The Threat of Drug Use in Japanese and American Gangster Films

“Drugs is a dirty business,” says Don Corleone, setting off the main conflict in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather. In an earlier Japanese gangster film, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1964 Pale... [ view full abstract ]

“Drugs is a dirty business,” says Don Corleone, setting off the main conflict in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather. In an earlier Japanese gangster film, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1964 Pale Flower, drugs represent a similar kind of peril to the gangster way of life. Why, in worlds of unrestrained crime and violent excess, do drugs threaten organized criminals and their lifestyle? This project seeks to understand drugs as a threat to the construction of gangster masculinity. This cross-cultural analysis looks at two key gangster films, Pale Flower and Martin Scorsese’s 1990 Goodfellas. By examining these films’ relationships with drugs, one Japanese and one American, it becomes clear that gangster masculinity in the two countries’ genres is similarly and unexpectedly constructed as conservative and controlled. This project also contrasts the nuances of criminal masculinity in the two countries with historical and cultural considerations. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to understand the cultural implications of drug activity as a recurring theme in the international genre of gangster films.