Don Fiore gives the type of response that should be saved and used on appropriate occasions, or even printed out and, and given to those Italian Americans, who still don't seem to understand the damage Soprano- like Film and TV thrusts on the Italian American Community.
Don Fiore and the Italic Institute have become one of the foremost Italian American Community Advocates!!!!! They both have my admiration and appreciation!!!!!
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The bad news is that Mr. Di Clemente,
whose heated pro-Sopranos message has been posted on several sites, is
not an Italian American anomaly. Rather than an exception to the
rule, it sometimes seems that he may very well BE the rule.
Recently, a woman named Dr. Janice Monti (who, incredibly enough, has been associated in the academic world with multiculturalism) wrote this tightly-reasoned defense of the Sopranos in a Chicago area neighborhood publication. Believe me, I'm not making any of this up. This is verbatim.
<<< "The flak about the Sopranos is misplaced political correctness at its worst. By now, the Italian American community should have developed enough maturity and sense of consciousness to be able to deal with fictionalized accounts of our ethnic experience however provocative these images may be. >>>
But stereotyping you say? The violence, the filthy language. Well, yes the Sopranos ARE mobsters. The last time I checked, mobsters do engage in that kind of behavior. And who would be so blind among us as to deny the link between organized crime and Italian Americans? If we are so outrage by the continuing connection the media make between our surnames and organized crime, then we had better start to eradicate it ourselves, for real, in our own communities."
Dr. Monti then goes on to detail just what it is about the show that makes it so great....starting with:
<<<"The Sopranos is quality TV...it is characterized by great writing and great acting and almost all of it done by writers and actors of Italian descent)" >>>
She concludes with
<<<"Ban the Sopranos? No way. If you just don't get it, then don't watch it. But leave the rest of us alone to devour every new episode..." >>>
I just learned today that my inevitable letter of response to Dr. Monti's whacky thought process (for an academic yet) was rejected by the publication's editor. So I'm offering it herewith. I'm know some of the ItAm Academics who follow these lists know her. Perhaps they'd be kind enough to forward. Here it is:
When faced with charges that the publication was exploitative to women, a lot of guys used to defend their loyalty to Playboy magazine by assigning its value to the intellectual brilliance of the articles, not the erotic appeal of the photos. The argument, of course, wasn't very convincing since it amounted to an obvious if tacit admission that the graphics and centerfolds did, in fact, treat women as sexual toys.
In similar manner, Dr. Janice Monti’s exuberant defense of HBO’s Sopranos series (Neighbors, November 2002) insists that it's the purportedly high level of the program’s script and performances, not all the brutality, violence, and sex, that make it, in her words, "quality TV".
But we get no admission, tacit or otherwise, from Monti that the series is yet one more example of popular culture’s routine and relentless debasement of the Italian American image. Much to the contrary, she opens her argument by attacking Italian Americans who voice objections to the show.
It may seem odd that Monti, a scholar noted for her work in multiculturalism, should take this approach, especially since in doing so she makes several statements, which, if applied to other ethnic or racial groups, would certainly raise the eyebrows of her colleagues in the academic world. But in this case it's okay because we're only talking about Italians.
And that’s why it’s even more curious that Monti should describe our objections as "political correctness at its worst". In reality, Italian Americans, being Euro-ethnics (and widely perceived to be socially conservative to boot) have never been afforded politically correct status by the academic and intellectual elite who created the very concept.
Not that we’d seek or accept that dubious honor. We've only asked for fair treatment, not special or preferential treatment. If we preferentially treated, we'd never have been forced to endure, on top of the Sopranos, such films as
...Goodfellas, Prizzi's Honor, Married to the Mob, The Untouchables, Honor Thy Father, Mafia Princess, Analyze This, Analyze That, A Bronx Tale, Wiseguys, To Die For, Crazy Joe, Armed and Dangerous, Bonanno, Risky Business, City Hall, Persons Unknown, Goonies, Blood and Concrete, King of New York, Family Enforcer, Atlantic City, Hoodlums, Roadhouse, Get Shorty, Fist of Honor, The Last Mafia Marriage, Blood Vows, Funeral, Innocent Blood, Concrete Wars, The Last Don, The Don is Dead, Gotti, Getting Gotti, Mickey Blue Eyes, Family Business, Nervous Tics, Hiding Out, Mob Boss, Nitti the Enforcer, Trapped in Paradise, First Wives Club, Stranger's Kiss, Men of Respect, Little Shop of Horrors, Trial by Jury, Gangsters, Kill Me Again, Gloria, Hard Justice, Money for Nothing, Out for Justice, Man with a Gun, Law of Suspicion, Fast Money, ....
and scores of other movies, not to mention TV shows, plays, advertisements, and novels in which Italian American characters are categorically portrayed as criminals, uncouth slobs, and other assorted sociopaths by virtue of ethnicity.
This should be obvious at even the most cursory glance, but since Monti is either incapable or unwilling to make the distinction, let’s transpose a few of her subsequent remarks to other ethnic or racial contexts (strictly for illustrative purposes, of course) and see how they fly.
