"The Sopranos", Racist?? Fuggidaboutit!!!

‘The Sopranos’ Racist? Fuggidaboutit!  

  Written in 2000

   According to Linda Bean of DiversityInc., a group of Italian-American attorneys filed a lawsuit against the HBO Series “The Sopranos,” claiming that the mob drama “violates the individual dignity clause of the Illinois constitution.” This essay is not aimed at castigating the Italian people or the motives of the at-torneys; the purpose of this essay is point out the hypocrisy of such an allegation and to show, clearly, that just as the Irish, Jewish and Slav lobbies have degraded other racial groups, the Italians have never really been far behind, especially when it comes to the television or silver screen.

       The group calls itself AIDA, the American Italian Defense Association, and it further charges that, “Week after week, this show portrays the worst element of Italian-American society … it ap-pears to be cool to be a mobster and that is the wrong image to be sending,” said Enrico Mirabelli, the Chicago attorney that re-presents AIDA.

       One need only glean world history to understand what the problem is in Italy. You have the light-skinned northern Italians and then you have the dark-skin-ned southern Italians, and there are class differences as in other countries. The southern Italians, known as ‘ginnies’ by their northern brothers, are so named because of their history: Hannibal, an African general, came over some time back and there was interracial mixing with the Italian women. The product was the “tall, dark and handsome” Sicilian and other Italians that you see on television today, most of them considered “sex symbols” or “leading men.” Meanwhile, the original tall, dark and handsome man – the African – was called “n-----“ by that same Italian and his leading organization, the Cosa Nostra which translates to mean, “our thing.”

          In sociological termino-logy, this is known as a “closed organization.” The MAFIA only want their own involved, and while using other people – like Jewish attorneys and accountants – for the most part, they remain closed and the concept of or-ganized crime remains “our thing.”

         All of this is historical fact. Now how it translates to the screen may be an issue, it may not. I don’t see how the history of Italians could be any more clear cut. They take care of their own; they associate with their own; and they were involved in dogging out other people of color after they immigrated here. One of the ma-jor opponents of the “Numbers game” in New York, organized by low-income blacks, were the Italians. Even here in Omaha, a well-liked Italian ran a bookie joint here and would come to North Omaha and lose so much money that a couple of brothers opened up some businesses on 24^th Street with their winnings. It’s all a part of history.

        The Italians have not spoken out against the “mobster image” the way that blacks have against the “Sambo image” or the way that the Latinos have against the “Frito Bandito Image,” the way the Asians have against the “Suzy Wong Syndrome” or the Native American against the “Red Savage depictions” in all those westerns. Where was the Italian at then? He was investing in the very same movies that per-petuated all these racial stereo-types. Now that he’s on the screen benefiting from another image he allowed to take place – that of mobster – he now whines and cries “foul” and points the finger at Hollywood.

       The Italian has had chances to speak up before. James Cagney was not Italian to my knowledge, and yet he made a number of mobster movies which implied Italian connections. Humphrey Bogart don’t sound like no Italian name to me. White American after white American made mo-vies stereotyping Italians and they never spoke up. In fact, far too many of them basked in that image.

        And its not just their past complicity. They saw the NAACP working against Amos n’ Andy and other racist movies like “Birth of a Nation.” Did Italians speak out then? Knowing of their black roots, they decided to try to hide the fact and  figure, “hey, at least it ain’t me.” So now it comes full circle and the past is now being projected in the present tense.

        For instance, “Once Upon a Time in America” was about Italians and Jews growing up in Brooklyn and becoming what? Mobsters. Narrated by whom? None other than king of the actors himself, Robert DeNiro – who played a character named Noodles. If the mobster image was negative, where was the re-sistance at then?

       Sylvester Stallone bought us two Italian stereotypes – first “Rocky” and five movies about a white champion which we, as Blacks, know is a fantasy – and then “Cobra,” a movie about a super cop named Marioi Cobretti who played by his own rules and was basically a thug with a badge.

       In the former instance, “Rocky” fulfilled the fantasies of white folks, Italian and otherwise, by first holding his own against the champion Apollo Creed and then in the second installment, knocking him out. In the third movie, he destroys Clubber Lang (played by Mr. T, a part that Joe Frazier auditioned for but Stallone said “he hit too hard”) another black man and then, tired of beating up brothers, he goes international to fight a fellow white – to defend his friendship with a black man.  Yeah, right.

       In the final installment he fights former boxer Tommy Kidd and in the final scene, beats kid “in the streets” which had become his “boxing ring” by that time. See? He started out in the Italian ‘hood and he ended up there. No blacks around, no black buddies other than Creed. Straight up Italian nationalism, what they call “Italianismo.” Nobody was saying anything about the absurdity of an Italian heavyweight champion.

        And they didn’t speak out against Mario “Cobra” Cobretti, either. This joke of a movie showed Stallone at his very worst, taking on a gang of motorcycle cultists. His sidekick is another Italian, played by Reni Santoni. But the key is that this movie was based on the book “Fair Game” which was later made into a movie that served as stepping stone for Cindy Crawford (and also starred William Baldwin). Did the Italian community shout out in dismay at Stallone’s character? No.

     Did the Italian community shout “foul” when, in “The Godfather,” the roundtable of Italian crime bosses talked about selling drugs to “the n-----s” be-cause “they  have no souls”?  That trilogy was FULL of Italian actors. Did you see any black folks? No.

      There was another movie called, “True Romance,” where Christian Slater’s character rips off a Jamaican drug dealer who was working for the Mafia. The Mafia wants their drugs back and goes to the father of the thief to find out where the thief, and his woman, have fled to.

