As a New Englander, the ongoing revelations that the Catholic Church I was baptized into was involved in the wholesale international cover-up of child rape on a scale unheard of has been a decade-long agony, as it has been for most Catholics. In the wake of this scandal, which originated in Boston, the Church has seen a hyper-conservative reaction unlike any other, banning gays from the seminary and equating the rape of a child with homosexual relations between consenting adults.
Into this comes THE DEPARTED, directed by Martin Scorsese. While on the outside it seems to be merely a gangster film not unlike his previous offerings, there is an undercurrent regarding identity politics that is quite unique for an action film.
The clip above, consisting of the first fifteen minutes of the film, establishes some of the major themes regarding identity and issues of power that the film explores. Examining these moments offer insight into the overall message and lessons to be derived.
The first moments of the film consist of archival footage from the 1974 busing riots, the most violent of race riots on the East Coast since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. In this clip, we are introduced to Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello (based on the real Irish mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger, who was just captured this year after being a fugitive for over a decade), whose monologue about self-determination in the urban landscape properly summarizes the working class mentality of Irish Bostonians.
The next series of scenes focus on the relationship between the young Colin and Costello. There are several references to seduction of evil, particularly the line attributed to James Joyce, 'Non serviam' (which is said to have originated with Lucifer's rebuke of God). However, prior to that quote, Costello's reference to the Catholic Church's orders to 'stand, kneel' can be read in a sexual manner, particularly in light of the revelations of how altar boys in particular were raped. The fact that the following shots are of the young boy serving at a Requiem Mass just reaffirms the inherent links between sex, power, and the intertwined nature of the two.
This is not new ground for Scorsese, his MEAN STREETS was a reflection on post-Vatican II Catholicism and the clash of Italian values, Catholic virtues, mafia procedure, and the fate of one man's soul. The scenes of Harvey Keitel putting his finger in the flame reiterates his extremist Catholic view that only in pain of fire can man be purified and made worthy of God. This is classic self-mutilation excused by striving for holiness.
This sort of justification for pain and torture is exactly the type of power grabbing the Archdiocese of Boston utilized in its heyday, threatening the victims with excommunication, a fate worse than death in Catholic theology, if they dared go outside the Church's authority in matter regarding pedophiles of the cloth.
So what exactly does Frank do to the young boy, or for him? Throughout the film, Matt Damon as the older Colin constantly is attempting to re-affirm his own sexuality. In one instance, after a night spent with his girlfriend, she joins him at breakfast and tries to tell him that a case of impotence the night before is nothing to be ashamed of, at which he recoils. So we can assume that there is some latent homosexuality on his part.
But what of Frank? Did he himself molest Colin? Or did he perhaps defend the boy from a victimizing priest in exchange for Colin's future protection from the law as a State Trooper? Many theories have been floated, trying to explain the intentional ambiguities of the film (just what is in that box Frank hands Colin after Trooper Graduation, anyway?), but ultimately this sort of posturing over MacGuffins is pointless. This is meant to be, in many ways, a typical story of a gay kid growing up in a hyper-masculine heterosexist society known for outright violence and ostracism of homosexuals. This internal contradiction of Colin as a gay man living a lie is ultimately Scorsese's own comment on the contradictory nature of a Church that demonizes homosexuality and gay rights while sheltering the largest known gathering of child rapists known to man. His ultimate resolution, that these contradictions only cause pain and death, are truly important ideas.
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