Casino - in defense of Ginger

I saw Casino a couple months ago so I may not be able to pull as much evidence as I like in this post, but I was just watching a video on analyzing the gold-digger trope in movies, and was reminded of Ginger from Casino.

The thing is, Ginger is so utterly unlikeable in my opinion. There is nothing so unlikeable as a pathetic, self-sabotaging character, because you cannot help but empathize with her, while you also want to scream at the screen in frustration, "get your act together!" You are in the most uncomfortable situation of watching their deserved downfall, but not quite being able to enjoy it as you would an antagonist (It is actually surprising to see that in the Casino wiki page, Ginger is classified as an "antagonist," which I did not feel when I watched the film).

The thing I didn't like about the movie--which is done so often to female characters--is establishing her as badass and shrewd, but then that personality is almost completely lost the rest of the film as soon as that characterization is established. I was excited when Ginger first showed up, because she was the only dimensional female character, and I could see that although she engaged in an unfair system, it was a matter of survival. In a cruel, male-dominated world, she weaponized what she had (her good looks, vivacious personality, and smarts), to stay alive. She was empowering in a way, beating the men around her at their own game.

And yet she had her weakness--I don't even remember his name and I do not want to look it up because I want to erase his measly existence from my mind as much as possible. We will call him the boyfriend. Ginger has a boyfriend from before her hustling days, who doesn't work, cheats on her, and yet she gives all her earnings over to him. It seems she loves him...but for what? It is utterly confusing, but also not totally unrealistic. There are plenty of women who get caught in such toxic relationships. This was utterly painful to watch as a viewer, and made Ginger incredibly unlikeable, because it seems the promise of at least one smart and successful female character was betrayed. It also almost seems like Ginger is being punished for taking advantage of the men around her by having this fatal flaw. Another interpretation could be that this flaw humanizes Ginger, makes her more endearing, "she screws men around by she actually has a loyal, feminine heart towards this one," which I certainly hope wasn't the intention, because this flaw is absolutely not a redeeming quality, and there is nothing that Ginger needs to redeem in the first place, imo, as "gold-digging" for women like her is a matter of survival in a harsh world.

But what I primarily want to talk about in defense of Ginger, is how CLEAR she made it at the beginning, that while she enjoyed Sam's company, she did not love him. Her integrity is truly remarkable in the scene where Sam first proposes to her. She CLEARLY tells him she does not love him, and thinks they should not get married. Considering a man just professed his undying love her, she is nice, but honest as possible. And this is her, who is usually only concerned with money, turning down the wealthiest man in town! But Sam says basically that he doesn't care and that she can grow to love him, and convinces her to marry him. And I mean as handsome as Robert DeNiro is, he is an old man, lusting after this young, beautiful Ginger. Would he "love" her without her looks? I often wondered.

So it felt like they were both getting something out of the deal, Sam gets a hot, young wife, Ginger gets financial security. And yet the movie seemed to play it off often as if Sam was this hopeless romantic, and Ginger was this duplicitous femme fatale that took advantage of him. As I said before, she is made out to be very unlikeable, which only gets worse throughout the film, but again and again as a viewer, I had to remind myself, he convinced her to marry him knowing she didn't love him! He openly seduced her with promises of financial security, so isn't it within her rights to then run away with the bank account money he left her? And does he even really love her? We get so caught up in Sam's perspective, and we lose sight of the original propositional nature of their marriage, how honest Ginger was up front. This is all lost as Ginger makes mistake after mistake, and is shown to not be at all loyal to Sam--but again, she never really promised loyalty, and Sam should not have expected it of her, both with her character being an unbendable hustler growing up, and also the fact that she didn't love him and never really pretended to.

Like every character, Ginger is deeply flawed. She is selfish, and is given the gendered characterization of being hysterical as compared to Sam's moderated, pragmatic, calm. But I think she also deserves a defense against many of our inclinations to instantly dislike her for not being more grateful or loyal to Sam.