       In a scene that was carefully crafted, Dennis  Hopper – Slater’s father – sits calmly smoking a cigarette while explaining what he knows about Italians. Since the mobster leader (played by pale Christopher Walken) claims to be Sicilian, Hopper talks about how Sicilians are the product of Africans and that “this makes you half n-----“; you’re people are half egg plant.” The Sicilian blows his head off for the “insult.” But again, they speak about black people in negative terms and then cry for pity when they feel that their own image is being be-smirched.

      “Goodfellas” won all kinds of awards and was basically another mobster movie about Italians and Jews. In the movie, Samuel F. Jackson gets blown away by Italian bully Joe Pesci. Any complaints? No. Pesci gets his head blown off in an empty house as he was about to be “made.” Any hollering? No. Ray Liotta’s character peddles coke and stolen goods throughout the movie.

       According to notes from Mobcentral.com, the movie didn’t mention it “but the Vario crew in the Luchese family was John Gotti’s crew in the Gambino family. De Niro was called Jimmy Conway in the movie but in real lfie it was gangster Jimmy Burke who was still alive when the mo-vie was made, which might ex-plain the name change.”

        Any concerns about image by the Italian community or how close “art reflects life”? Nada.

      “Bugsy” starred Warren Beatty as the ex-Jewish mobster Bugsy Segal, who was killed by Italian mobsters after “founding” the concept of Las Vegas. Was there an uproar about a movie about a Jewish gangster surround-ed by Italian gangsters? No. In “A Bronx Tale,” DeNiro outlines the life of an Italian kid who grows up down the street from an Italian mobster (played by Chazz Palmentari). While the sound track is jammed with black classic music, are there any black characters? No. I take that back: there's a beautiful young sister that the lead Italian boy falls in love with. He's smitten with her and they date. But she has to spurn his affections when she believes he was involved in an assault on her brother. By the way, that assaut was multiple Italian kids attacking a lone black kid who was "in their neighborhood." The fact is, Italian nationalism permeates the movie as DeNiro, in one scene, explains to his son that he should be worshipping Micky Mantle be-cause Mantle was a white boy who didn’t care about Italians. Any resistance? No.

      What about Steven Seagal’s “Out for Justice”? The Italianism is at its peak as he tells his wife, “we take care of our own,” and that means his going “above the law” in looking for “Richie,” a crackhead who killed his partner and his killing innocent people and robbing crack dealers. Richie, it turns out, is “hard to kill” and is “under siege” as the Italian cop, played be Seagal, stalks him until, at the end of the movie, there’s a “fire down below” and a lot of “exit wounds.” No outcry by the Italian community on the stereo-typed role of the Italian com-munity as thugs who hide away, abuse women of all races, and of inherent Italian-on-Italian crime.

       Then there’s “Fallen Arches,” a 1999 flick about some kids who rob a truck filled with expensive shoes but later find out the truck is owned by an Italian racketeer. The main thug, who couldn’t make it in the big-time mob world, heads west for Los Angeles and then creates a kind of  fantasy thug world of his own, with all the trappings of a “movie gangster.” Any resistance from the Italian moviegoer? Nothing.

       These are just a few of the movies. And when it comes to television, sitcoms like “King of Queens” and “That’s Life” show Italians in funny situations for the most part, but they make it clear that they are Italian – it’s a bragging point. Italian national-ism in “whiteface.”

       So now, this new group uses black folks, among others – as most groups do when they get their butts in a sling – and say, “If a show like this had depicted a different ethnic group, the outcry might have been greater,” Mirabelli said. But my point is that there was no outcry from the Italians when blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans were being negatively portrayed. They laughed and joked about it. Some made money off of it. Now they want sympathy because of “The Sopranos.”

      With this in mind, take note of Mirabelli’s next statement: “The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) steps forward to challenge anti-Semites, said Mirabelli, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will denounce those who defame African Americans. “But there has been no group to defend Italians in the past,” he added.

        That is because Italians, as stated, are a closed group by choice. They do not want any-body else in their business, and that is the way it should be. But even beyond that, the Italians – as I have shown in movie after movie – showed no inclination to clean up or claim, as a collective, that the mobster image is a negative one. In fact, it is my contention that most Italians look up to the Mafia, in much the same way that black people identified with the Blaxploitation movies which showed blacks defeating the system as well as coming out on top over organized crime.

      In his poorly thought-out grievance, Mirabelli exposes even more ignorance of the issue in the following excerpt: “The best out-come, said Mirabelli, would be a jury’s declaration “that this type of communication should be con-demned. It’s not a hammer .. you don’t get money, but it restores the dignity to Italian Americans.”

       Non-group members cannot “restore dignity” to another group, just like they cannot take it. They can attack it, malign it and affirm it, but they cannot restore it. That can only be done by the group that allowed their dignity to be misplaced. And that means that the Italians are going to have to stop looking to their partner in crime, the white American and the Jewish Ameri-can, and start getting serious about their image and the image that they want conveyed.

       As for black-Italian relation-ships, just look at the way that Robert De Niro treats the mother of his children, Tookie Smith, and you can get a good idea how, for the most part, Italian crime fi-gures and lesser thugs treat black people: we’re alright to associate with, but the key is to keep “them people” at arm’s distance. De Niro has two beautiful children that he supports, but he’s been with Tookie for over 20 years. Where’s the wedding ring? Pro-bably on reserve for some Italian beauty now that he realizes he’ll never have Whitney Houston, who he once stalked.

      As for the movie, “The Sopranos,” let’s just say that a title which has a .45 calibre representing the “r” in the name Sopranos, goes totally against what Mirabelli was talking about. The show displays unity, it shows the racism which permeates much of Italian thinking (despite their background), and it shows or-ganized crime and its subtleties. No need for machine guns (tommy guns), spats and top hats any more. Now, La Cosa Nostra has become, “a business,” a point made most clearly in both “Mobsters” and “The Godfather.”