Have you ever wondered where the staying power of mafia movies comes from? Just about any day of the week you can find an old mafia movie on cable or streaming. They never seem to go out of vogue. Every year, new versions are being filmed or planned. Maybe they contain the right mix of popular attractions like violence, big money, power struggles, betrayal, revenge, and occasionally sex. But the real secret is they are 100% about bad Italians, mostly fictitious, played by real Italian American actors.
The other day, while I was attending an Italian American gathering, the guest speaker – a 50-ish university law professor – was asked this very question about ubiquitous mafia movies. The question came out of left field because his talk was actually about Wall St regulations. Nevertheless, he proceeded to lecture us on how mafia movies were really about social justice. He quoted the opening of The Godfather, wherein a character named Bonasera appeals to Don Corleone to correct an injustice his family suffered from an American court. His daughter had been beaten and almost raped by her boyfriend, but the judge gave the defendant a suspended sentence, letting him go free.
According to apologists for mafia movies, they aren’t about Italians but about America and its broken dreams. You have heard this before in describing any iconic bandit or rebel – from Robin Hood to Bonnie and Clyde. Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. Bonnie and Clyde were young lovers surviving the Great Depression.
In this vein, the Corleones and their ilk were trying to survive institutional racism, dire poverty, and America’s erosion of tradition. Such an interpretation raises mafia movies to intellectual heights. But for those of us with common sense it’s called ‘gaslighting’ – trying to convince us that mafia movies aren’t about Italians.
It used to be the refrain that we “had to admit” there was La Cosa Nostra, the Five Families, capos, made men, and wiseguys. At least that argument was not an insult to our intelligence, just to our sense of exaggeration.
When The Sopranos came along the talking point was “multi-dimensional characters” – Tony and company were just a middle class New Jersey family coping with family turmoil, mental health issues, and sticky business relationships. They were not just thieves and murderers…and only coincidently Italian Americans.
I suppose the best way to expose this gaslighting is to ask these ‘intellectuals’ to subtract all the Italian-ness from the movie or series and see if the ‘social justice’ gimmick still works. For example, The Godfather could become The Boss, a criminal bigshot named Bobby Hubbard from Nebraska with a gang of hayseed thugs living in a beer & corndog culture. The wedding scene opens up at a VFW hall with the local hardware store owner appealing to Boss Hubbard to beat up the kid who seduced his slutty daughter Meghan. Later on, we see that the Boss has rivals in Nebraska who almost kill him with a John Deer front-loader. The various gangs hit the mattresses. One fat thug teaches his gang members to cook pot roast at the hide-out. A crooked cop is gunned down by the Boss’s son Billy Bob at an Applebee’s. You get the picture.
Now tell me again how this movie version—minus Italian stereotypes and culture—will be a classic gangster movie with a social justice theme. And tell me how this blockbuster will spawn hundreds more Middle America gangster movies and memorable quotes like “Leave the gun, take the jelly donuts!” Speaking of which…
For more intellectual hogwash about The Godfather, here’s a quote I found online:
“Leave the gun, Take the Cannoli” is possibly one of the most memorable lines in film history, meaning leave the past behind (The gun is the awfulness of the past), and look into the future (the cannoli is the anticipation of a sweet future).”
Wow, I’ll never take cannoli for granted again!
These absurd rationalizations may be designed to provide cover for older mafia movie lovers – Boomers and Gen X (1946-1980) – but are Millennials and Gen Y (1981-1996) hooked on Coppola, Scorsese, and Chase, too? Or, are mafia movies on borrowed time?
Let me know if you have any insights. -JLM
John, I think the mob movies will continue, but do believe they are on borrowed time. I base this guess on the anecdotal observation of the mob stories that are on our local 10pm news. Years ago, you couldn’t watch the broadcast without at least one story about some alleged Outfit guy that had either been arrested or killed. The reporters always seemed to love using the guys nickname – The Big Guy, The Fat One, etc. But, these days, there are no such stories any more. Again, my observation only. It seems there are fewer mob guys around, and perhaps this will mean the end, or near end, of the frequent mob movies on television. Loved your Bobby Hubbard gang! LOL
There is a “force” behind the denigration of Italian and Italian American culture. One ethnic group may dominate Hollywood but the inspiration and creative touches come from our own people – you know who they are. I remember TV shows like Petrocelli, and Columbo, and some others that used non-Italian actors, mostly Jewish, that were successful, but didn’t go deep into Italian culture so they didn’t have a chance to denigrate us.
