ABSTRACT
This chapter explores four scenes from Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas to show one of the ways that Italian American men use humor in their interactions with other men to establish their position in male-to-male relationships. It discusses the relationship between irony and humor and shows how both of these concepts figure into the development of Italian American masculinities. The chapter shows the elements that come into play in the ball-busting act as well. The act of ball busting consists of two men engaged in a dialogue through which one man attempts to gain the upper hand on another through the use of language. The humor found in ball busting serves the purpose of contesting a man's ability to balance him between the overly feminine and the under-manly. These subjects are the fundamental cornerstones of an Italian American male humor that has not evolved in the same ways other ethnic American male humor has to encompass larger aspects of its ethnic culture.
