Sicilian Culture: The News & Views: Encore, Encore

Sicilian Culture

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The News & Views
Encore, Encore
By Debra Galant
March 4, 2001 - - The New York Times (Page 1, Column 1, Excerpted) The third season of the widely acclaimed series begins tonight amid a storm of publicity and an almost equal flood of protest from the Italian - American antidefamation movement.
Yes, New Jersey's biggest cultural export -- about six million viewers are expected to tune in -- is a lightning rod for controversy. And nowhere do emotions run stronger than here on the show's turf.
On the one hand there are the fans -- O.K., a bit daft -- who treat ''The Sopranos'' like the home team.
Then there are the others, for whom the geographic closeness to television's favorite mob family has the opposite effect. These are the Italian -
Americans who are tired of hearing the ''F word,'' who have spent all their lives cringing at the notion that neighbors think that just because they are Italian, they have mob connections. For them, the local scenery just adds insult to injury. These are the people who will show up today at St. Thomas Roman Catholic Church in Bloomfield, where Emanuele Alfano of Unico National, a service organization for Americans of Italian descent, will present the Mille Grazie Award to the Essex County Executive, James W. Treffinger, who last December banned filming in the South Mountain Reservation, a sprawling public park with lots of places to dispose of a body in a ravine or under dead leaves.
Oddly enough, Mr. Chase hinted at this controversy several times in the first season. In one episode, Tony's daughter asks if he's in the Mafia . ''There's no such thing,'' the mobster huffs. ''That's a stereotype. And it's offensive.''
He could have been writing the script for Mr. Alfano, who lately has been gaining some momentum in his campaign to use the blockbuster HBO series as an object lesson in the way Italian - Americans are portrayed in the media. But it is a skirmish in which the show does not have to pack a 9 millimeter to win.
Last month, for instance, no less than the Museum of Modern Art in New York screened the first two seasons' episodes and invited Ken Auletta of The New Yorker magazine to interview Mr. Chase.
HBO, which has kept a Mob-like grip on the show's publicity, has meted out coveted interviews with Mr. Chase like drops of holy water. As the cameras keep rolling, Dr. Alfano, a retired chiropractor, runs his campaign from an office in Bloomfield, where a statue of Venus de Milo offers a different statement on Italian culture. He contends the entertainment industry offers stereotypes of Italian - Americans as violent or uncouth -- either toting guns or shoveling down pasta -- in a way it would not dare to portray other ethnic groups.
''People look at that and say, yes, that's what Italians are,'' Dr. Alfano said. Although Dr. Alfano says he does not know anyone in the mob, he says he has heard even they find the show offensive.
''They were upset by how they were being portrayed,'' he said. ''A mob person would never have tolerated foul language at the table from the kids. And a mother trying to kill her son? Never in a million years!'' But as much as Dr. Alfano excoriates ''The Sopranos'' for perpetuating negative stereotypes, the show from hell is also the gift that keeps on giving. After all, along with e-mail messages, it is the best thing that ever happened to his media sensitivity campaign. Just two weeks ago, the show's latest advertising campaign gave Dr. Alfano a new opportunity to protest; he sent a letter to the general counsel of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey complaining about the ''Sopranos'' posters on PATH trains.
''A friend of mine said, 'It should go on for 18 years,' '' Dr. Alfano admitted with a smile. ''He said, 'Manny, we never got this much coverage.'
Although initially the county cited a deer hunt as the reason for turning down the permit, Mr. Treffinger soon went on record saying that future permits would not be given for a show that demeaned an ethnic minority.
So just what is ''The Sopranos,'' which many consider to be the best television series ever -- New Jersey's chief cultural export or ethnic embarrassment?
But for politicians, who work both sides of the political street, the question is murkier, and they are not leaping at the opportunity to go on the record about it. Mr. Treffinger declined to be interviewed, but did speak through his director of policy and planning, Joanna Noonan. ''He says this is not a First Amendment issue because filming on county property is not a right,'' Ms. Noonan relayed.
