Scorsese’s Gangs of New York: How the Left Misuses American History
by Norman Berdichevsky (March 2011)
One would expect an Italian-American filmmaker to be particularly sensitive and cautious about ethnic stereotypes. Certainly, Hollywood must answer for the hundreds of movies in which Italian-Americans were consistently portrayed as gangsters, bootleggers, pimps, prostitutes, boxers, organ grinders and pickpockets. Former New York Mayor and City Prosecutor Rudy Giuliani has poignantly discussed how much pain this stereotype has caused. Whatever its artistic merits, another big blockbuster The Godfather focused only on violent Italian-Americans in an epic dealing with immigration, crime and the difficulties of assimilation. Viewers might have hoped that Scorsese would have tried to present a film that avoided the worst excesses of blatant propaganda. Gangs of New York is a travesty. Whatever its cinematic qualities, the film presents the ugliest picture possible of America prior to the Civil War and falsifies the events of the great Draft Riots in New York City in July, 1863.
Gratuitous Violence
Tyler Anbinder, a specialist in 19th Century American politics and a consultant for the film had this to say in an interview on the History News Network of NPR (December 23, 2002):
The Historic Five Points
The Irish
The Native-born and the American Party
The nativist anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement started out as several secret organizations. It was a reaction to the perceived manipulation of Catholic-American immigrants by the Vatican and the Catholic Church. It was also a response to the vast increase in immigration beginning in 1845 with the Irish Potato Famine, exacerbated by the many unsuccessful liberal revolutions in Europe in 1848. A considerable proportion of the new immigrants were destitute, political radicals, non-English speaking, and/or Catholic. This fundamental change in the character of immigrants worried many native-born Americans and was not helped any by the growing sectional dispute between the North and the South.
Many native born Americans, especially in the Northern states, were opposed to slavery but believed that this issue might eventually be resolved with a maximum of goodwill, a fundamental dedication to the republican principles enshrined in the Constitution, and strict measures to ensure that new immigrants, especially Catholics, were integrated effectively into American society. It was hoped that this platform would draw support from both North and South. There was little support for this platform in the South, however, where, apart from the city of New Orleans, there were almost no European Catholic immigrants.
Catholic Reaction and Attitudes Toward Abolition
Many Irish in New York worked as stevedores and were hostile to free blacks, some of whom had been used in the past as strike-breakers on the docks. Archbishop John Hughes, who argued the Union cause in Europe warned the War Department that most Catholics in America supported the Constitution and laws but would not fight for the abolition of slavery. Thus, many abolitionists developed an antipathy towards the Irish, especially recent immigrants.
The Evil Union, Horace Greeley and The New York Tribune
Military Recruitment on the New York Docks
The Corrupt New York Police and Fire Departments
The Police and fire departments are shown as pawns of Tammany Hall with no sincere concern for the citizens in danger. They only respond to emergencies to partake of the spoils. They are also involved in extensive blackmail, protectionism, racketeering and bribery. In actual fact, the New York Police actively protected blacks during the 1863 draft riots. More than seven hundred were sheltered in the main police station in lower Manhattan, avoiding otherwise certain death or mutilation at the hands of the rioters. Furthermore, almost one-third of all the New York Policemen at the time were of Irish origin! The volunteer New York City fire fighting companies acquired a reputation of gallantry in suppressing the devastating fires of 1835 and 1845. In the wake of the exalted heroism of the hundreds of New York City police and firemen who gave their lives on 9/11, audiences should have been incensed by the scurrilous distortions in Gangs of New York.
The Aftermath of the Riots
To comment on this article, please click here.
here.
If you enjoyed this article and want to read more by Norman Berdichevsky, click here.