Sicilian Culture: News: The Dilemma of the Italian American Actor

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Sicilian Culture

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The News & Views

The Dilemma of the Italian American Actor
[RAA PREFACE: The Dilemma As I see it is: Whether The Italian-American Actor should: Stoop to Worsen the Stereotype, OR Starve? Another Alternative might be for SUCCESSFUL I-A Actors, Writers, Producers, Directors, etc to UNITE, enlist the Journeyman I-As in those same categories, and THEN enlist Sympathetic Successful NON Italian Americans to Join the effort to PERSUADE the Studios and Networks to minimize the "Mafia" Depictions, and maximize "Positive" Depictions.
This might require or benefit from the assistance of NIAF, or OSIA !
NOTE: Whenever I refer to Italian Americans, I am as I have said before, referring to Americans of the North American Continent of Italian Ancestry]
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NOW THE COMMENTS OF FRANCESCA L'ORFANO ON THE DILEMMA:
Italian North Americans do it because they are cornered into this as the only way they are allowed to represent Italians on the screen...this is the vicious circle....you want a job, you want money to make your film...then you do it....it's all ultimately about money....as the italian american actors guild...they object to it privately? however publicly they would rather italian american actors should get all the parts of the mafiosi and the goombahs....they figure with an italian american in the role, "they at least have an opportunity to dilute it a bit"...I was told that by the president of that guild that gandolfini has "managed" to change some of the stuff they were going to do on that show or it would have been 10 times worse...I told this gentlemen I wasn't about to send gandolfini flowers to thank him...the illusion actors suffer from was also discussed, according to this gentlemen, gandolfini will now have the "power" to "choose" his roles....I told him if he believed that they I had some land I wanted to sell him in the arctic....gandolifini is now typecast, he will never outlive or outdo or have anyone interested in him for any other role....yet as you can see....power and money are at play here........ if I may once again...an excerpt from my writings.....
As is very clear the use of the "mafia joke" is still very popular, still offensive and still being used within the world of politics as well as written and visual media. "Italophobia has never needed much negative reality as grist to turn into hostile or derisive myth....... [P]olitical scientist Michael Parenti notes that 'every Italian American knows persons who would never utter a racist or sexist remark who seem to think themselves clever when making a joking reference about the Mafioso in our presence. It is one of those forms of bigotry that remain quite respectable'" (Harney 67). In the world of business and for restauranteurs a plethora of mobster themed advertising has also appeared in the past couple of years. Red Lobster, AT&T Communications, Milk, Blockbuster Video, Wendys, Quizno's Subs, as well as Tours of New Jersey mob hangouts and Sopranoland websites and clubs. These "business ventures" have and continue to be challenged by Italian North American organizations and individuals asking these companies to remove these defamatory ads. Italian diasporic communities continue to challenge the mainstream in order to receive the same respect that would be given to other ethnic groups whose stereotypes seem to receive more understanding. As Amelio pointed out in his Letter to the Editor published in The Edmonton Journal, "Although politicians continue to talk about the value of multiculturalism in our country, when pressed on specific issues they continue to marginalize such ethnic groups." Though Sturino was writing about the mafia stereotype in the seventies, his words are as relevant today in the 21st century. "The mafia stereotype was an extraordinarily effective weapon by which the established elites could (through ad hoc expediency, rather than by design) successfully block challenges to their hegemony by mobile Italians in the political and economic fields. The mystique, based on gangland reality, had mass appeal; it could be converted into profit by promoters such as film-makers, journalists, and restauranteurs; and was almost endlessly elastic" (Sturino 1999:824). Therefore the anxiety of Italian Canadian and Italian American organizations against what The Sopranos is "selling" is very real and very justified. It has spawned copycats and bigotry in all directions. Along with the continuing stereotype being used in politics, business and the written media, what is proving to be more disturbing still is the information that is slowly being uncovered on the film front, specifically the actor front. The "endless elasticity " is proving to be true once again when we look at the actors who play these parts.
