In an era allegedly dedicated to “wokeness” – that is, being attuned to how an American’s race, religion, ethnicity, or sexuality are portrayed in the media – it’s truly astonishing how Americans of Italian heritage continue to slip under the sensitivity radar. Forget the double standard. It’s more like a breaking-the-sound-barrier standard. No one hears it.
Take, for example, the latest example, elucidated during Steven Colbert’s monologue on his September 29th Late Show.
After sharing a clip of New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge tying a new American League home-run record, Colbert said:
“First, there are two things to say about this. #1) Wow! and #2) It would almost be malpractice not to mention that a fan in the stands who nearly caught this historic ball was named Frankie Lasagna. That is either the best name in history or one of the worst ‘MOB’ names in history!”
He then affected the by-now standard vocal accent meant to mimic either a violent mob guy or a dumb Italian dude:
“Frankie Lasagna! Name’s Francis, but they call me Frankie. These are my friends: Mikey Pizza, Bobby Calzone and Sal Unlimited Breadsticks!”
Predictably, both his band and his audience laughed heartily, but what’s so witty about ‘mobbing up’ Italian foodstuffs? Nothing is sacred.
When comedian Rosie O’Donnell imitated the sound of spoken Chinese by saying, “Ching chang chong!” on The View in 2006, the media outcry was immediate and intense. She didn’t get fired but, in the years since then, plenty of others have been for dissing someone’s ethnicity or race.
Later that year, and perhaps a turning point in the media’s increasingly ominous turn toward Puritan justice, actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson, after being pulled over for drunk driving, called a female police officer “sugar tits” and said “the Jews are the cause of all wars in the world.” (The other arresting officer, a male, was Jewish American.) Gibson’s career sorely tanked afterward and still hasn’t fully recovered.
In 2010, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez was fired for saying that “Jewish Americans were NOT an oppressed group” in America. In 2013, popular TV chef Paula Deen’s career was sacked after a former employee alleged that she once used the N-word.
The same year, Paul Robertson of Duck Dynasty was taken off of the show for using a homophobic slur. In 2018, Roseanne Barr comeback on the new Roseanne show became short-lived after she used Twitter to compare former White House spokesman Valerie Jarrett to an ape.
Even African American comedian Dave Chappelle was sent reeling last year when transgender activists accused him of telling jokes that jeopardized the lives of transgender Americans. Chappelle’s producers at Netflix passionately backed his First Amendment right to free speech.
And where do Italian Americans fit into all of this? To quote the fabled comedian Rodney Dangerfield, “They don’t get no respect.”
Comedians like Colbert – a man who routinely mocks Italians Americans; this wasn’t his first insult – face zero consequences. Shows like Saturday Night Live do mob sketches every season no matter the context, though the one they did in 2020 with Bill Barr was especially tone-deaf: It showed the mob debating how they could become more “woke” (i.e., by hiring a Black female who speaks with a Guido accent).
Today, an acclaimed show like ABC’s recent, Emmy-winning Abbott Elementary thinks nothing of creating a character like Ms. Schemmenti, a teacher who speaks like a stevedore and brings stolen goods to work.
And forget the world of comedy, where everyone is supposed to be open-minded and have a sense of humor. The mainstream media regularly uses the word “mafia” to beef up their stories, too. A few years ago, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) compared then-president Donald Trump to a “mafia” boss, even alleging that he did business with “the mob” in New York. Schiff seemed unaware that the Donald did so but with RUSSIAN crooks.
And, of course, Hollywood keeps cranking out generic “mob” movies.
When Sen. Joe McCarthy continued spreading his conspiracy theories about a Communist take-over in the American government, what finally stopped him was a simple question from lawyer Joseph N. Welch: “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency left”?
Someone needs to ask Colbert and his writers that very same question. –BDC
[Ironic footnote: On the very night that I typed this blog (Saturday, October 1st, 2022), Colin Jost, during the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, related the following ‘joke’ about Giorgia Meloni, set to become Italy’s first female prime minister: “Meloni has been spreading white supremacist ideas. So wait: We’re now considering Italians to be white”?
To quote the late activist Dr. Manny Alfano: “It never ends!” It truly does not.
I would like to thank IIA associate Tony Vecchione for alerting me to these recent media insults.]
Excellent blog. We really are the last “safe” group that can be openingly mocked and disparaged. On all of my jobs, I’ve been insulted and disrespected when I asked co workers to please respect my ethnicity. Every one of my non Italian friends have either lectured me or made nasty remarks. Two broke friendships with me when I dared to defend my own people! Several thought they were complimenting me when they told me I wasn’t like one of “them”!! I blame this all on the non stop media depictions. It needs to stop, but sadly we are not being taken seriously.