It would never be permitted to happen, but imagine that someone was undaunted enough to create a TV series called "The Shapiros" which featured the corrupt dealings of a family of Jewish financiers. Or a show about a family of bomb-planting Islamic terrorists. Or African American welfare queens. Or Hispanic drug dealers. Take your pick.
For the sake of consistency, Monti would be expected to publicly answer the inevitable maelstrom of protest with "And who would be so blind among us as to deny the link between (associated stereotype) and (associated ethnic/racial group)".
She would also be obliged to admonish Jews, Muslims, African Americans, and Hispanics to "eradicate" the associated behavior from their "own communities" if they are so offended by such negative depictions. Yeah, I can picture that.
A woman whose name is linked to academic conferences, papers, and symposia concerning unfair media and societal perceptions of Muslims, African Americans, and other minorities telling those groups to clean up their act if they want to improve their image. Yet, this is precisely Monti’s position regarding Italian Americans, and it’s revealing testimony to the hypocritical selectivity and double standards of the otherwise socially sensitive academic mindset.
She concludes her article with the stale, "if you don’t like it, don’t watch it" platitude, which is akin to saying "if you don’t like the air, don’t breath it" to an asthmatic.
While her narrow perspective may well begin and end with the personal gratification that she achieves as she "devours" each episode of the show, anti-defamationists understand that the residual damage of programs like the Sopranos cannot be controlled with the click of a dial. The spillover is detectable from the taunts endured by Italian American kids on grade school playgrounds to the innuendoes faced by Italian American political candidates.
Journalist Sam Donaldson, let’s not forget, once remarked with utter impunity on national TV that it was the obligation of the press to investigate the backgrounds of Italian American candidates for ties to organized crime based on no stronger evidence than simple ethnicity.
A few years later during a City Council contract-awarding session, Chicago Alderman Larry Bloom stated that one way of assuring honesty in the process was to make sure the job didn’t go to someone "whose name ends in a vowel".
In Maine this year, Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Baldacci was targeted with demeaning radio ads by opponent John Carter in which a New Jersey-accented voice-over attacked Baldacci while peppering up the script with terms like "badda-bing", "fugettaboudit" and other phrases popularized by the Sopranos series. Clearly, the intention was generate the association between questionable ethics and an Italian surname.
And kids? A 2002 Center for Media and Public Affairs study entitled "TV's Impact on Ethnic Images" finds that more than any other racial or ethnic category, fictional Italian characters are rated as most typical of their real-life counterparts by both Italian and non-Italian high school students. Now isn't that a nice albatross to hang on the necks of our offspring?
But it's not surprising. No intelligent person should be naive enough to believe that a constant theme hammered out regularly and consistently in mass media format does not influence peoples thoughts and perceptions.
Joseph Goebbels understood that. And corporate America does, too, spending millions for a few seconds of airtime to promote its products. And it's also why Hollywood and TV casting offices, prompted by the hyperventilated sociological concerns of the academic elite, have been scurrying to fill the roles of judges, lawyers, doctors, and other esteemed professions with women and minorities.
Those who chant the "it’s only entertainment" mantra (a chant directed exclusively at offended Italians), or who doubt that pop culture’s pro forma debasement of the Italian American image is leeching into real life are invited to visit the websites of Italic Institute of America, the Italian American One Voice Coalition, and The Committee for Social Justice of the Sons of Italy, where such incidents are chronicled. It doesn't make pleasant reading.
In light of this situation, and from our perspective, it would be far more honest for Sopranos fans like Monti to say, "yes, the program manhandles and abuses the Italian American image unconscionably, and contributes to perpetuation of an ugly and grossly unfair stereotype that does no good for society in general, and for millions of Italian Americans in particular.
And yes, similar treatment of other racial and ethnic groups would be universally assailed as unacceptable and offensive. But hey, the writing and acting are first rate, and we can't get enough of it, so let's give it a pass."
Don Fiore President Pro tempore
Italic Institute of America
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Dr. Monti's article "Do the Sopranos Give
You Heartburn" from which the excerpts
quoted are drawn, appeared in the November
2002 issue of "Neighbors" that is published monthly, and distributed free
to residents of west Cook County.
by Edge Publications 2111 Division St.
Melrose Park, IL 60160.
Phone (708) 343-0205
Fax (708) 343-0227
The editor's name is Tina Valentino.
But they may have back issues available.
Interested parties may inquire at the
publication's office.
(Ms. Valentino is an Alumni of Dominican
College,
the same College that Dr. Monti teaches
at.)
The actual article, like the publication,
is not easily available on line.
However at press , shows the cover of
the Magazine, and indicates that
if you click on the cover, the publication
is available. pdf. (Adobe Acrobat) But I was unsuccessful.
http://www.waterfrontchicago.com/press.htm
"Neighbors" seems to be associated with
Waterfront Productions
Film Video & MultiMedia
Producer, Director: JOHN BOROWSKI
Email address: << johnoo7chi@mindspring.com>>
Phone: 773-205-7366
Waterfront Productions: Film Video &
Multimedia
http://www.waterfrontchicago.com/index.htm
