I was going through some e-mail and came across one where someone said to me "Mob Candy publishes 'magazines' that glorify the mafia and actually supply pull out posters of John Gotti!" This is why we love feedback- I had never heard of this magazine, let alone its gimmick.
From what I've seen ( I won't link to it- it doesn't deserve the publicity) it is just as bad as one would imagine. Making the Mafia the selling point of your magazine, interviewing imprisoned mafiosi, listing the worst "Rats" of all time and providing readers with pull out posters of John Gotti is ridiculous, and gives Italians a black eye we didn't need.
I understand being and entrepreneur and capitalizing on a market. I really do. As a business man, Frank DiMatteo (the mastermind behind Mob Candy) has done no wrong. He took an idea and ran with it. But as an Italian, he set us all back about 60 years.
What we see with Mob Candy, which was created by an Italian, is a rampant problem in the Italian American community. Italians are our own worst enemy when it comes to our image in the media. Any effort to stop an anti Italian piece of media is always countered with: “An Italian made it.”
And the other side is not wrong: Jersey Shore was “greenlit” by an Italian American producer (Tony DiSanto) who said he had no problem with it. Mob Candy is made by an Italian American, The Godfather was written by an Italian (Mario Puzo), directed by an Italian (Coppola), and featured several Italian actors (Pacino and DeNiro, among others). Goodfellas is the same story. Italians have a terrible habit of selling out their own kind for a quick buck, and that needs to stop.
If Italians ever want to gain any ground and win some of these battles with stereotypes, they need to act in a socially responsible way. Italians can't be on both sides of the equation. We can't be the victims of stereotypes and the perpetrators of the stereotypes because no one will ever take our arguments seriously- and the media will feast on our disorganization. Until the day comes where we, as a whole, can act appropriately, things like Mob Candy, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of NJ and a slew of others will continue to allow themselves to portray us in a negative light.
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Jersey Shore is (harmless) junk, but The Godfather and Goodfellas are most certainly not (ask any film critic), and I doubt that great artists like Coppola, Scorsese, Pacino and DeNiro are interested in a "quick buck". What you're basically saying is that you want to live in a world where those movies don't exist and Italians never again tell stories about the Mafia. That's insanity. And what about all the movies dealing with Irish, Jewish, Russian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese etc. gangsters made by people of those ethnicities? Should there be a moratorium on those too? Is all crime off limits to filmmakers in your perfect world?
ReplyDeleteI don't want to live in a world where these stories aren't told- I want to live in a world where the numbers reflect reality. Our heritage is more than just gangsters, but that's all we're portrayed as. Where are the Italian doctors, lawyers, politicians? Outside of Italian cinema, I haven't seen a positive portrayal of Italians in a very long time.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with your argument if the situation was the same for all ethnicities- but it is not. The amount of negative portrayals they have in film does not even come close to the Italians. Moreover, they have plenty of positive portrayals to act as a counter balance. Data compiled by the Italic Institute backs me up here--> Italic Institute Film Study
More Anti-Italian Rhetoric. The MOB attraction effect gets old, too. I ran into another case of Italian attacks but IMDB seems to be ignoring my report.
ReplyDeleteThis guy has been tossing racial slurs all over IMDB forums. I reported him. Their system only allows for one time reporting then assures you they are taking care of it. It is a week or more on some of this guys racist rants and IMDB still has not banned the guy or removed him. A troll is a troll but I get the feeling if this was any other racial slur, the guy would be banned and all his posts removed immediately. I get tired of Italians being the throw away race that is up for grabs like this. I first thought it was the Jersey Shore brain melt effect, but this guy is posting all over - this is just one of his rants.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103594/board/thread/168772581?d=176387563#176387563
Greg, the numbers do reflect reality. The Godfather was a huge blockbuster, and movies like that always spawn decades of imitators. That's what the research you cited basically shows. Everyone wants to make their own "Italian mob" movie or have their own "Italian thug" character. That's normal. There's no "anti-Italian conspiracy" in the media. If you want to blame someone, blame Puzo and Coppola for telling such an epic, influential story (or Italian gangsters for being more successful than other ethnicities' gangsters and inspiring that story). But then that takes us back to your deranged self-censorship proposal where you claim that those artists and others are "selling out their own" for money and should not tell the stories they tell.
