The Representation of Irish-American Stereotype in the Hollywood Movie’s “Brooklyn”

By: Fatimah Az-Zahroh

A. Introduction

The immigration of the Irish to the America has begun since the early eighteen century,
and the population of the Irish American today has multiplied and “seven times larger than the
population in the Ireland” (Kliff, 2013). Although the population grows stronger and bigger, the
Irish American still suffered from the various discriminations and prejudice as well as the other
ethnicities in America. Most of the discrimination comes from the negative stereotype that has
been attached to the Irish people for centuries due to their historical background. The great
famine in the Ireland in 1800s forced the Irish people to leave their homeland to seek a new life
in the new world like America, and many of them were poor which often led to alcoholism and
sometimes to insanity and criminality (Rotman, 2010). This is one of the factors why the Irish
Americans were commonly stereotyped as heavy drinkers, smokers, and dangerous fighters or
criminals (Mullen, Williams, & Hunt, 1996). The other stereotypes that have been generalized to
all Irish people have the same characteristic as a red-head (Phelan, 2017) just because the red-
haired people were mostly found among the Irish (Smith, 2017). While, the stereotypes for the
Irish women were commonly idealized as “mothers of the nation or as chaste and innocent or
vulnerable young women, both of which acted as metaphor for Ireland itself in the colonial
discourse” (Mooney, 2015). It means that Ireland as colonized was often depicted as a weak
young woman who relies to Britain, the stronger and more masculine colonizer.

The definition of stereotype itself is a misleading generalization about members of group

held in their manners and characteristics that renders them largely, although not completely,
immune to counter-evidence (Blum, 2004). The development of the stereotypic thinking also
mostly occurs through the portrayal in the media and popular culture, such as art, literature, and
the cinema which produce the self-perpetuating stereotypes (von Hippel & Hilton, 1996). It has
been traced to many American popular culture like the Hollywood movies since the first decade
of twentieth century that the character of Irish Americans depicted in the movie is deeply
ingrained to the prevailed stereotype, “the negative of the poor immigrant had always been
implied even in the representation of the good Irish American character” (di Laurea, 2013).
“Brooklyn” is one the most recently American movies which also presents the poor Irish young
woman, Ellis Lacey, as the main character who immigrates to the US because there is no future
for her in Ireland. Through the depiction of Ellis Lacey and other Irish characters in the movie,
this paper would present about how the movie develops the stereotype of the Irish American
using Barthes’ semantic theory (1986) which concerns on system of sign in many form and
substance such as images, gestures, sound, etc.
B. Discussion

Hollywood movie’s “Brooklyn” is a 2015 romantic drama film directed by John Crowley
and written by Nick Hornby. The movie is based on the Irish writer Colm Toibin’s 2009 novel in
the same name. It tells a story about Ellis Lacey (starred by Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish
woman who leaves her desperate life in Enniscorthy, her hometown, crossing ocean to find better
future and respectability in Brooklyn, New York, America in the early 1950s. This movie not
only presents the magnificent story of an Irish girl’s transformation into an Irish-American, but
also offers a rare glimpse of American dream fulfilled for the immigrant characters instead of
common portrayals which usually bind them with the wickedness of the underworld. Although
the representation of the Irish-Americans in “Brooklyn” is mostly saint and sensible person, there
are some implied depictions that still represent and conform to the existing Irish stereotypes in
America, such as poverty, alcoholism, redhead, and gangster.

a. Alcoholism

Picture 1 (minute 00:29:53) Picture 2 (minute 00:30:00)

The scenes in the Picture 1 and Picture 2 portray some Irish-American old men who
celebrated and spent their Christmas night at the Church where Ellis worked for charity there. In
the picture 1, the scene represents their drinking tradition that popularly has been related to the
Irish-Americans stereotype as heavy drinkers. It can be seen that alcohol is a need that cannot be
separated from the Irish culture because it is more appropriate and respectable to serve alcohol
than to serve the other beverages for the Irish-American old men. While the scene in the picture
2 shows the drunken old men sleeping on their chair, the look from their face gives a sign of the
life roughness that commonly experienced by the Irish immigrant ancestors who were largely
hired as hard laborer. The movie also mentioned that many of them had lived in America for
more than fifty years and had contributed their working lives to many labors in the development
of American’s construction. However, because their old age made them difficult to work again,
most of them were live in the poor condition and rarely had a house in America, and they could
not go back to their hometown because there was nothing for them to live on in Ireland. This
scene provides the Irish stereotype of poverty that accord with their historical background as
mostly unskillful immigrants who then work as laborer in America and they were seen as a low-
class people because of their job and their poverty (Shannon, n.d.).
b. Redhead

