“See the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still loved the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking.”
What is “whiteness”? What qualifies as whiteness? Is it measured by the color of one’s skin? (African albinos-are they white?) Or maybe whiteness measured by monetary gain – the more successful you are the whiter you are. In society today, there are different ideas of what whiteness is, and different degrees of it. “Blackness” is at times synonymous with rap, gangs, and the ghetto, while “whiteness” is synonymous with class, structure, and wealth. White=good, black=bad. And Richard Dyer’s idea of race and whiteness isn’t far off from this one.
According to Richard Dyer, what qualifies as whiteness can be summed up in a few words: “order, rationality, rigidity.” Whiteness is normality; whiteness is abiding by the rules of society. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) started his life as a good Catholic Irishman. But this lifestyle wasn’t enough for him. “All my life I wanted to be a gangster.” As a member of the mafia, Hill’s life was anything but orderly. Hill murdered, stole, bribed, philandered, bullied, gambled, and drank and he loved it. He loved all of it. Hill’s life was anything but the norm, Hill’s life was full of “irrationality and looseness” the epitome of black disorder.
But Hill is then arrested and practically pushed into the witness protection program. All the money, women, and glory are taken away. “Today everything is different. Now there’s no action. I have to wait around like everyone else.” As Hill’s money and gangster bravado are stripped from him, Hill becomes more of what Dyer’s interpretation of white is. His life of irrationality and looseness are taken away.
Is Hill’s neighborhood Dyer’s interpretation of white? Not at all, just like the lives of the mafia gangsters have filled the neighborhood with so much corruption. The residents have no choice but to simply watch as they over. There is order in Hill’s neighborhood and the residents do not follow the moral code that is associated with whiteness.
