Looks like the clichéd Italian phrase popularized by the Swedish pop group Abba should have been applied to a new film.  I deliberately did not mention Mafia Mamma in my last blog on current movies in the hopes that missives I sent to local Chicago papers about it might be published. They were.

Below are my thoughts on this truly dreadful film, which grated on a great majority of critics.  Note: what bothered them the most was the film’s mediocrity–not its mob stereotypes!

Mamma Mia! indeed. -BDC

 [To the Daily Herald (suburban Chicago), published on April 18th]:

Quit denigrating Italians on the altar of comedy with hideous stereotype

Dear Editor:

            Really? Mafia Mamma? It’s a new film in which an Italian American woman (played by the Australian actress Toni Collette) returns to Italy to – what? Buy a vineyard? Contact long-lost relatives? Appreciate beauty and nature and life?  No. It’s to learn she is the new “mafia boss” of a violent criminal organization. And, despite the brutality of the real-life mafia, the plot is played for laughs.

             Another Aussie, the late singer Helen Reddy, sang “I am Woman, Hear me Roar.”  She did not sing, “Hear my machine gun roar.”  So much for Hollywood’s idea of feminism.

            For readers who roll their eyes whenever Italian Americans complain about cultural defamation, let’s play what my late colleague Dr. Manny Alfano called the ‘Substitution Game’.  It’s very simple: Instead of using Italians, change the protagonists but keep the plot.  How about Muslim Mamma? A Muslim American woman inherits an ISIS group. How about Mexican Mamma? A Mexican American woman calls the shots for a drug cartel. How about Malaysian Mamma? An Asian American woman becomes the boss of a Triad gang. And so on. Are you laughing yet?

            If not, kudos. You realize the harm done by “comedic” ethnic stereotypes. They desensitize us to the horrors of such real-life murderers. How is this funny?

            The $64,000 question remains: Why is it still OK to mock Italian Americans?

Mafia Mamma is a slap in the face to Italy, to Italians, to victims of mafia violence, and to women like the late Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia and the current Calabrian prosecutor Alessandri Cerreti. These two women dedicated their lives to successfully fighting ruthless criminal gangs. They used the law, not guns.

            The real crime is endless Hollywood defamation. And that’s no joke. – Bill Dal Cerro, Italic Institute

[To the Chicago Tribune, published Apr 21st]:

Shame on Mafia Mamma

Dear Editor:

            At a time when national mass shootings are at an all-time high, it is inconceivable that a tone-deaf film like Mafia Mamma would get a positive review in any newspaper (“Collette shines in smart take on woman’s midlife crisis,” April 17).

            In sum, the movie is the fictional tale of an Italian American woman (played by Australian actress Toni Collette) who deals with her midlife crisis by returning to Italy to become the female boss of a violent criminal gang. No, I am not making this up. Per usual, such a plot could only spew forth from Hollywood’s bone-dry, cobweb-filled imagination — an industry that long ago institutionalized crude stereotypes of Italians, beginning in 1906 with the gangster film The Black Hand.

            Anna Clara Ionta, a professor of Italian at Loyola University in Chicago, relates that there is an Italian word for films like Mafia Mamma — una beffa, or satire with malice. Not one shred of wit or empathy.

            In addition to the usual mocking prose (“embracing the Mafia lifestyle means having her gelato and eating it, too”), critic Katie Walsh’s review of Mafia Mamma reveals the same blithe disdain toward Italy, Italians and Italian American culture that Hollywood has relentlessly implanted in people’s minds. It never once occurs to her, or the filmmakers, that the Mafia is a domestic terrorist group that engages in the same behaviors as Islamic State or any Mexican drug cartel, including beheadings and murders. All in good fun!

            In 1906, Italian American businessman A.P. Giannini helped the city of San Francisco rise from the ashes of its historic earthquake. He created one of our nation’s greatest institutions, which is still with us today: Bank of America.

            How will Americans ever know this when films like Mafia Mamma are continually produced and promoted as “Italian culture”?

            Finally, a film like Mafia Mamma is a direct “hit” on Italy itself, a nation that literally laid the foundations for Western civilization. Thanks to Hollywood, the land that writer Mary Shelley said has “magic in its very syllables” has been reduced to an infantile tourist destination full of sun, fun and guns.

            As a real Italian mamma would say, Vergogna! (Shame!).  -Bill Dal Cerro, Italic Institute