Sicilian Culture: The News & Views: Fantasy Becomes Reality?

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Fantasy Becomes Reality?
By Professor Emeritus Mancuso
Despite my best efforts, I cannot avoid asking help from our scholars...
How does one explain the ways in which writers and watchers of our most popular media so easily cross over from fantasy to daily life situations?
This morning's Albany Times-Union continues it gratis hyping of THE SOPRANOS. A 28 column inch article, replete with exuberant praise for the television show, backed by noting that two prestigious publications (I won't name them) have "heralded" the show, analyzes the show for us. The author of the piece, Renee Graham, apparently writes for the Boston Globe.
I quote from the piece:
"And in the most glaring example of misplaced hero worship, Al Pacino's Tony Montana in "Scarface" has become an icon to a generation of young black men, who somehow overlook the fact that for all his money and power, Montana destroys everyone he loves, and winds up dead. Our love of the gangster life often masks that it is really no life at all.
These people inhabit not just New Jersey, but a world governed by their own personal code, and woe to anyone who disrespects or disregards it. They are bitter and small-minded. They are misogynistic and racist. Was anyone really surprised when Tony (Il Castrato, alias Il Soprano) had major problems with Meadow's by-racial now-former boyfriend, Noah?"
Would those of you who have devoted your scholarly talents to analysis of film and media, please help us to analyze the ways in which this author swings back and forth between "real life" and fantasy!!
Can anyone tell us if there someone has supplied concrete evidence that "'Scarface' has become an icon to a generation of young black men?" From where did Ms. Graham get the evidence on which she bases this claim? Did "Montana," whoever he is destroy "everyone he loves?" Where did this happen? In New Jersey? Or, in the fantasy life of someone who wanted to make a money making film?
Who is the "our" in the sentence, "Our love of the gangster life often masks that it is really no life at all." Is she referring to you and me? What is the "gangster life" that masks the "reality" -- for whom is that reality masked? Tracking out the cross over between the mask and the reality becomes quite difficult!!! Especially when Ms Graham uses the pronoun "our!"
Who are "these people" who live in New Jersey? Is Ms Graham speaking of people who were recorded in the census recently taken in New Jersey, or is she referring to the imaginary characters that haunt the nightmares of producers and directors of mob films, etc? From which publications did Ms Graham derive the description of whichever "these people" to whom she refers? Did she learn of "these people" from a sociology course? From a textbook on criminal behavior" From the two publications that heralded the TV show she is analyzing? When a reader in Wisconsin reads Ms Graham's piece, what image of "these people" will that reader conjure up?
I hope that we can have clarification of the ways in which the fantasy life generated by the constant presentation of Italian-Americans as goons and buffoons substitutes, carries over into, becomes the basis for claims, etc., of people like Ms. Graham and all the people who read her column.
Also, is there a way to track out the travel activity of writers like Ms. Graham? Can anyone suggest a way that we can get information on how studios, hucksters, promoters, etc., sponsor studio visits, high class opening receptions, etc. for writers who produce these pieces??
Best, Jim Mancuso

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