Stereotypes at Play
I was reading Variety the other day, as those of us in showbiz are wont to do, and I saw that Netflix has picked esteemed actor Oscar Isaac to play the lead in a new series based on a casino owner in present-day Las Vegas.
That’s right. In addition to being a crackerjack gaming journalist, I’m in showbiz. I play in a band called “The Delta Cosmonauts.” (Don’t ask.)
Anyhoo, the official logline for the show describes it as an hour-long drama “set in the high-stakes, sharp-elbowed present-day Las Vegas casino business, which is a modernized but still dangerous version of the legendary city—at the center of which stands Robert ‘Bobby Red’ Redman (Isaac), president of the hottest hotel casino in town, who has to make some long-odds moves to try and secure his position and take more ground.”
OK, let’s pause there. First of all, to call “sharp-elbowed present-day Las Vegas” a “modernized but still dangerous version of the legendary city” seems like a bit of a stretch. Vegas is as dangerous as any big city, but not because of anything having to do with the casinos. There are casino heists and robberies, but nothing related to the mob president at the center of the show: Robert “Bobby Red” Redman.
I’ve been doing this since the early 1980s, and I don’t believe I ever came across a casino president with a mob-style nickname. OK, they called Bob Stupak “The Polish Maverick,” and they called Bobby Baldwin “The Owl,” but those nicknames related more to the casino executives’ former professional poker exploits than some sort of snappy mob nickname.
Looking at current Strip casino presidents, I don’t see any nicknames at all, other than Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom “Tommy Bucks” Reeg and MGM Resorts CEO William “Billy Bats” Hornbuckle.
(Editor’s Note: I made up both of those nicknames just now. It’s a joke. Call off the lawyers.)
Incidentally, what makes a city “sharp-elbowed?” Is it intense competition, each casino trying to “elbow out” the other? Or does it mean a city populated by people with sharp elbows, everyone with holes in their sleeves from the elbows jutting out?
Getting back to the show, it was created by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who previously wrote the Las Vegas-centered Ocean’s 13. They are joined as executive producers by, among others, Martin Scorsese, whose Oscar-nominated film Casino set a new standard for realism, at least for the mob-influenced casino operations that essentially ended with the 1983 Stardust skimming case, on which the movie was based.
I can see Bobby Red running a casino back then. Nowadays, it’s usually the bean-counters calling a lot of the shots. You know, like MGM Resorts CFO Johathan “Duck Nose” Halkyard.
(Again, a joke. I have no idea whether anyone’s ever called Halkyard “Duck Nose,” and from pictures I’ve seen, his nose is not, in fact, shaped like a duck.)
It’s nothing new. The stereotype of Italian-American gangsters running casinos has been one of the hardest myths to crack. A few years ago, the series Ozark depicted the main characters opening a casino as something that had to be cleared with the mob. Even today, the show Tulsa King’s protagonist, played by Sylvester Stallone, is a veteran mob boss who uses Oklahoma Native Americans as a front for the casino he, the mobster, controls. (I’m still waiting for him to say, “Yo, Adrian!” as he talks to a female pit boss.)
Heck, even I have been mistaken for an Italian casino boss. Back in the 1980s, I often would find myself on a casino floor wearing a suit and tie. (Yes, kids, we all wore suits and ties to work in those days.) I can’t count the times a customer assumed I was with the casino and asked me where the restroom was. Admittedly, I did look kind of mobbed-up in those days (Italian-American, suit, slick dark hair, moustache), but still, the mob-boss stereotype was strong.
Eventually, I got tired of saying I didn’t work for the casino, and just told them where the restroom was. (They would bow, kiss my ring, and say, “Thank you, Godfather.”)
In any event, I’m not surprised that the new Netflix show’s protagonist is a casino boss called Bobby Red.
As of this writing, the producers have not decided on a name for the show. Bobby Red’s Vegas? Mobbed Up? Whacking Vegas?
They’ll probably go with something less obvious, like Hot Vegas.
I know: Sharp Elbows. There you go.
I’ll expect residuals for the idea.
