The Mafia Were and Are Way More Seedy than the Godfather Depicts Them
No list of best movies of all times is complete without The Godfather. With one of Hollywood’s greatest ensemble casts, memorable haunting music, and a gripping plot, it is hard not to love it. However, admiration for the film has blinded many to the fact that it is not real. What it depicts is fiction created by author Mario Puzo, brilliantly brought to the silver screen by director Francis Ford Coppola. It is an imagined version of organized crime, not an accurate depiction of the real thing. In the real world, the mafia has always been a seedy collection of often psychotic, parasitic, backstabbing, and grubby thugs who would do anything for money.
The real life mob has always been more like a malignant cancer than the romanticized band of criminals portrayed in the movie. As seen below, rather than paragons of loyalty and disciples of omerta, mobsters from the mafia’s earliest days have been more than happy to snitch, and betray bosses and underlings alike. And far from the myth popularized by The Godfather about the mafia’s avoidance of drugs, the mob has been heavily involved in narcotics from its birth. Indeed, until the rise of the Colombian drug cartels after cocaine caught on, the mafia, whose specialty was heroin, were America’s biggest drug traffickers.
