Crime Films and the Evolution of Public Enemies

The Shifting Enemies in American Crime Films

By [Student’s Name]

Course Code and Name

Professor’s Name

University

City and State

The perceived public enemy shifts throughout the years. Crime movies can focus on who the perceived enemies are at the time. It shifts from the depression and lack of confidence in the system, to corruption of cities and big business. The majority of people live relatively honest lives, but we still root for the criminal who takes advantage of the system or who takes his share from the rich. The movies show a stark reality between the corrupt city life of the industrial age, from the idealized pastoral life of the past. To rural Americans the city of the gangster represented the “enemy’s country”[1], because it was populated with foreigners. The movie gangsters are generally second-generation immigrants. Italian, Jewish and Irish gangsters are the primary gangsters in films, and that…