The Town (Boston, Holden: real estate, condos, neighborhoods)

[Bondurant]

Ben Affleck's new film is set in the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. The locals are depicted as criminals and white trash. Does Ben properly portray this section of Boston or has he chosen to dabble in stereotyping?

[gf2020]

Does it matter? It's a movie, it's not real.

[Bondurant]

Originally Posted by gf2020

Does it matter? It's a movie, it's not real.

Nope. Just curious.

[shiver]

Are people from Jersey like the people on the Jersey Shore? Is everyone from LA shallow and has undergone plastic surgery? Are Southerners racist? Insert stereotype from the area where you're from.

Now, obviously stereotypes are based in reality else they wouldn't exist. A segment of the local population in Charlestown does embody the stereotype, but the same is true of many areas all over the country. Charlestown has an interesting history and is an interesting mix of old time locals and seriously yuppie types and everything in between.

[holden125]

The Globe's review begins: "I don’t care what anyone outside the greater metropolitan area says: “The Town’’ takes place in Movie Boston rather than the real thing. Movie Boston is a sub-Scorsese landscape of stubbled men walking down mean Suffolk County streets that exist primarily in the minds of good pulp novelists and bad screenwriters, and its authenticity depends far too much on Hollywood actors trying hahd to bend their dialogue around non-rhotic speech patterns."

'The Town' movie review -- 'The Town' showtimes - The Boston Globe

[holden125]

Originally Posted by shiver

Are people from Jersey like the people on the Jersey Shore? Is everyone from LA shallow and has undergone plastic surgery? Are Southerners racist?

I think you're suggesting the answer to each of these is no. And yet...


Just kidding

[xS☺B☺s]

I haven't seen the flick yet so I couldn't say, but from the descriptions above, I have to wonder if I'll bother. Holden's clip from the Globe's review makes me think it's just yet another Ole tyme Irish gangster schtick which after Southie, that Scorcese flick, Monument Ave - the other one about C-Town, well it's seems kinda all the same.

Charlestown has a very long history and what it is/was depends very much on what era you are talking about. The most gangsterish era of C-Town history I'm aware of was probably the busing era and there is and area of Ctown with a lot of housing projects known at least in the past for significant social problems inherent with poverty(ishness). What it all boiled downed to back then was a local mob control over the neighborhood - enforcers with a usual mob agenda (not gangbanger) of local order, illicit profit, some charity front, and a whole lot of "this is our neighborhood not yours and unless we want you here don't try to move in". That's largely been the crux of the matter in most Boston turf battles - ethnically divided neighborhoods who want to maintain their identity against the influx of the next nouveau poor immigration.

The Charlestown today still consists of a strong group of rooted old world Irish working class. The projects are still there but I'm not sure what the composite or quality of life is these days. And lastly the latest invasion has been the yuppies restoring the historic areas and populating the new and converted condos. I suspect the Old world Irish there are reasonably satisfied with the yuppies as they have certainly made the real estate prices in C-town go through the roof. Whoever owned the brownstones on Monument Ave is doing good now.

To visit Charlestown now you really aren't going to see any gangsterism at all - probably not even in the North side projects. It's mostly fabulously restored colonial era neighborhoods with lots of pretty little rich girls walking around enjoying the charms of such a historic neighborhood built on a hill. It is Bunker Hill ya know. It's a mecca - a veritable holy place for the birth of democracy. It's really cute actually. And there's a college there.

So essentially, no, whatever Ben is fantasizing up and setting in C-Town, well it has nothing to do with modern C-town. Modern C-Town these days is an upscale historic attraction with some middle and working class areas. It's cute, very safe, and probably out of the price range of most people.

[Beachcomber4]

The book - on which the film is based, is set in the period before the gentrification of Charlestown when it "boasted" the most armored car robbers per capita in the country.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by Beachcomber4

The book - on which the film is based, is set in the period before the gentrification of Charlestown when it "boasted" the most armored car robbers per capita in the country.

Oh, that makes more sense. I didn't read the book, but saw the movie last weekend. As we were leaving the theatre, my husband told me he went to high school (Latin) with a guy from Charlestown who became a bank robber.

[K-Luv]

Unless I have confused the area of town that I think is Charlestown with something else...all I can say is that it is still inhabited with thugs and poverty.