"Media Watch" is an outstanding review of the past month regarding the 
Italian American "Image." The brief titles can not do justice to the 
marvelous content.

The 6th paragraph of the "Our Day in Court", that starts out 
"Interestingly,.." is a "TEMPLATE" that should be expected from all Italian 
Americans in Hollywood/Media. The prior paragraph put me on a "high" !  
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MEDIA WATCH
Our day in court
by James Scalzitti

(1) OUR DAY IN COURT - [A FIRST FOR 'FIRST MONDAY'?]
(2) ITALIAN CHAMPIONS
(3) “LIFE” SAVERS
(4) “HEALTHY” IMAGE  
(5) RAIN ON MY PARADE 
(6) NOT SO “RIGHT” 
(7) CONDE NAST-Y 
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(1) OUR DAY IN COURT - A FIRST FOR 'FIRST MONDAY'?
I normally don’t get too excited about new shows on CBS (I know CBS 
executives love hearing that from someone in the 18-49 demographic), but it 
was with some degree of interest that I looked to the premiere of the new 
Supreme Court-based drama “First Monday.” The show features big name actors 
like Joe Mantegna, Charles Durning and James Garner playing U.S. Supreme 
Court justices, and it attempts to show the court as the hit NBC show “West 
Wing” shows the White House. I was especially interested to see how they 
would handle Mantegna’s character, a suburban Chicago native named Novelli. 

These days, though, we are not surprised when an Italian-American character 
on television is accused of being associated with criminal elements. So 
imagine my lack of surprise when I realized that only a few weeks into its 
run, there would be a story line on “First Monday” that addressed the 
alleged mob ties of Justice Novelli. Surprisingly the matter was treated 
thoughtfully and honorably, and the result was a television triumph not only 
for Italians and Italian Americans, but for all Americans who have been 
unjustly stereotyped by the entertainment industry. 

In this episode, a U.S. senator who does not like Novelli’s unpredictability 
as an associate justice feeds a young reporter a photo of Novelli’s uncle 
taking an envelope back home from a John Gotti-like Mafia bigwig. This causes 
a great deal of distress for Novelli, who, in a flashback, is shown getting 
angry when he is asked at his confirmation hearing by a senator if he or 
anyone in his family has ever had any Mafia associations. “Perhaps the 
senator has been watching too much HBO,” Novelli told the confirmation 
committee in response. Interestingly, after we see the picture of Novelli’s 
uncle taking the envelope from the mobster, the show lets the idea stew in 
our minds (as well as in the minds of Novelli’s staffers) that maybe, Novelli 
has some sort of past association with the mob. 

Novelli goes back home, where he meets his Uncle Willie, who had been playing 
bocce with a group of other seniors. He asks his uncle about the envelope, 
and he finds out that what was in the envelope was a donation for a community 
center that the uncle was soliciting funds for. 

Novelli returns to Washington, and after a discussion with the chief justice, 
played by Garner, he decides to beat the press to the punch, and holds a news 
conference addressing the matter. At this news conference, Novelli stands, on 
the steps of the Supreme Court, joined by his fellow justices, to explain 
what was really happening in that picture. He didn’t just explain why his 
uncle was taking an envelope from the mobster, Novelli gave perhaps the 
greatest speech ever given by an Italian-American character on television. He 
passionately explained that his uncle and his uncle’s wife, who was in ill 
health, were no mere uncle and aunt, but that they were the people who raised 
him, and that there have been millions of people like his aunt and uncle who 
have come to this country from Italy and were good, decent, honest, 
hardworking people who do not get a “hot” series about them produced on 
cable TV. He reminded everyone who was watching that families like his and so 
many other immigrants were living the American Dream by working hard, 
creating close-knit communities, building families and doing whatever they 
could to make this country and this world a better place for all. His speech 
had me applauding and cheering, as if Mantegna had donned a Chicago Bulls 
jersey and led the team back to the NBA Championship, capturing their seventh 
league title with a slam dunk. 

Interestingly, when Mantegna signed onto “First Monday,” his character’s 
ethnicity was unspecified. Mantegna insisted he be made Italian American. 
Then he suggested to series creator Donald Bellisario that, if Novelli’s 
family came from Sicily, the issue of mob ties was bound to come up, so why 
not do a thoughtful episode about it? 