The state's acting governor, Donald DiFrancesco, also turned down an opportunity to be interviewed about the ''Sopranos.'' He did say through spokeswoman, Jayne O'Conner, that he had never seen the show.
''Based on what he's heard and read, his preference would be that it would be more accurate about its portrayal of New Jersey and not perpetuate some of the stereotypes about New Jersey and the Italians,'' Ms. O'Conner said.
Nervousness about ''The Sopranos'' extends to other institutions as well. William Paterson University in Wayne revoked a permit to shoot a scene there last year about the same time a professor was to deliver a lecture on Italian stereotypes in the media. And Seton Hall University in South Orange was reportedly embarrassed last month when a clip from ''The Sopranos'' was played during a basketball game at the Continental Airlines Arena.
UNICO National, the group most vocally opposed to ''The Sopranos,'' is a donor to Seton Hall's Italian studies program, and its first vice president, John Alati, a Seton Hall alumnus, was at the game.
Another group walking a tightrope over the ''Sopranos'' is the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith. Although the group is sympathic to the Italian - American group's outrage, it is being careful about getting into a gang war over a television show.
'' 'The Sopranos' feeds into stereotyping,'' said Charles Goldstein, director of the league's New Jersey chapter. ''A false negative stereotype, which can feed into bigotry.''
But Mr. Goldstein added: ''It is not a focus of the A.D.L. to object to entertainment. We live in a market economy. This is what the market will bear, and it's not illegal. People have to have freedom of choice.''
(RAA Note:However the B'nai B'rith uses it's enormous clout to prevent presentation's of Shakespeare's, "The Merchant of Venice", because of the undesirable "Shylock")
Mr. Treffinger may have deemed ''The Sopranos'' politically incorrect, but that will not stop Essex County prosecutors from tuning in to the newest adventures of Tony and Carmela tonight.
''There's a lot of people in our office that watch it,'' said Bob Laurino, the prosecutor in charge of Essex County's sex crimes unit. ''I know a lot of people who got HBO to watch it.'' One of six million people expected to watch tonight will undoubtedly be Mr.Laurino, who said he had a ''love-hate'' relationship with the show. Sure,Mr. Laurino, who grew up in an Italian - American home in Short Hills, knows that it offends many people. And as a prosecutor, he acknowledged that ''anything that glamorizes organized crime is unfortunate.'' Still, he added, ''it's pretty compelling viewing.''
In addition to the Monday-morning water cooler conversation at the prosecutor's office, one of the people Mr. Laurino discusses the show with is his sister, Maria Laurino, who wrote the memoir ''Were You Always an Italian?'' (W. W. Norton, $23.95). Ms. Laurino, who admits being a ''Sopranos'' fan, said she admired the show for its subtle handling of issues of ethnicity in suburbia, and for its accurate use of dialect.
Another Italian - American who is an unrepentant ''Sopranos'' fan is David Bonanno, editor of The American Poetry Review, who grew up in Caldwell and now lives in Philadelphia.
''I think the show is so well written that it's not a stretch to talk about it as being Shakespearean,'' said Mr. Bonanno'' It's pretend tough guys in North Jersey,'' he said. ''It's like cowboys and Indians.'' Mr. Chase made almost the same point last month at the Museum of Modern Art. Although the inspiration for the series was his own problematic relationship with his mother, Mr. Chase decided that setting that conflict against a mob story was inherently more interesting.
''They didn't do stories about chicken farmers,'' he said. ''They focused on gun slingers.'' It has become a truism that the Mafia story has become the latest incarnation of the western. Everybody immediately understands the format, so the creativity comes with each new spin.
But some Italian - Americans are quick to point out that the western is now considered politically incorrect too.
''It's doing the same thing to Italian - Americans that the western did to Native Americans,'' said Maria Mazziotti Gillan, executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson.

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