Picture 3 (minute 00:08:48) Picture 4 (minute 01:08:38)

The scene in the picture 3 depicts the Irish immigrants on the ship including Ellis Lacey
who noticeably wore a green jacket in the middle. It shows the touching scene of the farewell
between the immigrant and their family before departing to the America, and this is one of the
hard experiences for most of the immigrants to leave their family behind and to cross the ocean
by themselves. To imply the audience that they are Irish people, the scene presents the common
stereotype that usually attaches to them by showing the two read-haired women among Ellis,
whose hair is a color between brown and red, but darker. This stereotype also applied to many
Irish people whom Ellis met in America even though they were not really highlighted through
the scenes in the movie, one of scenes occurs in the Picture 4 when Ellis register her marriage
with an Italian-American young man, named Tony Fiorello, in a public office. The scene focused
to a family who sat across Ellis, and the movie did not reveal their identity as Irish-American
until Tony accidentally did a conversation with the man or the father in the picture on the next
scene. Actually the scene in the picture 4 has implicitly given a clue to the audience that they
were also Irish people in America through the portrayal of the read-haired girl or the daughter
who have the stereotypical characteristic for the Irish people.

c. Innocent and vulnerable young women

Picture 5 (minute 00:15:16) Picture 6 (minute 00:23:47)

Those pictures provide the scenes that depict the stereotypical Irish women who are
innocent and also vulnerable. The scene in the picture 5 shows Ellis in the cabin of the ship who
looks really plain and innocent with her bare face and her naivety, she did not know how to act
and how to dress like an American. Fortunately, she met a roommate who could give her
suggestion on the way she looks by choosing her the best dresses and putting some make up on
her face, and her roommate also teach her on how to think like an American and to pass the
immigration inspection successfully when arriving at the harbor. This scene tends to incline
towards the stereotype of Irish women before immigrating to the America because they actually
become more stylish and bold after living in America, as it is also applied to Ellis in the movie
through the development of the story and the scenes.

Moreover, the scene in the picture 6 shows the Irish women stereotype as vulnerable
young women who are easily to get hurt or influenced emotionally. It can be seen through the
melancholic expression on Ellis’ face when she felt extremely homesick after reading the letter
from her sister, and it is supported by the gloomy atmosphere in her room that makes the
character’s sad feeling delivered to the audience through the scene. The heartbroken feeling in
Ellis very impacted on her work performance that makes her to break from her job and it lasted
until she met Tony Fiorello, a man who filled her hearth with love and introduced her to some
pillars of American life: spaghetti, Coney Island weekend, and the dream of a suburban home on
an undeveloped Long Island.

d. Gangster

This Irish-American stereotype as a dangerous fighter or gangster appears in the dialogue

in the scene minute 00:46:25–00:46:42 when Ellis attended the dinner invitation from Tony’s
family, who were Italian-Americans. Tony had a very young brother named Frankie who could
be very rude and make trouble sometimes, and suddenly in the middle of the dinner he said
something rude yet very honest and innocent:

Frankie: So, first of all, I should say that we don’t like Irish people.
Ellis: Why, Frankie? (in a friendly way)
Frankie: Cos a big gang of Irish beat Maurizio up and he had to get stitches, and because
all the cops around here are Irish nobody did anything about it.

It can be seen through the dialogue that Maurizio, also Tony’s brother, was beaten by a
big gang of Irish as the gangster stereotype is commonly involved in the portrayal of Irish-
American in most of the Hollywood movies. Besides, it is also interesting that Frankie in the
dialogue mentioned if all the cops in his area are Irish people because it may signify that the
stereotype of Irish-American begins to evolve from the criminals to cops. As the Irish population
grows bigger in many urban areas, they also gain many political powers and hire many Irish-
Americans as the police officer (Gershon, 2017).

C. Conclusion

“Brooklyn”, like the other Hollywood movies, is consistent to portray the Irish-American
according to their common stereotype. It still depicts them as heavy drinkers, redhead, gangster
and innocent or vulnerable young women, even though the representation of Irish-American in
the movie mostly looks saint and sensible to the audience. The stereotypes are presented in the
movie through the portrayal of the Irish characters and the dialogue in some scenes. Certainly,
the representation of the Irish in the movie cannot reflect the multiplicity and the diversity of
their real people throughout America and their homeland, Ireland. As one of the popular culture
in American society, the movie may perpetuate and develop the prevailed stereotype and make
the audiences continue to accept the notion and to generalize those who share similar
characteristic or identity.

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