I was working from home recently while taking care of my daughter, who was 
recovering from one of those seasonal viruses. Like any good parent, I would 
check up on her from time to time to offer her soup, take her temperature 
and, in general, see how she was doing. 

Like any good child, my daughter’s balm of choice has always been the 
animated cartoons that fill the daytime TV schedule. Because I’m a bit of a 
cartoon fanatic myself, I would find myself perched on the edge of the bed, 
catching up on the latest episodes of “Rugrats” or “Histeria.”

In yet another example of how Mafia stereotypes can pop up in the most 
appalling of places, I counted no less than three visitations by 
mob-connected cartoon characters during that single afternoon of TV viewing. 

The first came as no surprise: Steven Spielberg’s “Animaniacs” regularly 
spotlights a trio of mobster pigeons known as “The Goodfeathers.”

The second was something of a shocker: an episode of the popular Japanese 
series “Dragonball Z” featuring a group of Italian-surnamed hoodlums who 
were trying to pull the wool over eys of the townfolk.

The third sent me over the edge: the first of two “Simpsons” episodes kicked 
off with a mob-connected Italian-American construction boss who bullies the 
school principal into spending $200,000 on handicapped ramps that 
disintegrate upon contact and bankrupt the school.

“Is there no safe haven?” I lamented to myself. But as my anger subsided, I 
began to look at the question less as a cry of despair and more as a 
springboard for research.

It has long been obvious to me that negative stereotyping of Italian 
Americans by the entertainment industry is far more pervasive than we think. 
More recently, it has occurred to me that positive portrayals are just as 
conspicuous by their absence. In our statistics-crazed culture, nothing 
speaks louder than percentages, so I propose the following sweeping study.

Let us take every single American-made first-run movie released in a given 
year, every single fictional television show (as opposed to game, talk, news, 
history, nature, sports, survival or other reality-based shows) aired on 
cable and the networks during that same time period, and every single 
American-made movie available at Blockbuster Video; review each film and 
episode; and answer the following questions:

1) How many major characters are there?

2) How many of these characters are Italian Americans?

3) How many minor characters are there?

4) How many of these characters are Italian Americans?

5) How many are clear-cut heroes?

6) How many of these are Italian Americans?

7) How many are largely positive?

8) How many of these are Italian Americans?

9) How many are clear-cut villains?

10) How many of these are Italian Americans?

11) How many are members of organized crime?

12) How many of these are Italian Americans?

13) How many shows focus primarily on the Italian-American experience?

14) How many are largely positive? largely negative?

15) How many shows are set in Italy?

16) How often are these settings portrayed positively? negatively?

We would also want to keep track of every anti-Italian or mob-related comment 
that pops up in the course of a given episode or film, as well as every note 
of praise for Italy or Italian America. To make the study complete, we would 
want to do the same thing for the following ethnic groups: Irish, Polish, 
Russian, Jewish, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, 
Indian/Pakistani and Native American.

The undertaking I’m proposing is massive: There’s no doubt about it. What 
I’m talking about is a show-by-show, movie-by-movie cataloging of every 
character, great and small, by ethnicity and, for lack of a better word, 
stereotypicality.

We would, of course, have to answer some key questions first: “What 
constitutes a largely positive vs. a largely negative portrayal?” for 
example, and  “How does that vary from ethnic group to ethnic group?”

We would then have to marshal our human and financial resource as we never 
have before. A sizable team of volunteers would have to be assembled, brought 
up to speed and provided with the necessary material, then turned loose on 
the industry, show by show, film genre by film genre. We would need to keep 
descriptive as well as numerical records, so that each statistic can be 
driven home with colorful examples.

We all know what the outcome will be: that the overwhelming majority of 
positive or heroic characters are not Italian American, and that the 
painfully few Italian-American characters are overwhelmingly not positive or 
heroic. We will probably also find that most other ethnic groups suffer the 
same indignities. 

Once the study is complete, however, we will have proof on a scale that has 
never been achieved before. We will also have a tool that will allow us to 
build bridges to other ethnic groups in our pursuit of fair and equal 
treatment by the entertainment industry.

Whatever the price may be, it will be small in comparison to the rewards we 
will reap.