NIAF does it again
One that occasionally pays obligatory lip service to fighting Italian American defamation, but in fact, and despite a propensity for inflating its image and influence beyond all reality, is ineffective, inconsequential and meaningless.
For all of our sakes, I wish I could convince myself of that. But I can’t. It’s the “inconsequential” part that doesn’t fit. Because NIAF’s actions are indeed of significant consequence in one very critical way. And it isn’t a good way.
Once again, this star-struck group has delivered a clear message to the outside world that case against Italian American defamation is one rife with contradiction, selectivity, and shallowness.
To fully understand my point, we need to go back a number of years ago, when I publicly objected to NIAF’s honoring of actor Robert De Niro at its annual gala on those very grounds through the following commentary. It merits a second look because apparently nothing has changed:
In recent response to anti-defamation complaints, HBO spokesperson Michelle Boas noted that the cast of "The Sopranos" "consists almost entirely of Italian-Americans" who surely would not take part in a TV series "that disparages their heritage." She isn’t the first to make this disarming observation, nor is “The Sopranos” the only instance toward which the same observation has been made. It could and has been regularly applied in defense of the countless mob-themed movies and TV programs that have appeared in merciless succession over the past decades with Italian American names on the credit scroll.
And
it’s an effective defense. What ethnic or racial group would
willingly, if not anxiously, promote self-destructive stereotyping?
It’s difficult to imagine, for instance, someone like Steven Spielberg
routinely and purposefully producing film after film in which Jewish characters
are depicted as unscrupulous slumlords or corrupt financiers, or
It’s always been an argument that’s difficult for Italian American anti-defamation activists to answer. And now it’s become even more difficult, thanks to the National Italian American Foundation and the much publicized honoring of Robert De Niro at its 27th Anniversary Gala banquet.
From 1968, when he played the part of fictitious Italian American
pornographer Sam Nicoletti in "Sam's Song" to his latest, second
round performance as fictitious mob chief
In fact, his filmography will not reveal a single instance in which an Italian American character or the surrounding plot is not tainted by violence or criminality. If De Niro isn’t a prime specimen for the cause of our “image problems”, I’d like to know who is.
But now, courtesy of NIAF, critics of our anti defamation efforts can add a convincing and justifiable supplement to their point. If any of the above-cited productions disparaged the Italian American image, why would De Niro have had a hand in them…and why would NIAF, a high profile Italian American organization that claims to be the national “voice” of the Italian American community, actually honor him for doing so? I have no easy answers to that one. No one does. Except, NIAF, of course, and I suspect it has no answers, either. At least no good, credible answer.
Unless that
answer can be found hidden in the organization’s
But that may well be a misinterpretation; an assumption that comes from reading too deeply into the words. In truth, it may be that NIAF simply monitors the portrayal of Italian Americans and hands out an award to the biggest Italian American name, regardless of the extent he or she may have contributed to the ongoing brutalization of our collective image in popular culture.
It did so in the past, after all, bestowing similar honors upon actors Al Pacino and Danny De Vito, despite the many unflattering depictions of Italian American characters upon which both men have structured their careers.
If any easy answer is provided at all by this, it’s strictly to the question of why the very broadly defined Italian American “anti defamation movement” continues to get no where…failing not only to eliminate the interminable succession of hostile depictions on stage, screen and print, but also to induce equal time for positive Italian American images for the simple sake of balance.
And one, big reason why is the utter lack of cohesion, consensus, and unity of purpose among the many Italian American groups that claim to be fighting for the cause. By honoring De Niro, one of the greatest offenders, NIAF has only accomplished the following things. It has underscored this lack of unity. It has arrogantly neutralized the efforts of those of us who have long objected to De Niro’s arm-length list of offensive roles. It has inadvertently endorsed those roles, since the actor can hardly be separated from his work. And it has freely handed plenty of ammunition to those who dismiss Italian American anti-defamationists as a hypersensitive minority. Thanks loads, NIAF.
This commentary along with a rebuttal by NIAF’s Joseph Cerrell was published in the March, 2003 issue of Fra Noi, the Chicago-based Italian American monthly. Cerrell, not surprisingly, defended NIAF’s decision to honor De Niro for his artistic merits, but noted with painful accuracy that if his organization’s policy was to honor only those Italian American actors who had NOT played mob roles at some point in their careers, there would be few actors to honor indeed. Perhaps most revealing was Cerrell’s statement that only 16% of NIAF “supporters” view Italian American stereotyping as “the single most important issue to them”, so De Niro’s long history of propagating the Italian mobster image was a non-issue as far as NIAF was concerned.
Though he never directly addressed my point regarding the incongruity of it all, Cerrell did conclude with a gentle chiding that Italian American groups should “stop fighting each other”.
Now let me see. As
an Italian American activist, I’ve spent years trying to convince people
that
Meanwhile, others admonished me for “airing our dirty laundry” in public or for jumping to conclusions when I might not have all of the facts. For instance, it was offered by one well-meaning person, how did I know that to handing him an award NIAF hadn’t sat down with De Niro and worked out a “secret deal” in which the actor agreed to start backing away from the mob stuff and using his considerable influence in Hollywood to push for positive depictions of Italians?
Well, I didn’t know if that had happened or not. But I did know that it was not likely. And I was right.
Not long thereafter, the Italic Institute of America alerted the community that Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks was planning to produce Shark Tale, an animated kids’ film featuring Italian mobster fish…and a misguided concept that most clear-thinking Italian American activists immediately and rightly understood to be setting the dangerous precedent of marketing the associations of Italians with criminality directly to children.
As soon as NIAF got wind that a movement opposing the film was beginning to coalesce, it not only climbed on board, but demanded a leading role. The irony, of course, was the fact that the actor doing the voice over for the main Mafia shark in Shark Tale was none other than, yes, Robert De Niro!
