"Women Don't get "Goodfellas", Says New York Post Critic

NEW DELHI: The article written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Martin Scorsese's 'Goodfellas' (1990) by Kyle Smith does not seem like fun to many women, who have since taken to Twitter to denounce his 'sexist' view.

The New York Post reviewer, once termed by The Atlantic as 'the most cantankerous critic' , contended that women don't get 'Goodfellas' because among other things, they can't understand the art of 'Ball-busting'- the give and take of good-natured insults among men.

"Ball-busting means cheerfully insulting one another, preferably in the presence of lots of drinks and cigars and card games. (The “GoodFellas” guys are always at the card table, just as the Rat Pack were, while the “Entourage” guys love video games.) Women (except silent floozies) cannot be present for ball-busting because women are the sensitivity police: They get offended, protest that someone’s not being fair, refuse to laugh at vicious put-downs." he writes.

He presents 'Sex and the City' as beau ideal for women where the girls sit around a table and listen to each others' problems and sympathize with them, a practice totally alien to men. Smith implies that men rather pull one's leg even when one's down and out- the friendly banter, card-games, booze, and not having to work, is all that's required to get the 'boon companions' going in the film.

When the “Sex and the City” girls sit around at brunch, they’re a tightly knit clique — but their rule is to always be sympathetic and supportive as each describes her problems, usually revolving around the men in her life.

"As “GoodFellas” shows us, guys hanging out together don’t really like to talk about the women in their lives because that’s too real. What we’d much rather do than discuss problems and “be supportive” is to keep the laughs coming — to endlessly bust each other’s balls." Explains Smith for supportive his hypothesis.

In the review, Smith tells us that one of the reasons Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) falls for the girl Karen (Lorraine Bracco) because she is able to bust his balls in front of his friends. In the scene, Henry stands Karen up by not showing up for their date, but to his astonishment She comes looking for him at one of his joints and starts screaming loudly at him while his other friends enjoy the drama and imply a tacit approval for the girl-- One of us, a wiseguy.

Lastly, Smith sketches a female version of "Goodfellas", as in the one which would have been liked by them, thus:

"Meet an at-risk youth called Henry Hill. Victimized by horrific physical abuse from an early age... At an impressionable age, he became desensitized to violence when a gunshot victim bled to death in front of a restaurant where he was working. His turn to the mafia was a cry for help — a need to find a family structure to replace the one he had never really known."

But the women are hell bent on proving him wrong by posting comment on Twitter, professing their love for the movie, despite an obvious boy-theme. One A.S. wrote,"Thelma Schoonmaker was not capable of understanding 'GoodFellas'.Another fan of the movie Margarita Noriega writes-- "Please tell me what to do @rkylesmith I am a lady but I like GoodFellas should I change my gender or just stop liking the film."

The article also refers to British author Martin Amis, who had written a short piece in Premiere Magazine in the late 90's where he had fiddled with the idea that Scorsese', movie pivots around a kafkaesque theme.