Tuesday,
September 11,
Giuliani: Mob Buster, But Mafia Film Buff,
and Mafia Schtick; Offensive to Italian Americans
The
ANNOTICO Report
Wouldn't
it be IRONIC if enough voters forget about Giuliani's Mob Busting, But instead
were significantly Negatively Influenced by Giuliani's and his Love for
Mafia Movie/TV series, his Mafia "Schticks",
and Petty Mob ties of his Father and Uncle.
Maybe
then, it would be a "Wake Up" Call ...that would finally get through
his "testa dura"
that incessant negative/mafia portryals are an albatross around the Italian American
communities neck.!!!!
While many
Italian-American public figures avoided the word "Mafia," saying it
reinforced stereotypes, Giuliani used it repeatedly at news conferences.
"By using the word Mafia correctly," he insisted, "you actually
help to end the unfair stereotype."
{
That
is an astronomically stupid statement. It would be like: If every body
used the words Kike and Hebe correctly it would help. Rudy
try that on your new wife Judith Nathan, and see how receptive she is).
Giuliani's
ventures into mob-speak are an issue that Italian-American groups have
complained about to the candidate, said Dona De Sanctis,
deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in America.
"If Mr.
Giuliani continued to do his Don Corleone imitation,
that would offend and annoy a large number of Italian-Americans," she
said. "We would prefer no jokes, please. It's not a laughing matter to us.
The former federal prosecutor is both film
buff and mob buster, still breaking out his raspy Don Corleone
impression and quoting lines from "The Godfather" more than two
decades after busting up the
But Giuliani spent a lot more time he once estimated 4,000 hours listening to the bugged conversations of
real Mafiosi than channeling Marlon Brando's chipmunk-cheeked boss. And long
before anyone heard of Tony Soprano (yes, Rudy's a fan), Giuliani was jailing
"Fat Tony"
Giuliani's mob fascination including a reported link in his own family has already surfaced during the presidential campaign, although few expect much political fallout from the occasional "Godfather" parody. But it provides a glimpse into his career path from prosecutor to mayor to presidential candidate.
When he arrived as
While many Italian-American public figures avoided the word "Mafia," saying it reinforced stereotypes, Giuliani used it repeatedly at news conferences. "By using the word Mafia correctly," he insisted, "you actually help to end the unfair stereotype."
Giuliani's prosecutorial zeal led an attorney
for Genovese boss
Giuliani, uncharacteristically, replied with a no comment.
In addition to the "Commission"
case, where the heads of
The former two-term mayor's interest in the mob, as either movie patron or prosecutor, is unlikely to impact his presidential candidacy, said one political analyst. Voters are more likely to focus on his performance after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or his three marriages and the resultant fallout.
"The positive for Giuliani is
9/11," said pollster Maurice Carroll of
A 2000 investigative biography revealed that
Giuliani's love/hate deal with the Mafia included his own family: His father
and uncle had Mafia ties. Uncle Leo D'Avanzo ran a
loan-sharking and gambling operation out of a
According to the book, the two were involved
in a shootout with a member of the mob on a
Giuliani did not dispute the book's claims, but said: "I'm not going to read it, I'm not going to comment about it."
The book said Giuliani's cousin Lewis D'Avanzo was a mob associate who ran a major car theft ring. It also says the FBI suspected that D'Avanzo who went to school with Giuliani and attended the mayor's first wedding was involved in several murders.
D'Avanzo was killed in
Among the book's claims is that the mayor's father spent a year and a half in Sing Sing prison for robbing a milkman at gunpoint in the 1930s a decade before Rudy Giuliani was born.
But Carroll said that issue wouldn't play nationally.
"If anybody is discouraged for voting for Giuliani because they think of the mob, I think they should be locked up for pure idiocy," he said.
Giuliani has long expressed his admiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning films on the fictional Corleone crime family. On New Year's Eve 1997, Giuliani screened "The Godfather" for 1,500 well-wishers gathered before his second-term mayoral inauguration.
Giuliani even cited the film as a blueprint for prosecutors.
"'The Godfather' is my favorite
movie," Giuliani said at the time. "I watched the movie back in the
'70s and probably it helped me a lot, in a lot of the plans that we put
together for how to dismantle the five families in
He later became a booster of "The Sopranos," the hit HBO series about a New Jersey-based mob family. "It's just a show," he said when Italian-American groups criticized the program for perpetuating ethnic stereotypes.
Giuliani's "Godfather" schtick has prompted similar complaints.
At an annual event put on by
And he opened a
"She's a civilian, to use the old Mafia distinction," he said.
In a case both business and personal, Giuliani's close friend and former business partner ex-NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik acknowledged his own mob entanglement last year by pleading guilty to accepting gifts from a company reputedly linked to organized crime.
Giuliani's ventures into mob-speak are an issue that Italian-American groups have complained about to the candidate, said Dona De Sanctis, deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in America.
"If Mr. Giuliani continued to do his Don Corleone imitation, that would offend and annoy a large number of Italian-Americans," she said. "We would prefer no jokes, please. It's not a laughing matter to us."
A Giuliani spokeswoman responded that he was "proud of his Italian heritage and has a record celebrating the country's culture and the important contributions Italian-American have made."
That group could include actor Tony Sirico, who played the menacing
"I love him," said Sirico. "Ya hear what I said? I love him."
Anybody got a
problem with that?
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