I completely agree with you, Bill. Colbert’s history of anti-Italian comments is clear. It is despicable per se.
Of course, the reason is we let them get away with it. No boycott
and no repercussion when they do it. A good example is Columbus Day, I will be holding a Columbus Day Celebration on Columbus Day, I will only have about 30 people in attendance. Where are the 155,000 Americans of Italian descent that live in my area? Most of what they say about Columbus is a lie and yet they are winning to replace Columbus Day with Native American day. Why? We have to look at our own community for the answer. The fact is most Italian Americans have assimilated and the other reason is apathy! Native Americans, the Jewish community and the African American Community have shown what needs to be done to stop this attack on our community.
It’s truly amazing. I related this in a previous comment, but it’s worth repeating: less than a month ago, at my local gym, a pair of Iraqi brothers (mid-30s, refugees from the war) and an Albanian father of three (mid-50s, emigrated here in the early-90s), both asked me if I knew anyone in the “mafia” when they found out my last name was Italian American.
The brothers were deadly serious. The Albanian dad told me he was “just joking.”
Imagine asking our current VP, Kamala Harris, if she has any crack cocaine dealers in her family. Ditto a Jewish American about shyster lawyers or Muslims about bomb-throwers.
And so on and so forth, down the entire ethnic/racial/religious/sexual list. It’s quite sad.
The average Italian American who shrugs off these insults fails to realize two things (even if he or she could care less about being of Italian heritage, which is certainly their choice):
1) It distorts and disrespects the dignity and hard work of our immigrant ancestors and
2) It allows these cheap, daily, unending insults to continue ad nauseum.
Italians can take a joke. After all, we invented satire in classical Rome and then improvisation during the Renaissance (commedia dell’arte). But there is a HUGE difference between appreciating a joke and being the constant, direct butt of a joke.
Excellent blog and very informative. I only wish we could truly unite to make a difference and begin to end these way too common insults we receive from TV and media.
to say we have a thick skin about this sort of stuff is an understatement. And sometimes we even get it from other Italian Americans who think these comments funny and it’s me, or others, being overly sensitive. And of course when you point out the same comments related to other groups, communities, and religions the paradigm changes, and they are now victims(?).
I find though that so-called victims are doing more harm to their communities than good by demotivating the individual to achieve…they can’t they are victims….. And it’s always a strange revelation when Italian Americans assert their ability by simply achieving, stereotypes and ethnic slurs aside.
I saw something even more bizarre a few weeks ago on Medhi Hasan’s MSNBC show.
The topic was the potential selection of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s next prime minister, which has since taken place (last week).
One of the guests he interviewed was identified as “the first Muslim female news anchor on Italian TV.”
Yet he never once mentioned Meloni’s role as the FIRST POTENTIAL FEMALE PRIME MINISTER OF ITALY. PERIOD.
All he focused on was Meloni’s tenuous ties to neo-Fascism.
If Hasan had done his homework, he would have noted that the late journalist Oriana Fallaci, a progressive, wrote The Rage and the Pride just before she died (2006). It was a long defense of Italian history and culture inspired by the horrific events of 9-11. Even more specifically, she catalogued all of the negative behaviors of the ever-growing Islamic community in Italy, from oppressing their women to Muslim men pissing on the streets.
Was Fallaci, too, a “Fascist” for daring to speak up and defend her own cultural heritage?
It would be nice if Italian-American political and media figures would speak out against this constant ridiculing of Italian-Americans, but I have never heard or read of any doing so. I am thinking of the Cuomo brothers in particular. Their father was no better. Then you have celebrities like Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci who have enriched themselves depicting Italian-American hoodlums. Ditto for many cast members of “The Sopranos.”
We have always said that the problem is rank & file Italian Americans love Mafia movies and get quite annoyed at anyone who rains on their parade. You cannot fight negative image when your own people embrace it.
Have to disagree about Mario Cuomo. He was ridiculed by the mainstream press whenever he called out anti-Italian bigotry. And, to Mr. Mancini’s comment, yes. Hard to win a war when the soldiers walk away.
Just ask Comrade Putin!
Below is a clip of Cuomo calmly making the case to Robert Novak in 1986 as to why the phrase “made his bones” is a direct dig at Italian American dignity.
Please note the intelligent–and yes, dignified–way in which he refutes it:
https://youtu.be/iJZtlIYBN6Y