Quotes / Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!

The bourgeosie's fascination with bandits rests on a misconception: that a bourgeois is not a bandit.

— Bertolt Brecht

"The gangster's activity is actually a form of rational enterprise, involving fairly definite goals and various techniques for achieving them. But this rationality is usually no more than a vague background; we know, perhaps, that the gangster sells liquor or that he operates a numbers racket; often we are not given even that much information. So his activity becomes a kind of pure criminality: he hurts people. Certainly our response to the gangster film is most consistently and most universally a response to sadism; we gain the double satisfaction of participating vicariously in the gangster's sadism and then seeing it turned against the gangster himself... At the same time, we are always conscious that the whole meaning of this career is a drive for success: the typical gangster film presents a steady upward progress followed by a very precipitate fall. Thus brutality itself becomes at once the means to success and the content of success—a success that is defined in its most general terms, not as accomplishment or specific gain, but simply as the unlimited possibility of aggression. (In the same way, film presentations of businessmen tend to make it appear that they achieve their success by talking on the telephone and holding conferences and that success is talking on the telephone and holding conferences) ... From this point of view, the initial contact between the film and its audience is an agreed conception of human life: that man is a being with the possibilities of success or failure...At bottom, the gangster is doomed because he is under the obligation to succeed, not because the means he employs are unlawful. In the deeper layers of the modern consciousness, all means are unlawful, every attempt to succeed is an act of aggression, leaving one alone and guilty and defenseless among enemies: one is punished for success."

— Robert Warshow, The Gangster as Tragic Hero

Bonnie and Clyde were out of their time in the 30s...If Bonnie and Clyde were here today, they would be hip. Their values have become assimilated in much of our culture — not robbing banks and killing people, of course, but their style, their sexuality, their bravado, their delicacy, their cultivated arrogance, their narcissistic insecurity, their curious ambition have relevance to the way we live now. Of course, what makes them beautiful is they didn’t know it...They are not Crooks...They are people, and this film is, in many ways, about what’s going on now.

— Screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman, of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, excerpted from Mark Harris' Pictures of a Revolution.

"Gangs give you a sense of belonging, and usually, an income. But mostly, they give you a sense of dignity. Men are men, and men'll seek pride. Everybody here's got a badge to wear. 'I'm the Deputy Communications Director.' 'I made Presidential Classroom.' 'I know the answer. I'm going to Cornell.' You think bangers are walking around with their heads down, saying, 'Oh man, I didn't make anything out of my life. I'm in a gang.' No, man! They're walking around saying, 'Man, I'm in a gang. I'm with them.'"

— Charlie Young, The West Wing, "Isaac and Ishmael"

"Of course, gangsters could be said to embody a warped (and almost romantic) sense of American individualism — rugged characters who are essentially 'self-made' in a hyper-competitive world. Given how quintessentially American the idea of 'the gangster' is, it makes sense that a culture built around that iconography would resemble America in some rather pointed ways."

— Darren Mooney on Star Trek: The Original Series ("A Piece of the Action")

"Even in a video game, Vito Corleone rocks a fedora better than you can."

— Encyclopedia Dramatica

"Luthor is living it up with his criminal cronies, in a lavish banquet decorated with fine-art renderings of Superman's demise. Boy, when Luthor throws a party, he goes all out."

— Comic 101

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta
A real gangsta-ass nigga knows the play.
The real gangsta-ass niggas get the flyest of the bitches
Ask that gangsta-ass nigga Lil J.

— Geto Boys, "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta"

When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette to your last dying day.

When you're a Jet, if the spit hits the fan,

You've got brothers around; you're a family man!

You're never alone, never disconnected.

You're home with your own. When company's expected,

You're well protected.

Then you are set with a capital J

Which you'll never forget 'til they cart you away.

When you're a Jet, you stay a Jet!

— The Jet Song, West Side Story

When I'm at the drug store, my Coke don't cost a dime
Over at the newstand, free comics all the time.
The grocer, the peddler, the whole neighborhood,
Wherever I go, I know my money's no good.
They call me 'C, and I like it.
Everything's free, and I like it.

— I Like It, A Bronx Tale

"Y'know, I was a good-for-nothing little shit as a kid. But now I strut around this fuckin' town. Head high. Out havin' those glitzy nights I always dreamed about. I never knew what that felt like 'til I stood on the winnin' side. Controllin' people with power and fear... I tell ya, nothin' feels better than that."

—Kosei Shisedo, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

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