The bronx tale essay

The Bronx Tale is a movie based in the 1960’s. There were a lot of differential discrepancies between races. In this period of time, it was taboo for a white Italian to have any kind of relationships with a person of color. One of the main characters named Calogero was surrounded by friends who discriminated against blacks. However, Calogero was raised in this kind of environment, he seem to be optimistic about black people. In this Italian neighborhood, where Calogero grew up, there were many different dynamics.

His father was a bus driver for the city, and always looked out for his son not to get into trouble. One of the main deviant influences in the film was an Italian mafia that operated in a bar across the street. Every day as a young boy, Calogero mimicked what the mobsters were doing, especially Sonny. Sonny was the mafia boss in the neighborhood; Calogero saw how everyone respected him.

One day Calogero witnessed Sonny kill a guy in front of his house, which seemed to be over a parking space. When the police came upstairs to ask the boy who did it, he did not “ rat. ” After the questioning, Calogero said to his father “ I did a good thing right? I didn’t rat. ” His father responded and said “ yes you did a good thing for a bad man. Calogero didn’t understand why his father said that. The next day Sonny took Calogero under his wing, when this happened he noticed that he was treated differently.

And Calogero liked how this new found of respect he got from people in the neighborhood. A couple of mafia guys even offered Calogero’s father a job, but he denied their offer. Calogero’s father chose to live a straight life as a conformist he did not want to affiliate himself with the mafia. No matter how much the family was struggling, no matter how much his wife told him that they can use the extra money.

He still did not give in to any of these deviant behaviors. During this time, when he was young, Calogero was doing side jobs at the bar making money. However, Calgero’s mother found the money he had been making at the bar.

When his father got home, he asked him where he got the money from. Calgero said I worked for it at the bar. The father didn’t want that kind of money in the house, so he walked across the street and gave it back to Sonny. Calgero was very upset at his father because of what he did. When Calogero was young he always rides on the bus that his father drove. As a teenager, Calogero was on the bus with his father and they passed through a black neighborhood.

There was an undisputed difference between the Italian neighborhood compare to the Black neighborhood. You see that the houses and cars were in bad condition and the streets were very dirty and dingy. The blacks in this period of time clearly lived in an area of poverty. One day Calogero was riding the bus and he saw a girl of color, he was very intrigued by her. However as Calogero said in the movie “ She was tall, she was beautiful, and she was classy. But she was black.

And that was a no-no in my neighborhood. ” Later on Calogero noticed that this same colored girl went to the same school as he did. When he had the chance he worked up the courage to talk to her and get a date with her. Calogero looked to his father for advice about dating a colored person. His father tells him, he doesn’t have a problem with colored people but he doesn’t believe in marring outside of your own race.

He also asked Sonny for advice he told him that it doesn’t matter they are black or white, what matters is that she’s not a selfish braud. Throughout the movie, there were a couple of scenes where they show how the Calogero’s friends discriminated against blacks. One scene was they were younger, a bus full of blacks pass through the Italian neighborhood. One of Calogero’s friends started complaining about the “ niggers” passing through the neighborhood and gets angry. He begins to throw objects at the blacks on the bus and screamed racist remarks. This is where you first see that Calogero does not discriminate or shows any sign of being prejudice. By saying, “ leave them alone their just passing through from school. ” However, eventually he joined his friends screaming at the blacks to stay out of their neighborhood.

Another example in the movie is when, Calogero and his friends were teenagers, a group of black teenagers were riding their bikes through the Italian neighborhood. His friends became very angry, because of this, Calogero tried to defend the black teenagers by saying they are not bothering anyone. But his friends did not listen, it soon escalated. His friends started to become physically violent towards the group of black teenagers. And while the Italian boys were beating up the black teenagers they screamed “ This is our neighborhood you black bastard.

” Calogero didn’t participate in the assault against the black teenagers however; he tried to have one of them stay down on the ground to protect him from his friends. After this act of violence, their hangout was vandalized and assumed it must have been the black teenagers that they assaulted the other day. In retaliation they came up with idea to drive to the black neighborhood and throw Molotov cocktails at the black teenagers where they hangout at. A car with Calogero’s friends in it exploded and kills everyone in the vehicle. When this happens the members of the black community began celebrating in the streets. The violence of destroying property and each other shows that there is excessive racism in the 1960’s. The fact that the members of the black community dislike white people enough to celebrate in their death proves that there is racism in every culture, regardless of race, and color. In this movie “ The Bronx Tale” showed the latent functions of deviance and racism.

Both groups of races lived so close to each other, but the excessive racism and hatred between these two groups kept them apart. However, there was a boy named Calogero that did not care what other people thought. By doing the no-no in his neighborhood, instead he followed his heart and Sonny’s advice; he perused a relationship with a colored girl.