Yes and no.jabrwock said:
The appeal of American gangster on film is very complex, and goes far beyond the (mostly imagined) high-class Robin Hood complex.
Gangster movies are largely movies about the American dream.
Gangster movies are traditionally about poor men who become rich through hard work (even if it's illegitimate wealth). These characters are usually oppressed outsiders, often immigrants, who do all they can to rise to the top. This dynamic appeals to Americans, who are often raised on the idea that through hard work they can achieve anything, yet find that in real life it's a much more tricky prospect. Gangsters are fantasy figures that make it big on their own merits.
Gangsters are figures who are in a unique place to comment on society.
As figures outside the mainstream, meaning people who cheat the system instead of playing along, gangsters can comment on the cracks in society. The Godfather is about generational gaps, redefining family and the changing place of immigrants in the '70s. Scarface commented on the excess of the 1980s. The Departed mirrors the feelings of guilt and distrust America has gone through after 9/11 and the war in Iraq. (Think about it--wiretapping, informants, secret agents, unfeeling government handlers, etc.) However, at the end of this critique of society, most gangster films can end with cultural norms reasserting themselves by the gangster either dying or losing what's important to him. Thus the gangster is a character who can critique the failures of the system but still reassert its importance in the end with the message that fighting society isn't a good idea.
Gangster films are a valve for venting frustration.
There's a reason that many of the eras I mentioned in the last section were periods of dissatisfaction and uncertainty. The '40s, '50s and '90's weren't great times for gangster movies (movies with gangsters as the protagonists) but the '60s, '70s, '80s and this decade have seen gangster-driven movies flourish. Organized crime figures are inherently populist characters fighting the system, the "little man" who's refusing to get ground down, and has the bravery to stand up and live like a person rather than a part of a machine. The inherent hypocrisy of this, that the ordinary man is most often the victim of organized crime, is usually sidestepped by filmmakers in favor of striking blows against perceived symbols of establishment corruption like money-laden banks, crooked politicians, dirty cops and less savory criminals such as drug dealers and pimps. These films especially flourish during bad economic times, since the average viewer can vicariously live out the fantasy of walking into a bank and taking all the money he wants rather than worrying about layoffs, shortened budgets and unpaid bills. There's a reason gangsters became popular heroes during the depression, and with the economy like it is, I'm sure moviegoers will get a deep satisfaction from watching Dillinger clean out the vaults. If Public Enemies is a success, watch for more anti-bank gangster films. There's already a strain of this in Hollywood-- look at The International and Drag Me To Hell.
I'm going to stop here, but I've only scratched the surface on the place of the gangster in the American psyche. Part of it comes from being a young nation who doesn't have many age-old folk heroes like Europe, so we tend to "kidnap" historical figures like David Crockett, Wild Bill Hickock and even less savory characters like Al Capone, and elevate them to folk-hero status as representatives of American virtue and vice.
Even so, the perception of criminals as anti-establishment heroes goes way, way back and is by no means an American invention. During hanging days in 18th century London, well-wishers filled the streets, throwing flowers to the condemned and buying them drinks, and the reasons they did that were the same ones listed above.
On another note, good job MovieBob, liked this one much more.
