Marlon Brando as the Godfather has become a cult figure in pop culture since the immensely successful release of The Godfather. The chilling, all powerful and suave character that Marlon Brando portrayed turned out to be the example that a generation epitomised of a big-time criminal. There have been many criminals that have won the audience after that like The Joker played by both Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger, but these were of a different genre altogether and none can challenge the cult hero figure of The Godfather.
Netflix’s most recent short series on true crime, Fear City: New York vs The Mafia intends to introduce the viewers to the real-life Godfathers that ruled New York City with an iron fist. The story of the Mob is one told and re-told, dramatised and documented, such is the intrigue of this organisation. The Mob, or better known as the Mafia, were a number of crime families involved in everything from white collar crimes to cold-blooded murder. The major crime families which were controlled by the acclaimed Godfathers were the Bonano, Gambino, Colombo, Lucchese and Genoveses families. The crime family ideology has been used as a source of inspiration for many tv series and movies since the 1980s to depict an all-conquering, despicable group of people.
In essence, all crime families followed a similar structure. It started at the top with a Boss, the man who was pulling the strings. Then just beneath him was the Underboss who would communicate or order the others so as to keep the boss from being seen with the general scum. Beneath the underboss were the Captains, who would lead a team of Soldiers to do the loan-sharking, managing their prostitution rings, murders, choking out gambling money from debtors and any other crime you could possibly think of. If it was illegal, the crime family had someone participating in it.
The beauty of it all was, the families were run like institutions, where the boss was like the CEO. The boss would have meetings with his subordinates, decide agendas and the captains and soldiers would get it done. The show begins in an ominous fashion with a clip from a news report where the anchor points out that New York would initially be branded as Fun City but in the 80s the police and firemen were starting to call it Fear City due to the killings and illegal activity that was rampant at the time. Blood and dead bodies were often found on the streets, the city was an unsafe place and was being run by the Mafia.
The Mob was an organised crime unit like no other, the mafia heads made their mountains of money from illegitimate and legitimate sources. This blending of illegal work with the legal is what helped them cover up their income and their acts. The term money laundering in fact came from the time Scarface would invest his drug money in setting up laundromats, these were legal small businesses and served as a place to turn the dirty money into clean money, thus the term “money laundering”. But that’s a story for another day.
The series depicts how the mafia infiltrated every industry and sought to gain out of every possible opportunity. The Mafia consisted of families of Italian-American origin but that did not stop them from taking advantage of fellow Italian-Americans. A participant in the docuseries recollects that when his father opened up a barber shop, few henchmen from the mob visited their shop once it was doing well and demanded a 30% cut otherwise he, his son, his family or his shop were going to take a beatdown. This was a typical bully move by the mafia to make the small bucks. The real genius was them taking charge of the unions. The mob ran the restaurant union, the labour union and the garbage disposal union amongst others. They would strategically place their soldiers into these organisations and slowly take control of the unions. Their idea was “you control the union, you control it all”.
This plan worked out flawlessly and was talked about in the docuseries where they would get the garbage management personnel to demand higher fees from the local businesses who had no option but to bend to their demands due to the lack of a competitor and fear for their businesses and lives. From this increased fee, the mafia would get its cut, thus becoming yet another stream of income.
During the 1980s, New York was booming, with skyscrapers being built everywhere. It was a brilliant time for the construction industry. The mafia controlled each of the major cement makers and each of the top 5 mafia families were involved in each of the major construction players. They would threaten and oust any independent company that tried to take any construction job of a value over 2 million.
Although there were many other crime families throughout the country, the Bonano, Colombo, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese families were the ones that were run by the Godfathers who in turn ran the country-wide Mafia. Once again, this was not a rag-tag group of bullies, the soldiers were there for the dirty work, but this was a well-organised system. The five Godfathers of these families were called The Commission and any significant act of the Mafia had to be agreed upon at a meeting of The Commission. This was what separated them from other crime and terrorist groups. Their organisation was impeccable.
The producers managed to get 2 ex-mafia men to participate in the docu-series as well, Michael Franzese and Johnny Alite. They were there to give the viewers an insight into the opinions of the other side. They talked about how they would respect the FBI for doing their job and how their boss Paul Castellano had once defended an FBI agent when he and his men had found out that the agent was meeting with his maid and getting information out of her. The news had incensed the thugs and they suggested getting the narc out of the picture but Mr Castellano defended him saying “he’s just doing his job”.
The mafia had an understanding that the world was a cat and mouse game, the cops’ job was to catch them and their job was to not get caught. Law enforcement had it even tougher because of a strong code within the mafia. Michael Franzese, one of the ex-mafia members who participated in this docuseries, recollects how during his initiation, there was a ceremony where he was required to swear in blood. His finger was cut and the photograph of a burning saint was placed in his hand and he was told that if he ever betrayed the mafia, he would burn in hell for all eternity just like this saint. Moreover, the ingrained loyalty of the members assured each other that none would fold and betray the other.
The mafia may have been this well-oiled business that ran on solidarity, but the docuseries also talks about the event when after the FBI rounded up the Godfathers to be arrested, the “boss of bosses”, Paul Castellano was shot dead in cold blood by 3 soldiers minutes after he got out on bail because the Mafia bosses were dead against dealing in drugs and would kill any member that got involved in it and during the trial, tapes were about to be revealed where these soldiers, namely Johnny Alite, Joe Ruggiero and John Gotti(who then went on to become boss of the Gambino family) were caught on record discussing their drug peddling that they were carrying out on the side.
The series was more about shedding some light on the real life mafia family, the godfathers like Fat Tony and Paul Castellano and their tactics in raking in hoards of cash than about the major plot of the FBI taking them down. It almost seemed that the sub-plot of the mafia’s life and methods had stolen the spotlight. The brave efforts of the FBI, elaborated in this docuseries, is narrated on how they took down what seemed to be the heads of an immovable monster. The victory was a resounding one, but the mafia still lives with a new generation of bosses. Law enforcement can just hope that their tentacles don’t strangle the different facets of society once more like they would.
P.S. – For those interested, the Italian Police managed to get a Mafia Oath on camera for the first time ever here
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