Gangs of New York: film analysis and historical context

Gangs of New York: A Study in Social Problems

Gangs of New York is a disturbing film about New York City during the Civil War era. The story revolves around "the son of Priest Fallon." Priest Fallon was a Roman Catholic Irish immigrant who was killed fighting against "The Natives," a gang that hated all minorities. After seeing his father killed, the son grows up in "Hellgate," a reformatory for boys, and returns to Five Points to avenge his father's death. He infiltrates "The Natives" and gains the trust of their leader. The story deals with his struggle against the Butcher, the brutal man who killed his father and who now runs everything in the area ("Everybody works for him, even Boss Tweed"). While this is going on, three major social problems of the times are shown: Boss Tweed and the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine, an enormous surge of new Irish immigrants entering the city every week, and the first compulsory Draft. In this essay we will examine these three elements as they contributed to gang-related problems.

William M. "Boss" Tweed controlled the Tammany Hall political machine, which was infamous for its corruption and influence on all levels of government, including the police force.

The film shows Tweed sending soup to the starving immigrants as they get off the ships, thus garnering their votes. It shows his people buying votes. It also reveals that Tweed was unwilling to really control crime because he was profiting from it. The police, for instance, instead of stopping looters, take a cut from the booty. Boss Tweed announces sarcastically, "The appearance of the law must be upheld." He decides to hang three or four ordinary family men falsely accused of "corruption of the public good." This was to show that Tweed was tough on crime. it's no wonder that Bill, the Butcher, leader of the Natives, is so violent. In the course of becoming a mentor to Amsterdam, he explains, "You stay alive with fear. Fear," he says, "preserves the order of things."

His gang wreaks most of its violence on the Irish whom they place at the bottom of the social scale along with blacks. Unlike Tweed who just wants their votes, Bill, the Butcher and his gang would like to kill all of them.

A great wave of Irish immigrants came to America during the 19th century. In the middle of that century a famine swept across Ireland, and Irish Catholics were severely impacted. In only three years, more than 500,000 people with nothing to eat died of starvation (Nickens, 2002). Those that lived migrated in large numbers. According to the movie, 15,000 a week landed in New York City. As the Butcher put it, "...they come off the boat crawling with lice and begging for soup." He referred to them as the "Mother whoring Irish niggers."