Study proves 74% of young people have formed their image of Italian Americans from the media.
Dr. Emanuele A. Alfano of The Italian American One Voice Coalition, asks, “A racist, violent, and stereotypical series show like "The Sopranos," … only a TV show?"
Yes, it is only a TV show. However, with Italian American populations living primarily in cities such as New York, Chicago or Las Vegas, many Americans have not even met an Italian American. Try ordering a cannoli in Plano, Texas for example. Nevertheless, they did give us pizza and David Chase.
Alfano also states that, “…The Italian Americans portrayed on The Sopranos act like jerks 90 percent of the time on the show. They beat and kill their women, they sell drugs, they commit murder, and they are generally cruel and ugly people.” He forgot to mention fat people. Alfano goes on to assert that massive negative stereotyping can be absolutely destructive, and Italians and their heritage have seen a 'pattern of abuse' perpetrated on them that is unprecedented.
Robert MacNeil, TV news anchor and journalist, has stated that criminal slang now comes with an Italian accent because of the media and not the Mafia. Columnist and writer, Jack Newfield said that prejudice against Italian Americans is the most ‘tolerated intolerance,’ and New York Congressman Charles Rangle has recently said he was confounded as to why Italian Americans remain silent in the face of blatant defamation.
It is true that in this age of the ‘politically correct,’ Italian Americans have not been spared, while the depiction of other groups have been carefully considered by producers, writers and studios. “The Three Little Pigs” released by Walt Disney in 1933, contained a scene of the Wolf disguised as the "Fuller Brush Man," an outrageous Jewish peddler ethnic stereotype complete with long beard and a huge, hooked nose. Quickly, Disney re-looped the ethnic-sounding voice track, and in the 1940's actually re-animated the scene without the Jewish peddler disguise.
“Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,” released in 1967, carefully handles the issue of a caucasian daughter of a publisher and his patrician wife, when she returns home with her new fiancée, a distinguished black doctor. The girl’s mother accepts her daughter's decision to marry our black doctor, but this interracial union shocks dad, and the doctor's parents are equally dismayed. In this film, both families are forced to examine their respective levels of racial intolerance.
For the most part, Italian Americans have been portrayed as the lowest of the low; mobsters, bums, bigots, buffoons and bimbos. With the mass appeal of the “Sopranos,” it appears this stereotype is here to stay.
