Speaking of "The Sopranos" ...A Two Part Question About Stereotyping

I just looked at the thread that poses the question, “Is Tony Soprano Evil?” and it got me thinking…Wondering, really.

I’m partially of Sicilian descent, on my dad’s side. I have Dad’s last name - obviously an Italian one. I’ve found that a side effect of this is that many people have asked me, both in seriousness and as a ‘joke’, “So…Do you have family in the Mafia?” or “I’d better not piss you off, huh? I dunno who your family is.”

It’s not just me, either. Not long ago I discussed this very subject with a professor of mine, Dr. Romano. At one point I said, “You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me if my family’s Mafia!”. She looked at me, laughed, and said, “Wouldn’t I? I have an Italian last name too, kiddo.”

So. I’m asking a two part question - not so much about “The Sopranos” itself, but the way Italian Americans are portrayed in television/cinema fiction.

Part One - It’s my impression that Italians are one of the few ethnic groups left about whom it’s okay to not only encourage sweeping generalizations, but show them on television/in movies. Am I off-base?

Part Two - Do you think that Mafia-glorifying movies/television shows have a measurable impact on most people’s view of Italian-Americans?

And yes, I do recognize that I’m talking about fiction. I also think that Italian stereotypes on TV are much more prevalent these days than sterotypes of other ethnicities. So, have I been smoking too much crack, or am I onto something?

It’s just the way racism works. When it comes to ethnicity/race, accomplishments are individualized while mistakes are racialized.

If there is a great Italian-American doctor, he is viewed a just a good doctor. If there is a criminal of Italian descent, he is portrayed as a Sicilian Mafioso.

I think Italians have it worse in some ways. If there is a TV role with a Black FBI agent doing good, that is a positive role. Italians don’t have any roles that counter-balance all the portrayals as Mafiosi. If there is a Special Agent with the last name Profaci, many people don’t see the agent as being Italian. He’s just an FBI agent.

I tend to agree with archmichael. It seems to me that Italian-Americans actually suffer somewhat due to the considerable extent to which they have, as an immigrant group, become “Americanized,” combined with the mafia stereotype. That is, an Italian in a non-mafia role is likely to be seen as just another American, whereas one in a mob-type role is more closely connected by the audience with being specifically Italian-American.

I would never suggest that media stereotypes have no effect on people at all, but my general impression is that different stereotypes have different impacts, depending on the way in which it is done and on the place of the particular racial or ethnic group within the broader society. I don’t think many people are stupid enough to believe, for example, that all Italians have mob connections, just like people who watch Bruce Lee and Jet Li movies probably don’t believe that all Chinese are martial arts experts.

As i’m not of Italian background, i have no personal perspective to offer on how mob stereotyping might affect such people, but i do remember reading one article (sorry, i can’t remember where) that said that real-life modern crime families in America have actually modelled themselves on the glamourous media stereotypes (Godfather, Sopranos) in the belief that it is a cool image. Shoot me down if i’m talking out of my arse, but i know that i read that in an article somewhere.

Interestingly, this is far from being a recent problem. Film historian Ruth Vasey, writing about the 1920s and 1930s, points out that Hollywood was under considerable fire in the inter-war period for its stereotyping of Italians (and other ethnic groups). In a fascinating article, Vasey points out that as Hollywood tried to expand its markets both in the US and worldwide, it ran into a problem - if it filled its movies with negative stereotypes of particular groups, those groups wouldn’t watch the movies. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) brought out a set of guidelines that instructed studios on how to avoid this problem. Of course, studios were often able to get the stereotypes in without naming anyone directly; Vasey gives an example whereby a mob-type villain would not be given an Italian name, but instead would be shown in a scene eating a big plate of spaghetti, a food not commonly eaten outside the Italian-American community during the period.

Hollywood also used its ethnic representations to force its movies on countries that didn’t really want them. Japan was very reluctant to take any foreign films, but the MPPDA essentially told them that if they didn’t buy the films, then Hollywood would have no incentive not to stereotype Japanese, and they would end up wearing the “black hats” in American movies.

See Ruth Vasey, “Foreign Parts: Hollywood’s Global Distribution and the Representation of Ethnicity,” American Quarterly, 44 (December 1992): 617-62.