In at least one published interview, Mantegna has said that although Novelli 
singled out “The Godfather” and “The Sopranos” as problematic, he 
personally enjoys mob stories and appreciates the career boost they’ve given 
to Italian-American actors, writers and directors. 

“I’ve played those roles myself,” he said. “I don’t apologize for it. But I 
don’t feel there’s anything wrong with trying to balance the scales a little 
bit.” 

The problem, he said, is that too often, all we see of Italians and Italian 
Americans on-screen are the mob roles. 

“If somebody says ‘Italian-American,’ I don’t want them to just 
instinctively say, ‘The Godfather,’ or ‘The Sopranos,’ he said. “I’d like 
them to have a lot of choices. Maybe they’ll say, ‘First Monday.’”

At this point, such balance would be a huge step forward. 

If you saw this episode of “First Monday” and want to make your feelings 
about it known to the people at CBS, fire up your modems and send a note to 
this address: audsvcs@cbs.com. You can also go to the CBS Web site 
(www.cbs.com), which is the same Web site that you go to voice your support 
for “That’s Life,” and click on the heading that says “feedback” which will 
give you an electronic form for voicing your opinion on the show. Mantegna 
and Bellisario both deserve some rousing applause for their work. 
-----------------------------------------
(2) ITALIAN CHAMPIONS
Could that Friday night in February have gotten any better? Following the 
triumphant episode of “First Monday,” I switched channels to NBC, where I 
watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics. The ceremonies seemed 
to take forever, but the wait was worth it when the Olympic torch was carried 
into the stadium. A host of Olympic Games luminaries and past medal winners 
had a hand in bringing the torch into the stadium in Salt Lake City, but when 
it came time to light the cauldron that would burn for the next fortnight, 
the torch was handed to 1980 USA hockey team captain Mike Eruzione. Eruzione, 
in a move reminiscent of his calling his teammates onto the gold medal 
winners platform in 1980, then called his former teammates onto the 
flame-lighting platform to take part in the lighting effort. A real class act 
by a real winner. The night of televised Italian pride was capped later on, 
when Super Bowl hero Adam Vinatieri visited the Conan O’Brien show. Olympic 
audiences also got a wonderfully positive dose of italianità at the Games’ 
closing ceremonies, once the Olympic flag was passed on to the mayor of 
Torino, where the next Winter games will be held. This was followed by a 
great display of Italian culture, including a cool, jazzy rendition of 
“Volare,” (sung by someone whom our overly chatty American announcers told 
us was “the Madonna of Italy,”) a little bit of opera, some flag tossing, 
and a very Italian fashion show. The women wearing those Italian dresses in 
the nighttime Utah winter (outdoors!) must have been chilly, but the 
production was fabulous. 
--------------------------------------- 
(3) “LIFE” SAVERS 
For the past couple months, I’ve been on a crusade to save the fantastic CBS 
show that centers around the lives of a realistic Italian-American family in 
New Jersey, “That’s Life.” It’s nice to know that I am not alone in what I 
think of this show. If you’d like to be part of the effort to keep “That’s 
Life” on the air, there are places on the World Wide Web you can visit, where 
you can, with a minimal amount of time and effort, commit your name to the 
list of those who don’t want to see this show go away. 

One such Web site is savethatshow.com, which is a place where fans of quite a 
few TV shows that are on the ropes can register their love of their favorite 
shows. Supposedly, according to the Web site, they deliver the names of those 
who want a show saved to the network that holds that particular show’s fate 
in its hands. Hey, it’s worth a try, and it only takes a few minutes to 
navigate your way to the petition for “That’s Life.” 

While joining web-petition efforts to keep a show on the air may seem like a 
desperate act that can’t really work, audience-driven efforts to keep certain 
shows on the air have worked in the past, and I’d like to think that there 
are a lot more concerned Italian Americans who will do a little to keep some 
positive images of their people on the air than there are Trekkies or 
Baywatchers or what have you. 
--------------------------------------
(4) “HEALTHY” IMAGE 
And, this month’s Olive Garden Award for Positive Portrayals of Italians and 
Italian-Americans in Mass Media Advertisements (I’ll need a trophy the size 
of the Stanley Cup to fit that title on the object I’ll one day be presenting 
such honorees), goes to Healthy Choice, the company that makes low-fat frozen 
lunches and dinners. 

