Is Stealing "Mad Money" a Crime?

By Janis Prince Inniss

A few days ago, I saw the film Mad Money. (Spoiler alert: The movie is summarized here, ending and all.) The film is about three women (played by Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes) who work at the local Federal Reserve Bank. Queen Latifah is Nina, the single mother of two boys while Katie Holmes plays Jackie, a gum smacking, head-phone wearing married kook. Diane Keaton plays Bridget, the stay at home wife of Ted Danson (Don). 

When Don is laid off and their upper middle life class life is threatened, Bridget goes to work at the bank as a janitor. (As a wife and mother, albeit with a college degree, Bridget has no marketable job skills.) Shortly after she starts the job, Bridget has the bright idea of robbing the bank by enlisting the help of the other two women who work with her there. After relatively little resistance to this idea, the three women join forces and despite lots of bank security, the three are successful. 

The women target old money that is being taken out of circulation. With one successful theft completed the threesome steal again. Except a security guard who has a crush on Nina, no one catches on to their crime. His silence is bought and the spree goes on for three years. Finally, an outsider comes along and fingers the group and everyone but the instigator, Bridget, is arrested. The police are forced to release them, however, because the only confession is recanted and because the prideful bank manager insists that there is no way to breach his security. 

At this point in the movie the women don’t appear to have gotten much for their years of stealing, given that they have destroyed most of the money they stole. True, they have spent some of it: The single mother has used her money to put her children into private school and to buy a home in a better neighborhood. Don and Bridget are able to keep their upper-middle class lifestyle and all its perks. Jackie and her husband buy a new trailer and a few other toys and he is able to leave his meat plant job. 

But overall, they haven’t gone mad spending the money—and this is intentional; they do not want to draw attention to themselves and arouse suspicions. Nor do they seem much like criminals, at least as they are generally portrayed on film. They’re well-dressed as only women in film can be, are shown having a good time and living “respectable” lives. It’s not like they’re grungy men with masks, hurting people by robbing commercial banks. I thought the film would end here, with the women having received their own private stimulus package, free to enjoy their cash influx. But no, fast-forward months later, and Bridget gathers the group together to show them tons of money she had stashed at a bar they frequented. So they’re free and rich! 

Deviance is defined as ignoring societal norms. The concept includes a wide range of individual and group transgressions. Stealing is generally considered deviant behavior in this culture, but in this movie none of the thieves received any of the sanctions that deviant behavior typically prompts. In fact it seems a stretch to call them thieves. Any attempt at formal sanctions, such as prosecuting the three women, was abandoned. As for informal sanctions, there is little indication that any of their friends or neighbors view the women differently. The lone source of informal sanction I recall in the film was a neighbor who gave Bridget the cold shoulder. 

Interactionist theorists focus on how particular behaviors receive the label “deviant”, and in this tradition labeling theorists examine the relationship between deviants and nondeviants. Those in positions of power, according to labeling theorists, make the labels. Bridget represents wealth to the other two relatively poor women; she says they are “recycling” because the money they take is old and on its way to being shredded. In the context of this film, it is Bridget’s definition of the group as “recyclers” that explain why the women receive no punishment and are able to walk away with wads of cash. 

A simplistic summary of many movies is that the good guys catch the bad guys. (And they are usually guys, not women). The crimes of the bad guys are often clear-cut and we root for James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt to catch and punish them. But if no one is the “bad guy”, what does that mean? Ultimately, does “Mad Money” depict a crime?

Comments

[Dee]

I don't study sociology regularly but I have read some of interest. What you're refering to as "labelling" sounds like what I read based on Lemert and Becker.

Personally, I don't view "mad money" as immoral (although it's still criminal). The movie's wrong about it being "recycled", because on a larger scale this "recycled" money would be inflationary.

anyway, I think this movie is one of the many reflections of the change in North America's social morality.

imo we left behind the labelled standard of working for the hierachy as "good": In less than a century, we've abolished slavery, had the women's rights movement, accepted gays, drugs, whatever else. Morality has changed shifted from "hierarchy", towards "individual rights", and this movie seems moral.

I think N-A has reached the state of "anomie" described by Durkheim.

[Brandon Jackson]

personally I don't depicit mad money as immoral or injust the three women did what they did to survive and better support themselves, and their families it isn't like they were hurting anyone in the process, so it sounds like a great movie with a great story line, stealing money is bad, but stealing money to better to provide for your family is more of a need to act situation.