ReplyDeleteTo "Me"- I looked into it and left a reply. I also reported him, and will alert my members to him. Thanks for the heads up- I really appreciate it. If anything else happens in the future, just send me a quick message or post.
ReplyDeleteTo "Italianthro"- How do the numbers reflect reality when there have been less than 5,000 Italian gangsters? The Italian American population is in excess of 20 million. The percentage of Italian gangsters in our community is .00025%. If the numbers did reflect reality, then .00025% of movies with Italian characters would be mafia related.
I never said there was an "anti-Italian conspiracy." What I have said in the past and will continue to say is that the media will take advantage of a group as long as the group allows it. Italians allow it, and are repeatedly portrayed in stereotypical ways, without any positive portrayals to balance it out.
Also, in this post I did blame Puzo, Coppola, DeNiro, Pacino, and many others for acting in a socially irresponsible manner. You said it best- an epic like the Godfather flooded the market with imitators, and in the process did untold amounts of damage to our image in the media.
No one is saying these stories shouldn't be told, or that there should be censorship- but where is the parity? We brought civilization to the Western world as Romans and improved upon it as Italians during the Renaissance. Where are those stories?
The same way MTV wanted to hammer home the point that Italian = Guido, Hollywood loves to hammer home the point of Italian = Mafia. 99.999% of us are not gangsters or idiots, and our stories should be told.
Did you even read what I wrote? The numbers reflect the reality that Italians have been more successful as criminals than other ethnic groups, and that Italian gangster movies are better and more popular than other ethnicities' gangster movies. Get over it. There's no reason to think that will always be the case. Right now, the Russian mob is gaining in popularity (Eastern Promises, Lord of War), and so are Irish thugs (Gangs of New York, The Departed, The Black Donnellys).
ReplyDeleteAnd you most certainly did say that those stories shouldn't be told, advocating self-censorship as the solution. After accusing Coppola et al. of "selling out" Italians by making Mafia movies, you said, and I quote, "that needs to stop". Care to retract that statement?
You also ask where the stories about the Romans and the Renaissance are. Have you not heard of Rome on HBO, or the upcoming series on the Borgias? Plenty of great stories are being told, including Mafia stories.
The Italians are the most successful criminals? Are you serious? If anyone is going to need to retract a statement, its you. I don't know where you hang your ethnic pride, Italianthro. If you're hanging it on the idea that Italians are successful criminals, then this discussion is over. I'm open to intelligent discourse, not nonsense. Fine then- ethnic/racial group X is the most successful group at selling heroin. Lets make 500 movies about how that group and only that group is great at selling heroin. Perfect logic.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to truly quote me, I never mentioned self-censorship. That was a phrase of your own design. I said that Italians need to act in a socially responsible manner when it comes to the roles they play and the public's perception. Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino hold themselves out as great Italians, and yet they could care less how their movies impact the Italian community. That's undoubtedly a double standard.
So, the argument comes full circle. If Italians are acting in these roles and writing and directing these films, how can the Italian community ever say something is or is not offensive? The media will always fall back on the excuse of "An Italian made it" to continually allow for these portrayals to be made.
The Italian community does need to police itself, because these negative portrayals are coming from Italians. You want to call that self-censorship- I call that being responsible.
I don't curse and scream at the priest during mass, is that "self censorship?"
About Rome and the series on the Borgia family:
Rome was a 2 season series on very few aspects of the Roman empire and its achievements. Maybe, if it had lasted longer, it would have done Rome justice. For me, Rome was a great show- but of little substance. It does no more for the audience to understand the Roman empire and its achievements than Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
The Borgia's were one of the most corrupt families in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. I don't know what direction the show will go in- it can say "Hey, look- Italians were rotten 600 years ago too" or, it can counteract the Borgia's corruption with various aspects of Italian art and literature of the times. I won't speculate- I'll wait to see it.
