My favourite scene in Goodfellas is when Tommy kills Spider. Goodfellas is famous as a bro movie, cited as a favourite by guys whose favourite movies are all either masculine power fantasies or could be mistaken for one by uncritical viewers. Like the rest of the best of them, it’s not fully a condemnation nor a celebration – more of an exploration, showing basic behaviours in masculine social groups and then following them wherever they go. This scene is one of my favourites because it’s such a specific situation with specific pleasures and specific problems that arise from it: the group roast. Now, I’m not saying women or non-binary people can’t enjoy a group roast (see: Dorothy Parker), and I’m certainly not saying all men enjoy it (god knows there are more than enough apparently masculine behaviours I’ve never had any interest in), but the fact of the matter is that when dudes of a certain temperament get together, it will often descend into gleeful shittalking.

It’s apparently difficult to explain to people on the outside of this. It’s not about being mean – I wouldn’t shittalk with somebody I don’t like in the first place – it’s about being funny. You don’t target a person’s actual insecurities because you’re not actually trying to hurt them; you’re demonstrating wit and hoping to get it in response. This scene in Goodfellas gets at a specific element of this in how the guys all immediately cheer Spider; “go fuck yourself” isn’t nearly as witty as anything Tommy says, but it’s trash talk at its most basic. They’re training him in the process of the back-and-forth wit (and more generally assertiveness) by rewarding his most basic creation of it. This is something that’s actually all over the first half of the movie, right from when Jimmy is first flashing money – not just rewarding basic behaviour but overrewarding it, burying the entry-level with approval and money.

That’s the funny thing about smack talk – you have to be as willing to play the loser as the winner in it (“Everyone takes a beating some time.”). Personally, I consider the ability to play a graceful loser an even higher mark of sophistication than any roast you can throw at anyone; to be able to make a joke at your own expense without denying your own dignity – to, in fact, sell that you don’t take yourself seriously and don’t consider yourself inherently better than other people and can fully acknowledge a mistake – is the absolute height of difficulty. I’ve met so many people who looked like pathetic saps because they tried to act above an insult, and more than once I’ve failed the landing on a self-deprecating joke. The process of signalling which apparent shortcomings you don’t care about – age, a receding hairline, glasses, the geekiness of one’s hobbies – as well as assessing what a person’s securities and insecurities is an incredibly stimulating one.

This is where Tommy reveals himself as the worst part of any circle of trashtalkers: a little bitch who can dish it out but not take it. This has the single most elegant piece of filmmaking in an elegant film when, after Spider lands his insult, Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker isolate Tommy in the frame. Everyone around him is moving and laughing, but Tommy holds perfectly still and stares. We feel his humiliation and rage build; his murder of Spider is specifically not impulsive. It’s a calculated act from a man who has been bullying his way through the entire fucking film and yet can’t handle the simplest and least sophisticated hit back. Unlike Henry and Jimmy, he doesn’t care about operating in a functional system; he just wants to be the toughest motherfucker in the room 100% of the time. Systems don’t allow for that, and that’s why he’s the first one to die.