Abstract
Why do the dominated and exploited come to accept a social order that disadvantages them? Pierre Bourdieu suggests that the relative stability of societies results not from coercion but from consent by the dominated, which is the result of symbolic power. The present chapter provides an introduction to the functioning of symbolic power by analysing the transformation of Michael Corleone as depicted in Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather. It explores how objective social structures become embodied within the subject through everyday rituals. Once embodied, these structures operate as principles of cognition and contribute to the misrecognition of the social order as legitimate and natural. Michael’s individual transformation, understood from a Bourdieusian perspective, at the same time secures the reproduction of the Mafia order.
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Notes
- 1.
Henceforth, the chapter will distinguish between family without quotation marks (as a group of closely related people) and the ‘family’ in quotation marks (as a euphemism for Mafia-like organisations). The notion of the ‘family’ is a socially constructed reference that emerged historically on the American East coast (Lupo 2013, 20). The Dons of the so-called Cosa Nostra families in the United States referred to their criminal organisations as ‘families’, because they assumed that the Sicilian Mafia had been organised around family bonds—which is historically inaccurate.
- 2.
Literally at one blow, namely, the blow by the police chief, Michael recognises the social structures that condition his social existence. The police chief is not somebody who protects. His act of violence not only withdraws the symbolic veil of law and order but also of honour, by exposing the right of the stronger one.
- 3.
An interpretation of this revenge sequence that is consistent with a Bourdieusian view of Michael’s transformation can also build on this act’s double quality: Even if, for Michael, the revenge against Sollozzo is a family matter, it is at the very same time—despite his own interpretation—a rite of institution to the ‘family’, as it is recognised as such by the other members of the Mafia.
- 4.
Bourdieu (1996, 111) puts it into this formula: ‘Noblesse oblige’ (Nobility obliges).
- 5.
Bourdieu here transposes Hegel’s dialectic of the master and the slave to institutions and those who represent them (see Bourdieu 1991, 203–219).
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Beckershoff, A. (2019). Pierre Bourdieu and The Godfather. In: Hamenstädt, U. (eds) The Interplay Between Political Theory and Movies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90731-4_2
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