-IDENTITY THEORY TO EXAMINE ‘MICHAEL CORLEONE’ CHARACTER IN 'THE GODFATHER I&II'

Identity Theory (which derives from the symbol interaction perspective) emphasizes the enduring nature of one’s thoughts about who she/he is. (Rohall, 2006)

Identity refers to our internalized, stable sense of who we are, including role identities, social categories and personal characteristics. (Burke, 2003)

According to Identity Theory; Society (which means the number and the depth of the relationships) affects the identity (or self) which affects the behavior.

By society, identity theory refers to patterns of commitments (which includes the number of significant others tied to a given identity and the intensity of those binds.) to other people. Commitment shapes the salience of an identity which in turn shapes how we will behave.

When a person acts, there will be a react from his/her commitments; reacts like reflected appraisals, social comparisons, self attributions, etc. After those reactions, that person will have an identity interruption (which is emotionally distressing) that commonly causes to change the behavior (change meaning, exit identity) and to have a self verification.

I will try to demonstrate Identity Theory in The Godfather movie on the main character Michael Corleone…

THE GODFATHER MOVIE

The godfather Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), whose parents and brother was killed in Sicily, Italy builds a great power in New York, as the head of Italian-American mafia. After a friction about drug business in which Don Vito Corleone does not want to be involved; Don Vito is attempted to be killed but he is survived. His youngest son Michael (Al Pacino) -who is a war hero, honorable citizen, and educated smart young man-, gets revenge of his father and right after the old brother, Sonny was killed by the same men. Michael begins to reconstruct everything in his gang; as first job, he kills every other big families’ leaders in a single day and he has his new big reputation: Don Michael Corleone…

Despite his promises to his second wife Kay (Diane Keaton), he does not (or cannot) stop the morally wrong way of his family. Contrarily he gets everything more comprehensive, more dangerous, more bloody. Meanwhile his character keeps up with that change; he becomes a merciless, powerful mafia leader…

ILLUSTRATION

Element 1:

According to Identity Theory, identity refers to our internalized, stable sense of who we are, including role identities, social categories and personal characteristics (Burke 2003). Role Identities are the internalized expectations associated with different positions.

Here in The Godfather movie, Michael Corleone’s role identity is a honorable citizen, brave World War II veteran. His father expects to see him as senator or the president of the U.S. In his family and also in the rest of the society he has involved; Michael Corleone is one of the best role models.

Michael’s social categories are Italian-American and Catholic man.

Michael’s personal characteristics are kind, generous, cold-bloody, idealist and honest.

Element 2:

Michael Corleone’s transformation of getting revenge instead of maintaining his quiet idealist life is an interruption to his role as a son. He would receive the signals from the other members of his family. He chose to be the new godfather of Corleone family because he felt like he saved the existence of the family by getting this bloody revenge.

Element 3:

Commitment is the representation of society in our minds; it reflects the degree to which we experience “commitment” to a given status (or role). It is measured by the number of people who expect you to act in that role and the degree to which you are emotionally close to those people. According to Identity Theory, the more committed you are to an identity the more you are willing to change your behavior to fit the role that other people see for you.

The commitment for Michael Corleone is very intensive and comprehensive. Since his father has created it and saving the family is the most important task in his heritage, Michael did not have any chance to refuse the way of mafia. Even though his identity was like we mentioned above and he promised to his wife that he would make the Corleone family completely legitimate in 5 years, he becomes completely mafia in three years who wants everything to be controlled under him. The society around him affected his identity to act different. His self-verification gets more violent, harder day by day. He does not hesitate to kill his sister’s husband right after being the godfather of his nephew. Even he would not hesitate to have his brother Fredo killed after Fredo’s betrayal. With a self-verification that he maintains the honor of his family…

CONCLUSION

The Godfather movies (I and II) are ranked in first five movies in every list of the best movies in cinema history. According to IMDB list; The Godfather II is ranked as 2^nd and The Godfather I is ranked as 3^rd best movie ever. Of course, direction, screenplay, acts, camera revolutions we saw in those movies are very important but one of the reasons is the heavy luggage of the movies that includes philosophical, sociological and psychological highlights. Not only Michael Corleone, but also all leading roles in the movie deserve examinations and actually there are already a lot of studies on them.

Of course, the depiction of relationships in the movie sometimes differs from academic discussions of Identity theory, because the movie is made to impress people and take them in to movie theaters;

at last cinema is an industry to make money. Even though reflections and similarities that we discussed here take place in this movie.

Does a movie suppose to be purely realistic? In an artistic point of view, I think, it was very hard. Only reflecting the real world does not work in fictional cinema. There are documentaries to do that but if the purpose is to create a story literarily, you need to ornament it. To make people impressed by fiction is a hard job, it is the definition of literature. As Mark Twain said:

“It is no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't. Fiction has to make sense…”