Tuesday,
March 27, 2007
"Sopranos" are Tired Insult, MisGuides Americans, Set Bad Example
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Sopranos heap Insult on Indignity on Injury.
Not
only do the unknowing Americans think that all Italians Americans are MAFIA,
they also think they
are a bunch of violent, stupid, uncouth, loud-mouthed slobs.
"The language! The way those kids talk to their parents. F-this
and F-that," Tischio said.
"Let
me tell you, if you so much as said 'hell' to my mother, my father would've
knocked me out of my chair.
And
the way they eat! In one show, even the mother was shoveling it in like a truck
driver. The guys in the show are a bunch of cafones."
Not
only does the show make Italians look bad, it makes Italian American young men
act like a bunch of guidos and cafones.
"For the
younger generation, this is like a guidebook on how to act." "They
try to sound and act like wiseguys, and they look
ridiculous."
Inside
a
By Mark Di Ionno
Tuesday,
March 27, 2007
On the day
"The Sopranos" filmed the final episode in
Take away the production
trucks and trailers, and it looked like a crime scene.
To some New
Jersey Italians, it was. Maybe not a crime. But a tired insult. Or a worn-out
Or, as the guys
in Fred Ardizzone's barbershop said, "a bunch of guidos and cafones."
Six seasons of guidos and cafones, cabled into
the homes of many millions, many of whom live far from neighborhoods like the Brookdale section of
"They (the
show's characters) are like caricatures of real people," said Mike Villani, 21, a college law
enforcement major. "People in
Not worse, but a
close second, is that it makes people think of New Jersey as a dank, industrial
wasteland of strip joints and construction sites, filled with violent, stupid,
uncouth, loud-mouthed slobs.
"Some of my
friends from college (Villanova) came up to visit, and of all the things to see
around here, they wanted to see the real Bada
Bing," said John Villani, 27, Michael's brother,
who is in commercial insurance.
The guys at Ardizzone's Brookdale Barbers are
almost all Italians with a token Irishman or two. They're mostly old guys,
retired from Bell Tel, Prudential, places like that.
Regular guys with regular pensions, with names like Anthony Anello,
Tom Tango and John Tischio. One regular is Nick Scalera, a former director of the Division of Youth and
Family Services.
On the day of the
Sopranos shooting, every chair in the shop was filled, including the second
brown barber stool, which goes unused because Fred is a one-man operation.
"Forty-two
years, in the same place, walking around in the same circle," he said.
"Every few years, I have to replace the floor."
The guys brought
in pizza and were whiling away the afternoon under graying photos of Marciano,
DiMaggio and LaMotta and local legend Two-Ton Tony Galento. None went outside to celebrity-glimpse.
"For
what?" said Tischio. "It's more fun here, with real Italians."
Most of the old
guys agreed the show distorts the morality of most Italian families, especially
in their day.
"You
couldn't find people who worked harder," Tango said. "They worked for
everything they had."
"It doesn't
reflect the good people," Anello said.
"Those people who go to church and say a prayer before they eat."
"The
language!
The way those kids talk to their parents. F-this and F-that," Tischio said. "Let me tell you, if you so much as said
'hell' to my mother, my father would've knocked me out of my chair. And the way
they eat! In one show, even the mother was shoveling it in like a truck driver.
The guys in the show are a bunch of cafones."
The old guys
mostly brush it all off. In their lives, they've seen and heard enough Italian jokes
to have thick skin.
"You know
what FBI stands for," said Anello. "Forever Bothering Italians."
"It's all
overdone. Some of it's just stupid," Ardizzone
said. "But it's all about money. What are you gonna
do?"
"This is a
product, this show. It's entertainment to sell," Anello
said. "You can't take it seriously."
But the Villani brothers disagree. Not only does the show make
Italians look bad, it makes young men act like a bunch of guidos
and cafones.
"For the
younger generation, this is like a guidebook on how to act," John said.
"They try to sound and act like wiseguys, and
they look ridiculous."
"All of this
stuff, 'The Sopranos,' 'Goodfellas,' is more about
being a guido than a gangster," Michael said.
"These kids can't be real gangsters, so they act like the guidos. They're so phony, with the steroid muscles and the
gold chains and spikey hair, it's laughable.
"And then
they say, 'I'm Italian!' They're not Italian. They're some bastardized version
of Italian-American," he said. "I've been to
Or
at least a bunch of cafones.
Mark
Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com or
(973) 392-1728.
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