There are several schools of thought as to why other ethnic groups have no problem pushing our negative image for profit. I believe they are threatened by the centuries of world renown and the natural talent of Italians from classical times – it may be jealousy, but they also feel safe that our community has never effectively objected to defamation.
The popularity of these sorts of films says more about mainstream culture than anything to do with Italian-American life…a major contention of mine…Yet more is the tragedy when Italian Americans whose culture is so diluted that this becomes a matter of ethnic pride to identify with a criminal element.
Recently a brand new Italian restaurant opened up, The owners had started to plan on having some banquet rooms, one named The Mafia Room. I was almost speechless when I heard about this…..but I still had enough energy to share my opinions. The owners reconsidered, after getting a lot of feedback which was a good thing……..but their original ads noted the room. And some Italian Americans thought the matter funny.
Would it have been funny if a restaurant featuring Southern Cooking named a room after the KKK? Or a German Restaurant have a banquet room called the SS room? I don’t see the humor in any of this. Although I do understand the historical epoch that helped contribute to this phenomenon, in much the same way the South and Central American Drug Cartels are now fueling the current wave of illegal drug violence in our society today.
Perhaps as a way to draw a line in the sand, regarding the matter, it’s time to erect a monument to all those prominent Italians and Italian Americans who gave their life or dedicated their lives to root out organized crime both at home and abroad!
We are all aware that it’s disingenuous and apologist to equate any of these movies as a more universal social metaphor or commentary. As a person who takes a metaphysical overview on most matters I realized the direction this whole matter would take when everyone in my 1972 theatre rose to their feet and cheered when Michael Corleone shot the “bad” Irish cop. It is a damning social indictment, but the “common man” out there identifies with this level of consciousness and the vicarious fantasy of “beating” the system. As with most of the unevolved, there is no responsibility for cause and effect. One Jewish mother of my students when I once mentioned a popular gangster at that time knew about his problematic duodenum. Ergo bring in Tony Soprano who is granted clemency for his hideous crimes as he is just reduced to a hapless zhlub who needs psychotherapy every week. It’s all a brilliant marketing ploy when you really think about it.
I can’t expand upon John’s blog nor all of the comments above. Spot-on.
I can only add a few other similar example to John’s, to wit: How have Anglo-Americans managed to avoid any ‘ethnic stigma’?
The KKK was founded by them, hence the use of the term, “clans.” Indeed, in D.W. Griffith’s scandalous 1915 Civil War masterpiece, he stages an initiation ceremony which alludes to the “hills of Scotland.”
Likewise, who enslaved African Americans? “Crime families” named Smith, Johnson, Bradshaw, Washington, etc. Who nearly decimated Native Americans? The same.
The current film Flowers of the Killer Moon shows Anglo-Americans literally slaughtering Native Americans for oil money. The film takes place in 1920s Oklahoma and also references yet another ugly Anglo outbreak in that state around the same time: the burning of “Black Wall Street” in downtown Tulsa.
Yet no one hears an Anglo name and responds with, “Ah, yes, racist murderers!”
When people hear an Italian name, though, I think we can all attest to what usually pops out of their mouths. They need no prodding from us (“Sputa il rospo”–spit out the toad, i.e., spit it out). They are more than happy to associate us with criminals.
Hogwash is correct. They have made organized crime movies in the past, and now, because they make money. Yes, their popularity tells us a lot about American culture. The very sad thing is that Italian Americans are involved in these movies. Also, they are popular with too many Italian Americans. When I have pointed how harmful these movies are to some Italian Americans, they say it’s only a movie, lighten up. In closing, they are very harmful to our image. Few people realize that only around 3,000 people are involved in the mafia that Italian Americans are more lawful than most other ethnic groups.
I have always wondered whether the real harm in these movies is not about our image as an ethnic group, but that they dumb down our paesani who laud them and are addicted to them.
There are many films that depict bad people who are not Italian. They don’t do ethnic damage to other groups because there are also far more films that depict them as decent people. If there were lots of movies that showed Italians (and even more importantly Italian Americans) in a positive light we could tolerate the occasional mob film. The real question is why aren’t we, as a group, producing positive entertainment products?
I have been speaking about this topic for years and working to create balance between the degrading stereotype Hollywood and a realistic view of the Italian people through my novels and my new film Being Brothers, that is currently in preproduction. Mike DeLucia, author and founder of Little Italy Films.