streets with atrocities such and the public in history while we have past. New York, among other Ameri- as we have never seen before in a civi- their attention. The film includes his- can cities, saw gang warfare and riots lized country ... hundreds of them have torical figures usually found only in throughout the nineteenth century, and had their houses sacked and burned, textbooks, such as “Boss” Tweed, Hor- the film could have chosen any period to and their little property all forcibly taken ace Greeley, and P.T. Barnum. Some make its point. The choice of the 1863 from them; thousands of them have fled memorable scenes burst the bubble of riots, however, allows Scorsese to cre- from the city in abject terror; and nearly Northern denial of its own history of ate a convenient fiction by exploiting all of them have been thrown out of racism and reluctance to end slavery. a largely unrecognized fact in popular employment.”4 This was ethnic cleans- Despite its limited focus on male vio- historical mythology: Many Northern ing, on American soil. lence, the film breathes life into nine- whites opposed the Civil War as much What Gangs gives us instead is teenth century New York—the clothes, as their Southern counterparts did. This worse than apologetic; it’s denial. The the buildings, and the politics. The cast fact, portrayed powerfully in the film, film ignores the seething racism of Irish list boasts a number of superstars—Daniel allows Scorsese to create a fiction: that immigrants against African Americans, Day Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cam- Social Education 214 eron Diaz, and Liam Neeson. While the at all). In the post-Trent Lott, politically Civil War, but also noted the passing and film might have gotten some of the story correct America, such a version can no marginal interest in the racial dimensions wrong, at least it’s got people talking. longer earn money at the box office. of the riots of 1863.13 Public interest and publicity have led Instead a new Civil War mythology is ris- Despite these and a few other excep- to headline reviews and historical com- ing to replace it, switching the Southern tions, the majority of reviews of Gangs of mentary on the film. They are singing Lost Cause with the Righteous White New York have followed the lead of the our tune. Immigrant Struggle. Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, Or are they? And the mighty New York Times, USA Today, and other major periodicals, The response of the popular press to which reported on the riots (and city either hailing the historical accuracy of the movie has been mixed; the response crime in general) so courageously in the the film or failing to mention the history to the historical aspects of the story has 1860s and 1870s, missed the boat com- at all.