The Subculture of The Godfather

The film begins at the wedding of Vito Corleone’s daughter, the sister of the protagonist, Michael Corleone. What is immediately apparent is the conflict between Michael’s family, and its traditions, with mainstream American values and expectations. It is not only an Italian American wedding but that of a mafia family. Michael has an Anglo girlfriend, by the name of Kay Adams, who has little understanding of Italian culture or the business of the mafia. Also, he is in a military uniform representing the fact that he is assimilating into American culture and leaving the subculture of the family business. He works for the federal government. As a war hero, he executed violent assignments to further the agenda of his country, not his family. His goals and achievements are at odds with those at work in the family business.

Michael is brought into the operations of the family when his father is shot and hospitalized. Up until this point, his brother Sonny and adopted brother Tom Hagen have executed Vito’s bidding. The most infamous act of the film was executed by Tom who beheaded a horse and left it in the bed of someone who refused an offer of the family. However, Sonny has a temper and Tom is not Italian or of blood relation, so Michael, a war hero, becomes the obvious choice to take charge. He sets up a dinner with the rival mob boss and a corrupt police officer who has been paid off to allow the death of Vito. Michael goes to the meeting with the plan to kill both, which he does, and flee the country for an extended period to avoid suspicion from the authorities and retaliation from the rival family, which he also does. Michael is no longer the archetypical American giving the viewer access to a subculture with which he conflicts. He has become a part of the business of his family and now shares its conflicts and oppositions, that is rival gangs and the authorities.

The next shot we see of Michael is in the Italian countryside. He is staying out of sight while things work themselves out in the United States. Taking the opportunity to see the town of Corleone while there, we see Michael discovering his roots, accepting his origins and what he is destined to become. We see him further distance himself from the expectations we had for him at the beginning of the film by marrying a young Italian woman. A life begins for him in Italy with a beautiful bride and a natural ability to fit in with the culture. However, he is warned that he must go to another part of the country because the threat of an attack is too severe. Before he has a chance to act the car that his wife is learning to drive explodes from a bomb that was placed there for him. Symbolically, his time there is over, and he must return. He has fully been brought into the family business.

Upon returning, Michael’s father, Vito, still in ill health from the attempt on his life, asks him to take charge of the family. Also, Michael finds and restarts his relationship with Kay who is unsettled that he has become so ingratiated in his family’s business. Soon after Vito dies and Michael orders for the deaths of rivals. By the end of the movie, he is the don of the Corleone family, at the other end of the character arc that began with him as an assimilated American on the periphery of his family.

The Corleone family, and the culture that surrounds it, represents a subculture more than it does a counterculture. A subculture is one that is not at odds with society but one that still has distinct interests, traditions, and backgrounds. For example, a rival family works with the non-Italian head of police by bribing him. Money and power interest both men, but they come to this moment of collaboration from two different subcultures. A counterculture, on the other hand, is at odds with the dominant culture and does wish to collaborate. A counterculture is not satisfied to be left alone; it hopes to influence and change the dominant culture. A subculture is happy to be left alone without having to confront the dominant culture.

Certain values of the Corleone family are at odds with the dominant culture: revenge murders, unregulated business, other illegal activities. However, a nuanced view of society would show that such actions are not rare in all levels of the dominant culture. While a counterculture opposes the values and patterns of mainstream society, a subculture mirrors those values and patterns. At times the Corleone family seems like a counterculture, but its extreme characteristics are simply exaggerations of traits apparent in mainstream culture. Male dominance and violence, for example, are present in American society but exaggerated in the depiction of the film.

The historic segregation of immigrant populations is the obvious cause of the Corleone’s subculture. Members of this subculture carry over Italian traditions. Michael is a second-generation Italian American but still understands and speaks the Italian language. His mom sings a song in Italian at his sister’s wedding and all the guests know the traditional Italian dance that goes with it. Catholic ceremonies appear throughout the film and one of its customs gives the film its name: The Godfather. The climax of the film occurs during a baptism ceremony conducted in Latin. Christianity ties most European immigrant subcultures together, but the uniqueness of a subculture’s traditions distinguishes it from the dominant culture. Food, of course, is a pivotal distinction, in this film especially, that sets this subculture apart. It is frequently mentioned and is especially memorable in the “Don’t forget the cannoli” line, in which a murder and cannoli pick up are committed in a single errand.

The subculture depicted in the film is not disadvantaged compared to the dominant culture, as is implied by the prefix “sub.” Throughout the film members of the population are shown to be wealthy, to have dozens of people working for them, and to be exceedingly proud of their culture. It is not just the Italian roots—more specifically Sicilian—that the characters are proud of. It is the Italian American community that has developed and the success of their family that is the source of pride. They are not beneath mainstream culture in a hierarchy although differences separate them. They exist alongside the dominant culture, in no way inferior to it.

