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Analyzing Role of Women in ‘Once Upon a Time in America’

The 1984 film ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ is considered one of the most famous epic
movies of the gangster genre. Since its release, however, it has roundly been criticised for
misogyny and its morally ambiguous depiction of violence against women (Nochimson, 2007).
In the film, women are depicted as mere sexual objects of men. Their role is simply to satisfy the
needs of men whether they like it or not.
An example of then film’s problematic treatment of women is the sexual assault of Carol
by a group of four men during a robbery. Rather than revulsion at such violence against her,
Carol is described as enjoying the rape (Milchan & Leone, 1984). This is quite shocking even by
the standards of that time. To make matters worse, when she is later introduced to the four men
who raped her in a brothel, she is asked to identify who among the four raped her by examining
their exposed manhood (Milchan & Leone, 1984). This is supposedly part of a fun game!.
The experience of Carol makes it look like sexual assault against women is both
acceptable and enjoyable. Thus, later when Carol requests to be hit by Noodle in order to make
her experience look real, it is all part of the narrative in the film that sanitizes violence against
women. The women, rather than being opposed to violations of their bodies, acquiesce to the
violations and sometimes even request for them.
It is not just physical assaults that women have to contend with, they also have to put up
with verbal assaults from men. For instance, in the scene involving Noodles, Max, and Carol,
Max violently tells Carol to shut when she attempts to protest his statement that he does not care

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about her (Milchan & Leone, 1984). This violent interjection reveals the low opinion and
disrespect that the men have for women in the film.
An analysis of these two scenes reveals a problematic depiction of women in the movie.
It goes a long way to show that gangster subculture is so removed from the normal world that the
us usual mores and norms that govern the normal world are completely absent from it.

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References

Milchan, A. & Leone, S. (1984). Once Upon a Time in America. United States: The Ladd
Company.

Nochimson, M. (2007). Dying to belong: Gangster movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong. John
Wiley & Sons.