The Godfather 2 tells the story of the youngest Mike becoming the second generation of Godfather. At this time, he and kay have two children, and kay is pregnant. The family's base has moved to Las Vegas, and it has made continuous progress on the road to legalization of the industry, but it has been seven years since the original vow to "completely legalize the Corleone family's industry within five years".
Like the first one, the film begins with a grand banquet, but this one lacks a lot of Italian flavor. As Frankie said, "None of the musicians here are Italian". It seems that on the way to "de-gangization", "de-Italianization" has to happen at the same time. In the Corleone family, banquets and business are always inseparable. As soon as the governor made a speech at the banquet to express his gratitude to Mike for his donation to the local state university, he walked into Mike's office and asked Mike for the "protection fee" of the casino. On the road to get Baidao's approval, Mike struggled but still faced many difficulties.
In the history of the Italian gangster of the Godfather, the family has always been a very important existence. Both generations attach importance to the family, so they are responsible for their wives and children. However, this is after all a traditional Italian family full of male dominance. The first generation godfather said sincere words like "I only want my wife and children" when cultivating and watching beautiful women, but he never let his wife get involved in any business affairs. When the first-generation godfather was talking with business partners at home, his wife was only responsible for preparing pasta for everyone for dinner. Even when dealing with children, she did not let her daughter connie interfere in family affairs, but found a son-in-law who could do something for the family (but later the son-in-law betrayed, that's a story later). Such a monopolistic attitude can be based on the protection of female members of the family, but in the final analysis it is a distrust of the capabilities of female members. We call the Godfather series "a must-see epic for men" because women's career contributions are so hard to find in movies.
The wives of the first godfathers, as traditional Italian women, can accept such arrangements from their husbands. But kay, as an American girl in a more advanced era, often has to express her dissatisfaction with the family business to her husband. From the time when kay complained about Mike's inability to legalize the family business so far, we can see that kay has always had her own views on the family business, and she has the courage to express her dissatisfaction bluntly. When she learned that her husband would not let her step out of the family manor because of safety reasons, kay did not choose to be tough. She knew her husband very well, and it was useless to reason with men on this kind of thing. However, this more clearly reflects Mike's strong desire to control as a gangster, and it has also become an accelerator for kay to leave Mike. Rather than saying that kay was leaving the gang, it would be more appropriate to say that she chose to leave Mike. It's obvious that Kay doesn't like the family's gang business, and the family is gradually changing in the way Kay expects. Kay doesn't like Mike who can't go back. Since Mike took over the family business, the desire for control and toughness have come to Mike's side along with his status. Of course Kay knew that her husband was murderous, but she was powerless to change. So kay can only choose to influence another thing that Mike is very concerned about - children. I'm actually very curious, with Mike's emphasis on heirs, if kay can't have children, can he continue his marriage with kay, or whether he can still treat kay as tenderly as the beginning of the film. In the film, the two generations of gangster godfathers treat their wives with courtesy, but such tenderness is by no means out of respect for women themselves, but for family.
The Godfather became a "must-see" epic for men because he talked about the abandonment and persistence of many men in the process of gaining and maintaining power. In our consciousness, it seems that rights are born with the company of men. The departure of his relatives one by one caused him a kind of loneliness that only a king can have. But from a female perspective, the story of the "Godfather" is undoubtedly still telling a traditional patriarchal story.
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