The Departed: "What Do You Got Your Period?"

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is a masterfully made crime drama with a tense story and well-developed characters. However, it also delves into the theme of masculinity within a tough criminal underworld. Scorsese creates a world where men communicate with violence and reject any potential emotion. Throughout the film there are various examples of the subtle masculine façade created by men. The film depicts a world where ideology forces every man to be tough or endure being ridiculed.

An example of an overt act of fake masculinity comes early in the film in a scene in a bar. Billy Costigan (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) walks up to the bartender and asks for a cranberry juice. An unknown man next to him says “My girlfriend drinks [cranberry juice] when she’s got her period…what do you got your period?” Without hesitation, Billy grabs a glass and smashes it over the man’s head. Men in the film react violently whenever their manhood is threatened or questioned. Also, there are also multiple times when characters threaten to remove other characters’ genitals. In this cruel world, a man without genitals is nothing.

One of antagonists in the movie, Police Officer Colin Sullivan (played by Matt Damon), is shown to be insecure of his manliness due to the fact that he is sexually impotent. He reacts to his shortcoming with violence and homophobia. After losing to firefighters in a rugby match, he reacts to his physical defeat by calling the firemen “homos”. Afraid of his own sexual endeavors he makes himself feel better by challenging their heterosexuality. Because most characters are of Irish decent they are influenced by a cultural ideological state apparatus that reinforces toughness and strength.