Kyle Smith’s article on women’s inability to enjoy Martin Scorsese’s classic, and the differences between the sexes, has sparked anger online

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A US critic who claimed that “women don’t get Goodfellas” has been at the centre of a Twitter storm after his article was published yesterday.

In a piece called Women are not capable of understanding GoodFellas, Kyle Smith, the New York Post’s chief film critic, refers to women as “the sensitivity police” who would disapprove of the “ball-busting” that takes place throughout Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic.

Smith says that women think the lead characters are lowlifes, while men see them as heroes. He goes on to describe a sanitised, female-focused version of the film that would be less entertaining and compares the key differences between male and female friendship:

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.

The article has received a barrage of criticism online:



A.S. (@astoehr) Thelma Schoonmaker was not capable of understanding 'GoodFellas'

John Squires (@FreddyInSpace) If women are not capable of understanding Goodfellas, then neither are men who haven't stabbed dudes with giant kitchen knives.

Margarita Noriega (@margarita) 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

roxane gay (@rgay) It's not even funny. Most women I know love Goodfellas. I don't think this guy knows any women.

The article appears to be in response to a Martin Amis piece written for Premiere in 1997. Amis intellectualises Goodfellas, suggesting Scorsese’s literary model is Kafka and compares the characters to “a trade union of warrior capitalists”. Smith tweeted that he thought Amis was “just about completely wrong” and was intent on making the “opposite case”.

Smith’s criticism has often caused controversy and he was once dubbed “America’s most cantankerous film critic” by the Atlantic. His scathing review of Philomena, which he called “a hateful and boring attack on Catholics”, caused the real Philomena Lee to respond, calling into question his view on the film and her life story.