Sicilian Culture: The News & Views: AIDA's Statement Regarding Its Lawsuite Against the Sopranos

Sicilian Culture

The People, The History, The Culture

The News & Views
The Sopranos Guilt Trip, But Enlightening Image
By O. Ricardo Pimentel, The Arizona Republic
April 3, 2001, The Arizona Republic, Final Chaser, Page B7
I like the television show The Sopranos. And I'm feeling very, very guilty about this. This show, an HBO series about a mobbed-up family, does not offer a very wholesome image of Italian-Americans.
Some notable Italian - American groups have expressed outrage over the stereotype this show seemingly promotes....
Let's face it, if HBO produced a series revolving around a Mexican- American or African-American gang family there would likely be over- the-top denunciations. Perhaps even in this column.
So, is this lack of outrage a sign of maturity? Is this an indication that Italian-Americans, formerly viewed as on the fringe just like minority groups of today, are now so accepted that a show like The Sopranos has only minor nuisance value on the stereotype front?
Someday, will the public's perception of Latinos be so well rounded that a program depicting a mobbed-up dysfunctional Latino family on a popular television program not be viewed as a slam on all Latino families? And is this a good gauge of "progress."
The Sopranos is hot. A recent Rolling Stone cover story on the show made the case that this was simply a family drama. Another cover story, this one in Newsweek, told us how the success of the show has the rest of television "running for its life."
But these major stories didn't much dwell on the hard-to-miss stereotypes in the show. Tony Soprano is the head of the Soprano mob family. Last season, his mother put a hit out on him. He is a murderer, a misogynist and an adulterer. But he loves his wife and children. He is in therapy. His wife is loyal but not blind.
The stories revolve around Tony -- a very complex man -- but all major characters are well developed and multidimensional.... But did I mention that the characters kill people?
The history of Latino civil rights is replete with protests about our depiction in media. In movies and on television, Latinos have grown weary of caricatures as drug dealers, hookers, gang members, bandidos with bad teeth, fraidy-cat peasants -- or as sidekicks, sometimes heroic but more often buffoons....
And that might be the point here. I can watch The Sopranos and know from personal experience that there really aren't many Tony Sopranos among Italian-Americans. I don't think I can say the same thing about national perceptions about Latinos -- not when the national dialogue continues to center on Latinos as problems, as immigrant, unassimilating leeches who work for cheap.
The National Italian American Foundation recently noted that Italian-Americans have never been much more than 5 percent of the fugitives on the FBI's most wanted list over the past 50 years. It noted that two-thirds of Italian-Americans, despite the portrayal in The Sopranos , are educated white-collar workers...
So, while I will always welcome well-written, balanced portrayals of Latinos -- as in Showtime's Resurrection Boulevard -- I will for the time being resent one-dimensional portrayals no matter how well written....

HOME

Search || News & Views || People || History || Region || Language || Food || Cinema || Links || Contact Info