In the middle of Clint Eastwood’s new movie, “J. Edgar,” a group of Washingtonians collect in a cinema to watch the just-released 1931 flick “The Public Enemy.” It’s one of many in which James Cagney made gangsters look cool. Before the feature begins, patrons are subjected to a public service announcement from J. Edgar Hoover. Played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he enthusiastically describes his young agency’s work in arresting just the kind of men that the audience is there to admire. The PSA gets a laugh from the audience — both the one in “J. Edgar” and the one that’s there to watch “J. Edgar.” The movies continue to romanticize criminal lowlifes. And Americans continue to distrust — at best — the G-men, as FBI agents were once called, who work to bring them down.
Hoover himself is now known to most young people, if he’s known at all, as the guy who secretly wore women’s clothing and had sexual relationships with men, all while collecting personal details of the lives of his political superiors so he could blackmail them. “J. Edgar” handles such touchy material with a light hand.