So much for the “secret deal” theory. Not only was De Niro demonstrating no regret whatsoever for his chronic despoiling of the Italian image, he clearly saw no problem in force-feeding it to a new generation of kids.
NIAF certainly came to realize this, for it wasn’t long thereafter that when the Italian Government announced its intention to reward De Niro’s “artistic merits” with honorary Italian citizenship, NIAF was among the loudest to object…citing, yes, the very same reasons that I had listed in the above commentary.
Does anyone else see the incongruity here? Any mixed messages? I could only speculate that there had been some sudden and remarkable increase over the paltry 16% of NIAF supporters who are anti defamation- minded as cited earlier by Cerrell.
De Niro, by the way, responded by publicly describing Italian American anti-defamation activists (including, presumably, NIAF) as “stronzi” (“pieces of shit”).
Some small comfort, if any, that might be taken from all of this was that NIAF must certainly have learned its lesson and would be more judicious in selecting honorees. But to hope for such a thought risked underestimating the organization’s arrogance, or perhaps, schizophrenia.
Why? At its 32nd
Anniversary Gala Awards Dinner next month, NIAF will now pay homage to Martin
Scorsese! Yes, the very same guy who gave us Goodfellas, Mean Streets,
Casino, Raging Bull and other, assorted aggressive
contributions to
The very same guy who is, even at this very moment, working on yet another new mob film (Frankie Machine) starring none other than, yes, Robert De Niro!
And very same guy who also starred in the voiceover of another Italian-mob character in Shark Tale (!), which, scrolling up a few paragraphs, you’ll remember is the very film that NIAF so vigorously opposed.
Actually, all you need to do is re-read the above commentary but substitute “De Niro” with “Scorsese” and there you have it.
According to its PR, NIAF
is honoring Scorsese “for launching the Jack Valenti
Institute in memory of the former head of the Motion Picture Association of
That’s swell.
But for whatever else he might have done, for all of his influence, Valenti
himself did or said nothing of any weight or consequence for the
anti-defamation cause or for helping abate the plague of Italic debasement
regularly ladled out his
NIAF, by the way, will also heap honors on Rudy Giuliani at the same, above mentioned function in a few weeks. Giuliani, of course, has an outside chance of becoming our first President who happens to have an Italic surname. That, in NIAF’s typical logic, is enough to merit an evening of photo-ops.
But a lot of Italian American activists believe that loyalty to Giuliani should not be won simply because of the vowel at the end of his name. And for good reasons, like those enunciated by the Italic Institute’s Rosario Iaconis in the recently published commentary reprinted below.
Giuliani, as we all know, loved telling everyone that he was a big Godfather series and Sopranos fan, criticized Italian anti-defamationists as being overly sensitive, and still enjoys doing mobster impersonations in public. He has never done anything to support or assist our position. He has only weakened it. But maybe I don’t have all of the facts. Maybe NIAF has worked out a “secret deal” (see above) to get him to stop with the Mafia jokes. Right.
NIAF likes to call itself the “voice” of the Italian American community. Well it’s not MY voice. And, god forbid, it doesn’t speak MY views. I speak my own views. And there you have them.
Rudy Giuliani's mafia jargon deters Italian voters
September 11, 2007
Just as some firefighters and relatives of
those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, don't want Rudolph Giuliani giving a reading at
today's Ground Zero ceremony, the man who would be Churchill is in danger of
becoming persona non grata within his own ethnicity.
Despite a distinguished career as a crime-busting federal prosecutor (in the
great Roman classical tradition of jurisprudential excellence), two terms as
mayor of the country's most heavily Italian-American city and a lifelong
admiration for his predecessor Fiorello LaGuardia, Giuliani has turned his back
on his Italian roots. Giuliani plays the dumbed-down-Italian card with gusto.
While campaigning on the West Coast earlier this year, "
Is this political theater, ethnic
self-loathing or both?
Whatever the reason - his heart or his handlers - it is self-defeating. In a
nation with nearly 25 million Americans of Italian descent - many of whom are
swing voters in the battleground states of
In the Northeastern states of
Perhaps Giuliani feels he can take Italian-American voters for granted by
virtue of the tell-tale vowel at the end of his surname. But why trifle with
the country's fourth-largest white ethnic group? On what position paper is it
written that Giuliani must wallow in the muck and mire of Mafia mythos?
Why can't he identify himself as a proud Italian in the same manner that Ronald
W. Reagan and John F. Kennedy jauntily called themselves Irishmen? Michael
Dukakis invoked the ideals of ancient
Why can't Giuliani speak of his Italian origins, and of
There was a glimmer of hope when he journeyed to
Instead, we hear this: When asked about his wife Judith's role in a Giuliani
administration, he couldn't resist reverting to form: "I am a candidate.
She's a civilian, to use the old Mafia distinction." When queried about
Hillary Clinton's vile Internet spoof of the "Sopranos" finale, he
responded with a question of his own: "Think she's trying to get the Mafia
vote?"
Peggy Noonan, one of President Ronald Reagan's favorite speechwriters and a New
Yorker to the bone, has a wry take on these tawdry proceedings: "Can't
have enough candidates for president who whimsically employ the language of mobsters."
Mario Cuomo, a man who surely missed his rendezvous with destiny, knows full
well the dangers posed by anti-Italian intolerance. He witnessed Geraldine
Ferraro's trials as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984. And the
Italo-Americans should not support Giuliani simply on the basis of ethnic
pride. The best advice for both candidate and voter in 2008 can be found in the
words of the ancient Roman statesman, Marcus Aurelius:
"Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power
alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and
judgments that overthrow the rule of reason. It enables you to learn from
experience, to live in harmony with others, and to walk in the way of the
gods."