What does ethnic pride have to do with anything? I'm just stating facts. The Italian mafia was more successful and more powerful than any other mob of its time, which is why Italian mafia movies became the most popular. I stand by that statement because it's the truth. Unlike you, I'm not afraid of reality.
ReplyDeleteSure, you don't want Italian artists to practice self-censorship. You just want them to "police themselves" and not make any more mafia movies. Totally different.
And where do you get the notion that Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino "hold themselves out as great Italians"? They strive to be great actors. That's it. Besides, DeNiro is only 1/4 Italian, and in two of his most famous gangster roles, he played Irish (Goodfellas) and Jewish (Casino), not Italian. And of the four gangsters Pacino has played, two were non-Italian (Scarface, Carlito's Way), while the non-Godfather Italian one was a real person (Donnie Brasco).
If you want to "understand the Roman Empire and its achievements", watch a documentary, not a fictionalized drama. And if the Borgias were corrupt, that's their own fault, and filmmakers are entirely justified in depicting them as they were. Or maybe you'd like to rewrite history too?
If you're just stating facts, I'd like to see the statistics you're citing. I want to know where it is written, in the annals of the FBI, that Italians are the most successful criminals and gangsters.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to have this discussion, you need to understand that for every "successful" Italian gangster was at least one Jewish and Irish gangster. Italians didn't like 'wars' with rivals, and lived by the mantra "Everybody has to eat." Do you think the mob's infiltration and construction of Las Vegas and the West was purely an Italian venture?
I used DeNiro and Pacino as examples stemming from our Godfather discussion. Would Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, Armand Assante, Robert Loggia, Matt LeBlanc, James Gandolfini, etc. suit you better?
Pacino has held himself out as a great Italian. DeNiro rarely lets on that he's 1/4 Italian, and it does come as a surprise to many that he is not full Italian.
You logic about the Borgia's is again faulty. In your world, that means filmmakers are just portraying gangsters as they are- Italians. If your logic holds true, then we should see movies playing to everyone's stereotypes, because its their own faulty <1% of them act this way.
I have met people like you in the past. You don't want to admit that white America looks at you a bit differently because of the vowel at the end of your name. If you admit that its happening, then you must not be white and that makes you inferior, right? News flash- only in America are Italians considered "white", and do Italians strive to be called white. It is an American social construct. Travel to Europe and every European (Italians included) will tell you Italians are LATIN, along with the French and Spanish. In fact, Italians were the first Latins.
There is no shame or harm in saying that your customs and traditions vary greatly from what American considers "white."
Lastly- for someone who seems to not think Italian stereotypes exist, your blog entry of 11/22 is intriguing. Why do you care what the "stats" say about Italian criminality? What are you trying to tell your viewers?
I'd have to dig around for some actual statistics, but the FBI's organized crime website begins with the heading "It's not just the Mafia anymore", which tells you what ethnic group has reigned supreme up until now. And then this is how its page on the Mafia begins:
ReplyDelete"Since their appearance in the 1800s, the Italian criminal societies known as the Mafia have infiltrated the social and economic fabric of Italy and now impact the world. They are some of the most notorious and widespread of all criminal societies."
Many of the other actors you mentioned are not fully Italian either, but the point is that they've also played non-Italian gangsters, and non-gangsters. They're not doing only Mafia movies, and neither are Italian filmmakers, which means they're already "acting in a socially responsible manner", and your complaints are unwarranted. (Btw, in that link, Pacino doesn't say anything about being a "great Italian". He simply states that his ancestry is 100% Italian. Nothing more. He actually comes off as very dismissive of "Italianness" as opposed to just "Americanness".)
What the hell are you talking about "my logic"? If the Borgias were corrupt, and you tell their story, then you have to present their corruption. Period. Only an obsessed anti-def nutjob would interpret that (and Mafia movies) as a slam against all Italians.
"White America" is stupid. They used to think the Irish weren't white, and most of them don't know the difference between Spain and Mexico (and hence between Latin Europeans and Latin Americans). Their opinion is irrelevant. My goal is simply to dispel myths and correct misinformation about Italians, regardless of the source, which is why I argue equally against nonsense about Italian immigrant criminality and all of your nonsense.