As a matter of fact, Healthy Choice’s latest radio commercial sounds a lot 
like an Olive Garden commercial, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with 
that. 

The fella who narrates the commercial tells his radio audience that he can 
stand to lose a few pounds, he doesn’t always eat healthy, he probably should 
get to the gym a little more often, and one way that he gets himself back on 
track, foodwise, is to eat Healthy Choice meals on Thursdays. But never on a 
Wednesday. Why’s that? Because Wednesdays are special; they belong to his 
mother (apparently Wednesday is no longer Prince Spaghetti Day). The guy then 
says that Wednesday is the one day of the week that no matter what, 
everything is put aside so he can visit and have dinner with his mom. The 
thing about this commercial that first caught my ear was that the guy rattled 
off a list of the great food that his mom cooks on Wednesdays, including 
eggplant, stuffed shells and manicotti, the latter of which he pronounced 
correctly, like a lot of us pronounce it! 

But the guy then said that although he tries to watch what he eats most of 
the time, how can he tell an Italian mother who has been cooking all day, 
that he’s full? In no way did the commercial infer that the cooking of an 
Italian mother is unhealthy, and no mention of the copious amount of 
carbohydrates in typical Italian-American pasta dishes was mentioned. The guy 
basically said that they, I try to eat healthy, I eat Healthy Choice on 
Thursdays, but Wednesday is Mother’s Day, and nothing is as important as 
eating my mother’s cooking once week. 

This was a really sweet commercial that reinforced a good stereotype, the 
close-knit Italian family, while subtly getting the commercial message across 
that if you fall off your diet wagon once a week, it won’t kill you, and you 
can get back on track by eating Healthy Choice meals. 

(5) RAIN ON MY PARADE 
“Walter Scott’s Personality Parade” is a relic from another time, long ago, 
when publicists fed items, true or untrue, but that always showed their 
clients in a good light, to celebrity reporters and columnists. This column 
(Is there an actual Walter Scott? Who knows?) appears in Parade magazine, a 
fluff-filled supplement to many Sunday papers throughout the country. The 
column usually contains eight “questions” sent in by “readers” about 
celebrities. In a recent edition, Julie Brown, of Cleveland, asked, “Whatever 
became of Brenda Lee?” Robert Lewis, of Bel Alton, MD., asked, “Who is the 
leggy blonde in the Old Navy ads?” and Annamarie B., of Bay Shore, NY, asked, 
“I heard that Clint Eastwood’s daughter barely escaped a fire. How is she?” 
That same March 3 “Personality Parade” also included a question from “S. 
Jones,” of Arlington, Texas, who asked, “How do Italian Americans feel about 
the way they are depicted on ‘The Sopranos?’” This is Walter’s answer to 
Mr. or Mrs. Jones: 

“Some, like writer Camille Paglia, complain about the characters’ ‘vulgarity 
and lack of dignity’ on the show, now in reruns on HBO. But most are so 
secure about their place in American society that they’re among the millions 
of fans eagerly awaiting ‘The Sopranos’ fourth season, starting in 
September. They note that its creator, David Chase, is Italian American.” 

“They”? Who are “they”? And who is the writer of this column to say that 
“most” Italian Americans are “eagerly awaiting” the fourth season of the 
show? Did he or she take a poll of every Italian American in the country? He 
didn’t ask me for my opinion. Did any of you get queried by Mr. Scott? Where 
is the data that says that “most” Italian Americans are Soprano-heads? 

