Catch me if you can – Running on systematic privileges

kimbureh:

you know, having recently rewatched Catch Me If You Can after oh so many years, it became abundantly clear to me that this movie might be the best example to illustrate the difference between Systematic Oppression and Personal Hardships.

Frank William Abagnale Jr., embodied by Leonardi DiCaprio, could have never been anything else but a white cishet ablebodied, conventially more or less attractive male. Aside from Abagnale being an actual person, this is a rare case where differening from only one of these traits makes the whole story implausible, and in the real world impossible.

The actual person Abagnale had personal hardships, (I will just believe what I saw in the movie about this), he and his father suffering from the divorce, and the economical as well as societal decline. However, Abagnle Jr’s supreme set of systematic privileges enabled him to be that successful with fraud, forgery and swindling over years, despite him being a teenager/twen.

Imagine the story with a POC cishet ablebodied, conventially more or less attractive male. It’s simply impossibly due to the openly raging racism back then and today. Enough said.

Imagine the story with a white QUEER ablebodied, conventially more or less attractive male.

Him being trans, ace, gay, bi- however differing from the heteronormativity in sexual orientation or sexual identity, would have drawn suspicions to him SO QUICKLY. He would have been caught before he could even say ‘catch me if you can’. Sure, he could try to hide, but doing so costs a considerable amount of energy he can’t use otherwise- for example for not getting caught.

Imagine the story with a white cishet DISABLED, conventially more or less attractive male. If he had had a visible disability, he would not only be easier to spot on sight, but also I’d say it’s impossible for a disabled lawyer, doctor or PILOT to be taken seriously if you are even tolerated during the training. But even with an invisible disability, having no allies whatsoever would prove to be a huge disadvantage if he was in need of medical care.

Imagine the story with a white cishet ablebodied, CONVENTIONALLY UGLY male.

That actually might have worked, especially if he had been a little older. Society allows a broad range of looks on men who are considered successful in certain valued fields. But average/more or less good looks are a huge factor to blend in and make people forget your face and only remember your reassuring smile. So, yes, being considered ugly would have shortened his criminal career eventually.

Imagine the story with a white cishet ablebodied, conventially more or less attractive WOMAN.

We don’t need to talk about how critically a woman with references like this would have been treated by literally everybody? A woman who is a doctor AND a lawyer? You bet, even today that would make people investigate on a woman like this and find out about a simple forgery.

I know I know, it was also only possible because he had the smarts. I get it. But You know who else can be smart? POC queer disabled, conventionally ugly people placed anywhere on the gender spectrum. Or any combination thereof. But socially, I think I showed how they ARE NOT backed up with a systematic privilege system.

Yes, Abagnale came from a struggling family with little privileges. Those are his personal hardships, that in no way negate him the systematic privileges he is granted due to being a
white cishet ablebodied, conventially more or less attractive male.

People who differ from this description only slightly can be clever too, but such a criminal career would hardly ever be possible for them, since they lack the systematic privilegs and generally are under much tighter societal watch and control.

tl;dr: Catch Me If You can celebrats the criminal anti-hero, and with that, celebrates the systematic privileges which enabled this criminal career in the first place. On a greater scale, systematic oppression is the flip side of systematic privilege, and to think one thing means to think the other thing too.

addendum: To make on thing clear, I am not judging the actual person Abagnale nor his real life deeds. I have no intention to morally judge him. I am talking about the fictional character Abagnale as depicted in the movie and how I contextualize this with systematics in the real world.