Film Depictions of Corruption and Organized Crime in Labor
Hollywood has often used its capacity as a producer of popular entertainment to address political and ideological concerns (Neve, 1995). During the 1940s and 1950, and throughout the Cold War to the present, Hollywood often turned its attention to such matters as the struggles of organized labor and, alternatively, the corruption that was becoming evident in the labor movement. Two films û Elia Kazan's 1954 On the Waterfront and Paul Schrader's 1997 Blue Collar û will be discussed in this brief report. Though significantly different in their style and approach to union politics, both films offer insight into union activity and corruption or malfeasance.
Kazan's film, On the Waterfront, adopts a moral tone regarding informing on one's union bossesû whistleblowing, as it is now known û and on the dangers inherent in work on the rough-and-tumble docks of New York City and other ports (Wakeman, 1988). The conflict in the film centers on Terry Malloy's determination to remedy some of the corruption he sees around him on the docks; Malloy, encouraged by his girlfriend (whose brother was killed by the union mob bosses for demanding better work conditions and representation) and his priest, decides to inform on the union leaders to a crime commission. As Wakeman (1988) has pointed out, this film was very much a representation of Kazan's own moral posture regarding informing on one's colleagues.
The movie's forward, says Wakeman (1988, p. 507), claimed that the film would "exemplify the way self-appointed tyrants could be defeated by right-thinking people in a vital democracy." The mob bosses, and not the lawyers and politicians heading the crime commission, are not-so-subtly equated with Senator Joseph McCarthy in a reversal of roles that Wakeman (1988) characterizes as reflecting Kazan's own attitude toward the McCarthy hearings.
Neve (1995) argued that Kaza...