It’s a man’s man’s man’s world: women in the films of Martin Scorsese
Charlie Godsiff
Religion. Power-plays. Emasculation. Crime. These are the major recurring themes in the films by Martin Scorsese, and the themes are all primarily concerned with the male gender. From Harvey Keitel’s ‘J.R’ 1 to Ray Liotta’s ‘Henry Hill’ 2 through to Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Jordan Belfort’ 3 , Scorsese’s films focus on men, with only two films in his oeuvre portraying a female protagonist 4 . That is not to say that the female gender is ignored. On the contrary, most are often just as vital as the men and cannot all be put in one plain category. Instead they all show characteristics that are complex, ‘vengeful, lustful, conniving, strong, pragmatic and even melodramatic’ 5 . With Scorsese’s latest film, The Wolf Of Wall Street coming under criticism for seeming misogynistic, and with the majority of his films controlled by men, I will present an in depth examination of the representation and portrayal of the female characters in a few of these male-dominated films. This essay will examine the portrayal of individual female characters within specific films, and their relevance to the outcome of the picture. For the purpose of this essay, I will focus on The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013) , and Casino (1995) , with other examples taken from Taxi Driver (1976) , and GoodFellas (1990) to show how the different ways women assert their power. With most of the societies in Scorsese’s films run by men, the women often have to resort to using their sexuality as the only means to achieve power. The portrayals of Sharon Stone’s Ginger in Casino and Margot Robbie’s Naomi in The Wolf Of Wall Street are both highly sexual, and this sexuality is presented as their major characteristic. When both are introduced to the audience in their films, the pair have immense power due to their attractiveness stunning the men (in Casino , there is a slow zoom into Robert de Niro’s Ace Rothstein’s face when he first sees Ginger and he can’t take his eyes off her), and the fact that they are self-aware and can control this power: in Casino, in order to get more money from Ace to ‘powder her nose’, all Ginger does is smile at him and bat her eyelids and he gives her 100 dollars, and her beauty helps bring in the ‘high rollers’ to the casino and ‘helps them spread around a lot of money’. In order to get Jordan to have sex with her, all Naomi does is get naked and stand in front of him. There are also examples of Naomi defeating Jordan with her power, literally bringing him to his knees when she threatens to wear nothing but ‘short short skirts’ and no underwear around the house. However, because of their sexualization, both are objectified as objects to be won. In Casino , when Joe Pesci’s Nicky first sees Ginger, he only sees her sexuality and remarks to Ace in shock: ‘Holy shit, what have you been doing out here?’; at the very start of The Wolf Of Wall Street, Jordan’s voice over links his wife to his house and his car, as if she were just another object that he owns; when Jordan first meets Naomi in The Wolf Of Wall Street , a Quaalude-drugged Donnie (played by Jonah Hill) sees her and starts masturbating in front of his friends, colleagues, and his wife. Due to their objectification and figurative shackles placed on them by society, both Ginger’s and Naomi’s lives spiral out of control by the end of the film. Naomi’s spiral is caused by Jordan’s drug abuse and she leaves him with money and her children, whereas Ginger’s is caused by her own drug and alcohol abuse and she leaves de Niro, only to have her life come full circle and end up as a drugged-addicted prostitute. Despite it seeming from their narratives as if the characters are weak and can’t live outside of their male counterparts stories, the two women are exceptionally important for their films. If you took both
1 J.R., the main protagonist from Scorsese’s first feature film, Who’s That Knocking At My Door (1967) 2 Henry Hill, the protagonist from GoodFellas (1990) 3 Jordan Belfort, the protagonist from The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)
4 Boxcar Bertha (1972) and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) are the only two films in Scorsese’s 23 feature film oeuvre. 5 Wain, A. A Retrospective on Martin Scorsese’s Complex Female Characters , URL: http://sobadsogood.com/2014/02/18/a- retrospective-of-martin-scorseses-complex-female-characters/ [4 June 2014]
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