Okay, I’ll admit it, I have a soft spot for the Goodfellas (1990). But who couldn’t? It’s the story of a devoted man who worked his way up the corporate ladder and became something close to a boss. Maybe I’m stretching reality just a bit but Goodfellas is still a great movie.
Do I think Henry is white? Yes, I do. Would Richard Dyer think Henry (Ray Liotta) is white? No, absolutely not. If we’re speaking in terms of Dyer’s idea of whiteness, there is no possible way Henry could be considered white. He avoids that idea of the social norm of whiteness. He doesn’t embody nothing, he literally embodies everything that someone would consider “not white.” In the words of Dyer, white is “order, rationality, rigidity, qualities brought out by the contrast with black disorder, irrationality, and looseness.” Do any of those definitions of white fit Henry? I honestly don’t think so. In fact, Henry, as well as all his friends and fellow gangsters, fit the definition of black. Tommy (Joe Pesci) is so irrational after a while, he just starts killing innocent people. Henry is so loose, he cheats on his wife with numerous women, even after she holds a gun to his head. I don’t even think Henry became white at the end of this film. Sure, he joined the witness protection program and became an “average nobody” but he can’t erase his past. What I think Henry is forced to do in the program is pretend to be white.
I don’t even think that Henry has a chance to become “white.” He just becomes progressively worse and worse as the film progresses. It’s as simple as that. Unfortunately, I don’t think Henry has any redeemable qualities. As to Henry’s neighborhood, I do think that it is white. It wasn’t like the entire neighborhood was in this huge mafia ring. Queens was sort of a normal neighborhood with the residents going along with their daily routines. Or as Henry considered them, “schnooks.”
