In 2013, real-life celebrity couple Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa did a short video clip for the Funny or Die series called “Bensonhurst Spelling Bee.” It consisted of students on-stage being asked to spell “eye-talian” words correctly (e.g. “gobbaghoul,” which is slang for capicola). You get the picture.
The words were provided to the students by, of all people, The Sopranos regulars Lorraine Bracco and Tony Sirico.
But wait, it gets worse.
The kicker in the clip is that one of the students was an Italian American one played by the 14-year-old son of Ripa and Consuelos. He was dressed like a Jersey Shore goon and spoke with an exaggerated New Yawk accent. And he ends up winning the contest after a man in the audience (Consuelos) starts to object to the misuse of the Italian language. A small group of menacing-looking thugs behind him suddenly stand and give him a look which shuts the man up. Har har har.
At the time, proud Italian Americans bemoaned how these celebs could allow their young son to look and act like a gross Italic caricature. Mr. Consuelos is half-Mexican (father), but he also has an Italian mother who actually taught him the language as a child. Would he ever dis his father’s culture by having the young kid dressed like an El Chapo wannabe?
It spoke—still speaks—to how Italian culture has been degraded in American culture. Capeesh?
Cut to 2025. Consuelos, though born in Zaragosa (founded by the Romans as “Caesar Augustus”), Spain, shuttled back and forth between Italy and Florida as a child, hence his proficiency in the language. It also developed in him a love of soccer. In 2022, he and his wife purchased a small-town Italian soccer team in Campobasso, Italy, an experience they will document in an upcoming ESPN series titled, Running with the Wolves. The four episodes will run at the end of July, and will no doubt be repeated afterward.
I’ve yet to see any episodes but the clips on YouTube augur well. Soccer is the main topic, of course, but we also see Kelly and Mark and their now-grown children traipsing across Italy, a place they visit quite often. Will there be any cliches, as is usually the case when Italy is seen through an American’s eyes? Probably. Stanley Tucci’s shows are a prime example.
Also interesting to note: Though Kelly Ripa is, as she has said publicly, “75% Italian American,” she doesn’t speak the language; however, her half-Mexican, half-Italian husband does. Here is yet another example—if needed—as to how so many non-Italians have a greater love, even respect, for Italian culture than Americans with roots in the boot.
(Note: It was Mark’s idea to buy the team, not his wife’s. She thought he was planning to buy some property.)
My main question: Will this series remove the bad taste of “Bensonhurst Spelling Bee?” It remains to be seen.
Be that as it may, one has to commend Kelly and Mark for making la bell’italia a source of pride instead of cheap laughs.
May the trend continue. -BDC
On one level the average Italian American sadly does not know that much about the language, then combined with time fixed or dated dialect, or regional idioms , it just adds to the mix…I don’t even know if most Italian Americans are familiar enough with the language to even get the point that this is suppose to be a funny hit….The period during and after World War II also contributed to the situation too, but then that gets to complex for the average person to follow…..
Personally I find languages, regional dialects and all fascinating…….and its an issue all immigrants share…..I recall a Polish American who was, I think Secretary of State. under Carter…trying to give a talk in Polish to the amusement of a Polish Audience in Poland…..since the language he used was archaic and speckled with English. I also had empathy….At a given point, when I visited relatives in Calabria…..i had no idea if I was speaking “daverro” Italiano, a Calabrese dialect, even of what epoch….and my relatives enjoyed hearings some of the phrases since they were not current at all…I even collect Cal Mex phrases which are blended Mexican Spanish and English….
But there is one important observation noted, and that is, many Non Italian Americans are the cornerstone of Italian American Organizations…without their energy, financial and social support many orgs would just not be operational…..which in essence is a unique part of American cultural….and with much kudos to them…and this observation is “from the trenches!!!!”
I remember that commercial well. It was cringeworthy. Kelly Ripa defending the cafones and chastising her husband over dignified pronunciations while aligning with Paulie Walnuts was unsettling. He also delivered the same shtick a few years earlier with an array of guidettes for a weight loss product called “Stacker-2”. It’s scary that these images have practically morphed into a subculture.
Mr. Borelli: Excellent points. I hope my tone is more frustrating than angry, to wit: Why is it that Italian Americans, with direct ties to Italy, never felt the urge to embrace the language of their parents? Or, as you note, to use their parents’ dialects as a “taking off” point to explore the Italian language more fully and correctly? And yet, many people with no blood connection love the Italian language .
I blame dat ol’ devil, “assimilation.”
The focus was on “becoming American.” Duly noted. Italian Americans succeeded spectacularly. Perhaps newer generations, no longer burdened by prejudice (except in the media) and a hard-scrabble fight for survival, are now freer to relearn it.
Mr. Grazioze: One correction, and an even more frightening one: a sub-culture of a sub-culture which has now become the MAIN culture defining “Italian American.”