"Don't Trust that Grin"
"In a study published by researchers from the University of Southern California in November 2016, they found that when it comes to assessing the trustworthiness of a colleague or business contact, the majority of people have a flawed sense of judgment.” They place a lot of trust in facial expressions when it comes to gauging the honesty of their counterpart,” it states."
With this insight, it becomes evident that one can use a smile as a dangerous weapon. A smile becomes misused and a weapon when one person senses the person they are interacting with has a "flawed sense of judgment" of them. For example, after plotting an assassination a mobster, like Don Carlo Gambino, smiles into the camera portraying himself as a nice guy, an innocent guy who is not capable of organizing such a monstrous action to greater society. Gambino understands this power of a smile and that "you can go along way with a smile." This portrayal is manipulative and illustrates how a smile can be transformed from a basic "facial expression" to a tool that protects deadly behaviors.
Moreover, the study illustrates that "just because someone seems friendly, that doesn’t mean that he or she is telling the truth. Even smiling people often lie, or share misleading facts in order to gain an advantage in a negotiation." Mobsters, like our neighbors walk around in everyday settings, in ordinary suburbs and cities, smiling and lying. Mobsters utilization of the smile gives them the "advantage" of seeming like the ordinary neighbor who works in the sanitation industry rather than as the lethal hitman. Overall, the smile is a tactic used by the mobster to build trust and mask their true, toxic role in society.