These are some of the answers furnished by the
students in my course on
"The Mafia and The Movies: The
Social Construction of the
Image of Italians and Italian
Americans by the Media."
The answers do not purport to be scientific, however they are very revealing.
If allegedly intelligent,educated college students
can be so misinformed,
what must the rest of America think?
>From what the students write, I think two things are immediately obvious:
1) the media do impact the image of Italians and
Italian Americans very
negatively--far beyond anything I had even dreamed.
2) When people are exposed to the actual facts,
they are capable of
reassessing their opinions.
You are welcome to use this material, so long as it is properly credited.
Ben Lawton
--
Chair, Interdisciplinary Italian Studies
Chair, Interdisciplinary Film Studies
Editor, Romance Languages Annual (Italian)
Editor, Italian Cultural Studies
765-494-3860 tel; 765-496-1700 fax
lawton@purdue.edu
**********************************************************
QUESTION:
Do Mafia movies and television shows such as the Sopranos affect the
image
of Italians and Italian Americans?
ANSWER:
We surveyed 40 students in our respective organizations, in some
cases where we lived, and came up with some amusing replies when
questioning about ItalianAmericans. We surveyed a fraternity,
sorority,
and a co-op. It broke down like this.
Males: 50%
Italian: 15%
- this includes any amount of Italian
in the student surveyed
Females: 50%
Italian: 20%
Italians (Total): 18%
Non-Italians (Total): 82%
Have you seen any T.V. shows or movies containing the Mafia? : 98% Yes
2% No
Some of the most prominent Mafia movies/shows replied were:
56% Godfather 15% Sopranos
10% Goodfellas
13% Casino
5% Bronx Tale 1% Godfather III
Name the first famous Italian off the top of your head.
Italians replied with:
43% Mussolini
29% Michelangelo
14% Al Pacino
14% Giuseppe Verdi
Non-Italians replied:
3% Mario (Video Game)
3% Luigi (Video Game)
3% Gotti
3% Mussolini
6% Al Capone
6% Rocky
9% Tony Soprano
12% Al Pacino
15% Godfather (movie character)
16% Joe Pesci
24% Robert De Niro
Are you fascinated by the Mafia lifestyle?
Males: 90% Yes
Females: 35% Yes
Are Americans fascinated?
Yes: 98%
No: 2%
The Sopranos and HBO are being sued by an ItalianAmerican organization
for
defaming ItalianAmericans in their show, is this right?
Italians:
Agree:
14%
Disagree: 86%
Non-Italians:
Agree:
0%
Disagree: 91%
Un-sure:
9%
Name three things that come to mind when thinking of ItalianAmericans
Italians replied with:
-smooth -good food
-intelligent
-charming -easy to get along with
-interesting -good-looking -cultured
Non-Italians said:
*Mafia
*Sopranos *greedy
*sneaky
*good food *New York *violence
*accents
*suits
*hairy
-dark
-nice cars
-whacking -hot guys
-guns
-mean
-greased hair -Dago
-wine
-Frank Sinatra -pasta
-cappucino -violin case
*-said more than once
Some catch phrases we thought were worth noting during the survey:
Hell yeah, I wanna be in the Mafia. Who doesnt?
Who doesnt like watching Goodfellas
Can your dad hook me up?
Adriana Bartucci; Nathan Ely; Ellen Finizio; Giuseppe Nasti
******************************************************
QUESTION:
What percentage of Italian Americans are "made" members of the Mafia
according to the FBI? Express this figure both as a percentage and
arithmetically. I.e., 10 % = 10 out of 100.
ANSWER:
At the height of Mafia involvement
There were allegedly 5,000 Italian Americans who
were "made" to be
members of the Mafia, out of 15 million Italian Americans, this means
that
the maximum is:
---- 0.03% of Italian Americans were in the Mafia
or 3 out of every
10,000. -----
In present times
There are allegedly 1,500 Italian Americans who
are "made" to be members
of the Mafia, out of 20 million Italian Americans, this means that
the
present percentage is:
---- 0.0075% of Italian Americans are in the Mafia
or 3 out of every
40,000 -----
Another interesting fact
Out of the 500,000 members of organized crime in
America today, Italian
Americans only have 1,500 members which means:
---- 0.3% of organized crime members are Italian Americans or
3 out of
every 1,000 ----
**********************************************************
QUESTION:
Why is it essential to know and understand these figures?
ANSWER:
It is essential to understand these figures because the majority of
stereotypes of Italian Americans are unfairly based on these few individuals
that make up the Mafia. The problem is that, as the numbers show,
these
individuals of the Mafia make up an unbelievably minute portion of
the
Italian American population and it is unthinkable to base views and
images
of all Italian Americans based on the alleged actions and ways of 0.0075%
of
their population.
That would be like singling out a small group of
Americans, like WWF and
WCW professional wrestlers, and applying all the stereotypes of that
group
to all Americans. Professional wrestlers wear tights, large boots,
capes,
masks, and wear underwear on the outside of their clothes, which greatly
differs from the garb of the vast majority of Americans. The
wrestlers also
assign themselves nicknames like "Booker T", "Undertaker", "the Rock",
"the
Million Dollar Man", and "Stone Cold" and have a certain loud theme
song to
be played whenever they are introduced. If all Americans
only responded to
their self-made cool nicknames and blared a theme song when entering
their
place of business, life would be much more exciting but this is not
the
case. The point is that an image of a whole group cannot be taken
from 3 of
its 40,000 members (proportionally).
Another problem is that a large number of organized
crime films have the
focus on Italian Americans, which leads the public to stereotype that
most
organized crime is done by Italian Americans. Once again this
is unfair to
the group of Italian Americans because only 0.3% of the members of
organized
crime are Italian. To be proportional, only 1 out of 1,000 movies
about
organized crime should be about Italians, which is clearly not the
case.
D.J. ("Slick") Tamer