Apparently, Mr. “Scott” has been living in a cave the past few years, albeit 
a cave that gets only HBO and the E! Channel. If you would like to inform him 
that “The Sopranos” is not eagerly anticipated by “most” Italian Americans, 
write him, at Box 5001, Grand Central Station, New York, NY, 10163-5001. You 
may also wish to express your opinion to the editor of Parade, Lee Kravitz, 
at 711 Third Ave., New York, NY, 10017. 
------------------------------------------
(6) NOT SO “RIGHT” 
It was nice to hear that Fox TV personality Bill O’Reilly ripped into HBO’s 
programming chief for that network’s pervasive violence and seeming lack of 
standards at a Hollywood TV industry luncheon in February. At this luncheon, 
sponsored by the Hollywood Radio and TV Society, at the Beverly Wilshire 
Hotel, O’Reilly was moderating a panel discussion featuring the heads of six 
cable networks. 

O’Reilly, the host of Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor,” saved his most 
pointed questions for Chris Albrecht, president of programming for HBO. 
Noting the extreme violence and sexual content on shows like “The Sopranos” 
and “Sex and the City,” O’Reilly asked Albrecht, “Are you going to just 
keep ratcheting it up, or is there a line that you won’t cross?” Albrecht 
responded by saying that the “real life” content that he has seen on Fox 
News Channel is worse than what’s shown on his network. “I would never want 
to go past real life,” Albrecht said. “The stuff we see on your channel is 
so unbelievably astonishing.” 

At this point, someone should have reminded Albrecht that he’s already 
crossed such a line, since “The Sopranos” is far from real life. He added 
that HBO leaves content guidelines up to the producers of the individual 
shows. His answers didn’t quite satisfy O’Reilly, who then said, “I 
understand you’re going to give artistic license to the producers, but the 
producers are going to want to get ratings. Are you going to draw a line or 
are we going to see hardcore pornography on your network?” 

Albrecht then told O’Reilly, “No, we’re not going to see hardcore 
pornography.” O’Reilly later zeroed in on HBO’s biggest show. He said that, 
in his opinion, “The Godfather” already covered the same territory as “The 
Sopranos,” and did so in better taste. Albrecht then noted that at the time, 
“a horse’s head in the bed … was pretty bold.” To which O’Reilly countered 
with, “But the horse’s head shot was about a second. It wasn’t a guy with a 
baseball bat (beating) 15 times on some girl’s head (as has happened on “The 
Sopranos”). I just thought I’d point that out.” 

O’Reilly, as one of the public faces of Fox, isn’t without sin himself. But 
it’s great that he said what he said, that he said it to the face of one of 
HBO’s head honchos and that people have taken notice. Now we just need more 
people, whether they are public personalities or not, to lend their voices to 
the chorus. 
--------------------------------------------
(7) CONDE NAST-Y 
The following (which includes the comment in parenthesis at the end) is an 
excerpt of a New York Post gossip column item about some New York publishers. 
I have italicized the part that is especially interesting for our purposes. 
I’m holding my comments to a minimum here, partly because this was not 
something that was published or broadcast in the mass media, although it was 
a public event where some bad behavior was witnessed. Also, it just simply 
illustrates that we have a way to go, especially among the “cultural elite,” 
who wouldn’t dare use slurs of any type against most other ethnic and racial 
groups. 

“The cutups from Conde Nast had a grand old time at Tom Florio’s GQ going 
away party at the East Village hot spot Abaya on Monday night, insiders tell 
Media Ink. 

“Young Florio, who is making an intramural move to be publisher of Conde Nast 
flagship Vogue, was somewhat upstaged by the arrival of his successor, 
ex-Talk President Ron Galotti — who arrived arm-in-arm with Tom’s big 
brother, the Conde Nast CEO Steve Florio. Said Steve Florio to the GQ 
staffers, “I know you guys are relieved to finally get Tom off of your floor. 
I know how hard it was to get him out of my room growing up.” 

“The GQ marketing department did an original rendition of “Tom,” sung to the 
tune of “One” from “A Chorus Line.” 

“The marketing men decked out in classic bobbed wigs and big black sunglasses 
— a trademark of Vogue editrix Anna Wintour where young Florio is heading. 

(ALL ITAL*) “The staff also read a funny poem/roast about Tom Florio, 
complete with an ethnic slur that rhymes with skinny — but it won’t make our 
family newspaper.” 

Too bad the people at Conde Nast aren’t capable of practicing such restraint. 

 (Copyright 2002, Fra Noi News Service, a division of Fra Noi Inc.)