Things are so chaotic in our “dis-” United States that, although the next presidential election is three years away, people are already hurrying up and wishing it was next week. But, no matter who is nominated, there is a sure-fire issue that unites both Democrats and Republicans: anti-Italian prejudice.
No, I am not kidding. The only thing which both parties seem to agree on is that the sons and daughters of Italy come from a silly, basically cartoonish culture with no gravitas; therefore, it is open season on them – day in, day out, year in, year out. We can’t agree on policies, but, oh those dagoes!
It all goes back to the turn-of-the-century, of course, when the mass-migration of dark, swarthy immigrants (us) produced the same feelings of fear and disrespect currently emanating from people of both political persuasions.
On the conservative side, the late Rush Limbaugh regularly derided House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “the Godmother,” a reference to the Coppola film about a (fictional) murderous mobster. Even after being diagnosed with lung cancer just before the pandemic, Limbaugh didn’t temper his disdain for Italian Americans; he immediately set his sights on Dr. Anthony Fauci, regularly using a mocking organ-grinder accent from a century ago (“Ayy, Imma Dr. Anthony Fauci, Imma so smart, I know every-a-ting”).
But, I guess this was an improvement from 30 years ago (1991), when Marlin Fitzwater, President George H. Bush’s press secretary, was asked at a White House press briefing how he felt about the news that then-New York governor Mario Cuomo was considering a challenge to his boss. In front of a national TV audience, Fitzwater replied: “Mario? Mario? What kind of a name is Mario?” (This from a man named after a fish?).
The “liberal” Democrats liberally (pun intended) match such disdain. The obvious are the endless mob movies produced by Hollywood hypocrites – the same people, a comedian once joked, who make films about minorities’ rights yet hire undocumented workers to cut their lawns and serve them tea. And it is “progressive” film critics who keep praising these endless, witless mob movies, thus keeping them alive for the next generation.
Over the decades, academics across America have turned Christopher Columbus from visionary explorer into a mass murderer. Last year, Colin Jost implied on Saturday Night Live that Dr. Fauci was too intelligent to be Italian. Late night talk-show hosts like Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers spew anti-Italian gibes. Meyers even jokes about the jokes!
The African American comedy duo of Key-and-Peele, who routinely skewer racism, also got into the act with an over-the-top sketch (complete with cartoon accents) in which an Italian American mistakes a surprise birthday party for a planned mob “hit.” He ends up shooting and killing the revelers when they jump out from their hiding places – all of it shot in slow-motion, accompanied to the mournful strains of Vesti La Giubbia from Pagliacci.
I guess we should probably lament the 2013 passing of actor James Gandolfini. As Tony Soprano, the fictional New Jersey mob boss, Gandolfini’s fan base encompassed conservatives (who applauded Tony’s tough-guy image) and liberals (who endlessly “deconstructed” it).
Again, two sides, two different political persuasions, yet neither of them ever owned up to the anti-Italian animus which permeated their views of Italian Americans on The Sopranos – and still does, given their current anticipation of the Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark.
Who would have thought that a two-bit actor could have entered politics and brought us all together? President Gandolfini: A salsiccia in every pot! -BDC
It never seems to end, education is one way to combat it.
I would stress, “SELF-education”. I went to an Italian American deli in Chicago yesterday and there were “Grill Father” t-shirts featuring the logo from the film
(a huge hand manipulating a silver spatula). I’ve yet to visit any Mexican American restaurants and seen t-shirts celebrating notorious drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman.
Ditto any Chinese restaurants with posters celebrating the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle, where more gangsters were actually killed than on St. Valentine’s Day.
Dignity, like charity, begins at “home.”
Bill:
I am curious to know whether Marlon Brando has ever ben called out for his hypocrisy.
He won the Oscar for best actor for his performance in the racist movie “The Godfather”. However, he boycotted the ceremony as a protest for Hollywood treatment of native Americans.
I do not think you can get more hypocritical that that.
Very true. I have certainly made mention of this in numerous articles; however, I am preaching to the converted. But has our media, in general, ever called him out? No.
Many people still think that Marlon was Italic; in fact, his last name is Dutch (Brandeau).
It has been revealed within the last few years, however, that Jack Nicholson’s absent father (whom he never met) was an Italian American from New Jersey. One hopes he wasn’t like the mopey mobster played by Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor. I had a chance to see that film again recently on cable. Truly awful, from top to bottom, with cartoonish performances straight out of a Saturday Night Live show. And yet, in his next (and last) film, director John Huston treated his own Irish heritage with dignity in The Dead (1987).