I recently re-watched this movie on HBO. I remember feeling “meh” about it back when I first saw it in the theater. But now that I’m older and less bothered by sexual content, I actually enjoyed it. It had a lot going on in it (morality, loyalty, identity, homophobia, peer pressure, mob mentality, paranoia, xenophobia, racism, etc.) in addition to the thriller/horror bit. Plus, the soundtrack was right up my alley. I loved seeing John Leguizamo dance!
But although the plot itself isn’t standard and Lee balances out the Italian stuff with plenty of scenes of black people rioting, it’s just another “Italian New Yorkers are all violent, misogynistic, foul-mouthed greaseballs” flick. I’ll cop to enjoying these kinds of movies. But I imagine they must grate the nerves of those who wish for more positive portrayals.
Are there any films set in NYC about Italian Americans that aren’t like this?
Little Nemo, John Leguizamo wasn’t in Do The Right Thing. I know, I just spent 15 minutes going through his filmography trying to figure out what movie was being referenced. I finally figured out it was Summer of Sam, but on preview it’s already been established. But yeah, you’d THINK Leguizamo would be in Do The Right Thing, everybody else was, but no, he was not.
That was my first guess, too, figuring that he probably meant Spike Lee, but a quick “actor + director” search pulled up “Summer of Sam,” which I haven’t seen.
I’m from the area of the Bronx where that was filmed (and where a couple the Son of Sam’s shootings occurred). I thought it was remarkable how badly Spike Lee did in depicting the Italian-American culture of the area. He was completely tone-deaf in most of the interactions. (I’m Irish-German myself, but many of my friends and in-laws are Italian Americans.)
City Island, which is set in the same general area, doesn’t involve the Mafia, although it does depicts a pretty odd and dysfunctional family.
City Island, one of my favorite movies in the past few years. Andy Garcia plays Vince Rizzo, a prison guard, excuse me, a corrections officer, who lives in the tucked-away NYC enclave with his blowsy wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies), his confused daughter Vivian (Garcia’s real-life daughter Dominik García-Lorido), and his wonderful, open-minded son Vince Jr. (Ezra Miller). Er, one of his sons, because he picks up another one at his job. Vince wants nothing more than to be an actor, but he feels he can’t tell anyone because they’d laugh at him. Also in the movie is Alan Arkin as Vince’s drama teacher (Vince tells his family he’s going out with the boys but he’s really talking acting lessons) and Emily Mortimer as his fellow student who has her own story.
It’s a wonderful movie, very Italian, very NY and not a mafia goombah in any frame.
One of the earliest feature-length films made in the US depicted an Italian-American as a crime-fighting hero: The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino (1912) told the story of a real-life New York police detective who was killed in 1909 while investigating an extortion racket.
George Beban made a career out of portraying poor but likable Italian immigrants during the 1910s and 20s. The Italian (1915) is the only film of his in wide circulation, although a few more survive in archives.
Dorothy Gish’s love interest in Gretchen the Greenhorn (1916) is Italian-American, and other positive depictions of the time included Enrico Caruso in My Cousin (1918), Alice Brady in Little Italy (1921), and Rudolph Valentino in Cobra (1925). Ramon Novarro’s Italian-American character in Huddle (1932) was portrayed as an ultimately successful college athlete and graduate.
Probably just observer bias. You could probably remember a lot of films about the yakuza, but with a little thought, you can think of tons of films with Japanese people without them.