The Departed Conventions

This movie explores issues of greed, human relationships, betrayal and redemption, personal innocence and responsibility as well as the effects on the human mind

From watching the 2006 film titled “The Departed”, I argue that the social message of the film is not just identity but the changing of identity through socialization. This can best be described through the symbolic interaction theory. Like the main characters of the film, people give meaning to their behavior based on the meaning they impose on objects, events and other behaviors (Anderson & Taylor, 2009). The film’s main protagonist Bill Costigan and main antagonist Colin Sullivan both share similar backgrounds and culture. Costigan “being born into a family with criminal backgrounds”, rebels against the social norm like his father and instead becomes an undercover state police officer. Sullivan on the other hand “with influence from

The mankind identity when it is personal is usually same as the blueprint or a house. This is usually because of how it is designed and how it is shaped after it has been built. Therefore, if the house is usually not well built and designed it can fall due to many causes such as nature. For the house to stay and last long it usually depends on the personal identity if it is built well. Therefore, the building usually depends with the nature of the being because the role identity of the person can be positive or negative. The director of this film and the author of the novel have defined the identity of the person in the story to be the main issue.

The most apparent stereotyping in the entire book has to be with Joe and Amy. Joe is portrayed as the classic high school bad boy, he wears a bandana and a single skull earring. He drinks all the time, gets wasted at the parties and has a few brush-ins with the law. Amy on the other the hand is shown as the makeup obsessed high school slut. During the introduction of the story, her reputation of being easy is already mentioned and seems to be proven when Michael fools around with her on his birthday while his girlfriend is around. Both of these characters on the surface appear as stereotypical high schoolers. Most people in the neighborhood as well as some people at the high school label Joe as a bad kid, troublemaker, maverick, etc. While

A person’s identity is unique from another individual’s and is shaped by a plethora of aspects, some being family, friends, culture, personal interests, environment, and society. These aspects all come together to influence a person’s identity, some having a more powerful impact on an individual than others. However, when a person is put into an environment or situation in which their perceived identity does not match those of their environment or society, the individual is now in isolation from his or her surroundings. During isolation, a person may struggle to find their true identity or remain true to their identity. This phenomenon is perfectly shown in the novels Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley,

Identity is transitional. Not one identity is held constant throughout one’s life. Thus, the intersectionality of one’s identity conveys how complicated humans are. This complex nature of humans is brought to life in the movie Moonlight. Directed by Barry Jenkins, this coming of age film explores the many facets of identity in the main character, Chiron. Chiron is not the only fully thought character; every named character parallels people of all walks of life. Through the intricacies of the characters, stereotypes are presented and shattered. But, the film’s central point is not to counter stereotypes. Moonlight tells a story of reality where stereotypes are rooted in truth. Consequently, Moonlight plays into a majority of stereotypes of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Stuart M. Kaminsky, an American writer and a film professor at Northwestern University and at Florida State University, has written quite a few novels that surrounded American mysteries and how some of the criminal activities in America during the twentieth century. Novels like Bullet for a Star and A Cold Red Sunrise, that both illustrated the rise in criminal activity in America under the umbrella of the mystery genre. Kaminsky’s article on Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar discusses how the elements within the film created the standard for gangster films. He breaks the elements down into thirteen sections to give an in-depth understanding of them, and how they connect to each other. Furthermore, out of the thirteen elements he really focused on three of them. The three were “The Title”, “Time and Fate”, and

The Departed, a film written by William Monahan, Alan Mak, and Felix Chong, directed by Martin Scorsese, was in my opinion a spectacular crime-thriller deserving of less criticism from overly sentimental viewers. Though this film is in some scenes brutal and vicious, I praise Martin Scorsese’s refusal to cower away from the undeniable truth that organized crime in the United States is murderous in nature just to satisfy certain viewers as critics advocated he should. Being a four time Oscar winning film with sixty-three other awards for numerous aspects in the movie industry, I don’t believe anyone can contradict that The Departed is profoundly unforgettable to masses of moviegoers.

“I just want my identity back. ‘I get it you wanna be a cop again.’ ‘Being a cop’s not an identity, I want my identity back.” Billy realises that he doesn’t want to be a cop again, he wants to be himself; a loyal, honest man. He wants to redefine his life before he’s discovered as a rat in the mob.

The focus of this paper will be on two contemporary criminological theories and their application to the crime film, Eastern Promises. The two theories to be discussed, and subsequently applied to the film, are labelling theory and differential association theory. Labelling theory falls under the symbolic interactionist approach, and the primary level of analysis of this theory is micro, as it tends to focus on the effect of labels on an individual’s sense of “self”. The basis of labelling theory is that no act is inherently deviant; it is only when the act is labelled deviant that it becomes so. When someone is labelled as deviant, they begin to see themselves as the label they have been assigned. This can cause the behaviour to happen more frequently, as the individual who has been labelled begins to see themselves as they label they have been given. A criticism of labelling theory is that it lacks empirical validity, and is deterministic. There is no way to effectively test this theory, so there is no way to know for sure how accurate the concept of labelling is and the effect it has on an individual and their propensity towards criminality. This and other aspects of labelling theory will be broken down and discussed later on in the paper.

Identity can be construed as the differentiating character or personality of an individual. In the gothic romance novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a tale of sin in a 17th century Puritan community and explores the theme of identity in characters Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Throughout the novel, Hester, Pearl, Arthur and Roger cope with the consequences of public and private shame. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the theme of identity is ubiquitous as Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale all form new identities as they cope with the consequences of sin.

In a way this movie is social commentary, in a world that wants people to believe they can trust everyone the movie shows what it is like when you

gives a trait of themselves that plays a role in the movie. The basic summary of the movie is that

Erickson’s Identity theory was also illustrated in both films. Part of Erickson’s theory was identity achievement vs. identity confusion. Adolescents who are in the identity achievement category know who they are and where they belong in the world around them. Identity

While constantly aware of Miss Drew’s situation, Billy can’t escape the realization of his position’s possible transiency and the fact that his life depends on his usefulness in the gang: “all I had to remember was how small of a mistake was sufficient to change my fortune, maybe even without knowing it. I was an habitual accomplice to murder. I could be arrested, tried, and sentenced, to death”(123). From this, Billy is impressed with one of the fundamental rules that accompanies inclusion in gang life—absolute loyalty to the gang’s interests. Billy observes the consequences of breaking this rule of loyalty when he hops onto the boat and into the scene of Bo’s sinking figure, and later, when Schulz’s personal life becomes complicated with a pending courtcase. The gang loyally relocates to the rural small town of Onondaga to help ensure the boss avoids jailtime. After painstakingly building an amiable reputation in the town for the Boss, Schultz’s temperament leads to “the president” Julie Martin’s murder in the hotel. The entire gang dutifully cleans the room and removes the body with cover up concluding with and unprepared Billy being punched in the face. After the fact, Billy comes to see the necessity of his subsequent broken nose yet is internally insulted and cannot shake the urge to “get revenge” (159). This affront to his own ego caused a shift