The Godfather presents an elaborate set of folkways, mores, and taboos unique to its subculture. Folkways are the expectations and norms that pertain to everyday, casual interaction. These are distinct from mainstream American folkways in a variety of ways. Using Italian for important sincere words, or Italian slang to make the conversation more light-hearted. Also, respect for patriarchy is present in the way people interact. Everyone defers to the elder man in the situation, which was Vito Corleone for most of the film. The family is never disparaged. Most importantly, you must call the godfather “Godfather.”

Folkways describe one side of the mores that allow members of a culture to recognize and understand others. Folkways describe how not to offend somebody on a conversational or dining etiquette level. Mores, however, describe more generally how one should conduct his or her life. These are the expectations and norms for what separates right from wrong. A culture’s taboos are part of what defines its mores. Taboos are transgressions of the morality defined in the mores. Things that we would expect to be taboo in the film—excessive violence, male infidelity—are not so necessarily. Sonny Corleone, for example, is seen to be cheating on his wife with another woman on his sister’s wedding day and later in the film. Also, he beats up his sister’s husband in front of dozens of people. In both cases, his actions are not quite taboo as he is not stopped or questioned for what he is doing. One thing that Vito Corleone insists is morally wrong is getting involved in the distribution of heroin. This is a taboo he does not want to commit to which causes the conflict of much of the film.

Ethnocentrism ties people of the same traditions together by having them differentiate themselves from other groups. In that sense, one defines his or her culture by its difference from others. At the beginning of the film, Michael seems to have adopted the folkways, norms, and mores of mainstream American society. He describes what is happening at his family’s wedding to an outsider as though it is not his culture. Everyone else there has a thoroughly ethnocentric view, realizing that other Americans might fill their weddings with different traditions, foods, music, and people. However, they would not care what those traditions were. They would think their culture was all that mattered, the center of the world.

Michael eventually is brought into his family’s ethnocentric world. However, he maintains a more assimilated worldview, returning to his outsider girlfriend and promising her that the business will be legitimate in five years. Because his adopted brother Tom is not Italian or of blood relation, he is never fully accepted by the other members. Even though he shows loyalty and excellent decision-making, he can never oversee an operation so proud of its ethnic and cultural history.

Cultural relativism provides an important first step in understanding another group of people and being able to avoid misunderstandings and frustrations. If the culture that one comes from accepts an action somebody else considers morally wrong, he would be more likely to see the action differently given this context. While the viewer might disagree with many of the actions taken in the film, we are more likely to accept the actions of the characters because of their placement within the morals and expectations specific to that culture. The film shows few cultural collisions between the subculture and mainstream culture. It takes place almost entirely between members of the subculture. Even when Michael goes to Italy, the folkways and norms are the same and it does not seem he is in a different culture. Michael’s girlfriend Kay is an exception, and we can see she is uncomfortable with Michael’s decision to work for his family and the work that entails. However, she begrudgingly accepts Michael’s choice because of cultural relativism and her love and acceptance of who Michael is.

The film manages to describe the life of a subculture with incredible nuance and psychological depth. The film does not moralize and does not have a social message in the way one might expect such an important movie too. The message seems related to cultural relativism. It takes place in the 1940s, although it was filmed in the 1970s. It, therefore, is reusing scenes and motifs from countless gangster films that took place in that same era. However, those films are simplistic depictions of good and evil that do not humanize the Italian American villains of the film or accurately portray who these characters were as real people. We do not see them at a wedding, a baptism, or otherwise celebrating their subculture. The Godfather provides us a complicated portrait of how a culture, its folkways, mores, and norms, can make an illegal and violent act seem inevitable and acceptable.

The first shot of the film, before we realize it is Vito’s daughter’s wedding, is of an Italian immigrant undertaker. He is explaining his situation and asking Vito Corleone to provide him justice where the authorities could not. His daughter was beaten by a group of men outside of the Italian American community and he has no recourse. This simple, tragic story has long existed in America. Immigrants do not feel protected by a government that discriminates against them, so they seek out the heads of their community, their subculture for help. Vito Corleone is not wrong for helping the undertaker and his men are not evil for enacting revenge. This is simply how the culture has developed within our country’s history. Another moment later in the film show’s an immigrant baker putting himself in grave danger to keep a rival gang from killing Vito. The Godfather is an important description of this subculture and how the taboo of drugs ended up corrupting and destroying much of its traditions.

References

Coppola, F.F. (Director). (1972). The Godfather. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures.

Macionis, J.J. (2011). Culture. In Sociology (pp. 60-69). New York, NY: Pearson Publishing.