"[T]wo-time Genie award winner Tony Nardi (La Sarrasine 1992 and My Father's Angel 1999), one of the country's finest actors, has left his agent of seven years, Dana Crackower, and her agency ETM" (Posner 2001 R3), after refusing to audition for the role of a "greaseball Mafioso" in the latest rendition of ethnic pornography. In Maclean's March 5, 2001, [Nardi] complains that despite his versatility [he speaks English, French and Italian] he is being typecast as an actor who can only do the stereotypical Italian roles" (Pivato 2001: 8) and then in April The Globe and Mail's Michael Posner exposed the ugly story of Nardi's split with his agent over this same issue. The story goes like this.
Toronto casting agent Jon Comerford asked Nardi to audition for a part as a greaseball Mafioso in Beauty and Power, a movie-of-the-week project now shooting in Toronto. Nardi declined, refusing to play a racial stereotype. Two days after Nardi turned down the role, Crackower called Nardi in a panic. Comerford, she said, had threatened to boycott her agency's entire roster of clients unless Nardi read for the part. Would he do the agency a favour? Not a chance.
Nardi has aired his anger at the incident in a five-page letter to the ACTRA union. "I am not a professional Italian," he writes. "I'm a professional actor.....I'm not ashamed to be Italian. On the contrary. It's playing a cultural (negative) stereotype I have a problem with."
"I was shocked," Nardi writes of Comerford's alleged threats. "Personally, I have nothing against Comerford. Professionally, I have very little contact with him.......[But] no one should stand for [this]." He adds:"Being asked to give in to [it] is worse. [Dana] is a wonderful agent.....for her to ask for a favour she knew I would never grant was disturbing."
Meantime, ACTRA has hired independent producer Michael Hadley to find ways to mend the strained relationship between actors and casting directors. At a recent meeting, 200 actors turned up to voice complaints about Comerford and others. No casting agents were invited. Nardi didn't attend, but when he asked local ACTRA president Richard Hardacre why the meeting was closed to casting directors, he was told: "I wouldn't say what I have to say knowing a casting director is sitting in the crowd....No actor would. We would be blacklisted just for attending the meeting.'" Posner April 14, 2001: R3
Many behind the closed door of that meeting are definitely aware of the contradiction between their individual rights and the dishonesty of the clause in their standard agency contract in "Section 2 (Services and Obligations of an Agent)... which stipulates that agents 'must recognize the Client's right not to accept any and all employment opportunities offered' "(Posner April 21, 2001). Being blacklisted and wanting to continue your acting career are difficult dilemmas and choices. Nardi by coming forward publicly does risk his "career to make this protest against the powerful forces of film producers and directors" (Pivato June 1 2001: 8). In the United States actors Paul Sorvino and John Turturro (Zwecker April 30, 2001 32) have refused to play stereotypical Italian roles again, making their statements after they have established successful careers, while a younger and, new to the business, actor Jennifer Guerriero has left acting to pursue a career in social work because she too was tired of the cultural stereotype to which she was always called upon to "act".(Guerriero email 2000). Here in Canada, since Posner's exposure of Nardi's sordid story, attention continues to be directed to this problem. In June Joseph Pivato wrote in Il Congresso.
Since Nardi's courageous protest other actors have come forward to complain about misconduct and misrepresentations. Actor, Frank Pellegrino, says he is "torn between the need to support my family and my disgust at the stereotypical and unimaginative view of Italians [that often pukes itself up on my fax machine in the form of a script.] My dilemma is always the same: "Why am I being put in this horrible position of having to regurgitate clichés in order to remain working?" .........
......We have often suspected that many Italian-Canadian and Italian-American actors did not voluntarily play all those stereotypical Mafia roles in all too many crime films. Now to the courage of Tony Nardi and Posner we know that some are coerced into those despicable roles against their own consciences and the protests of their own communities. If they want to work at all, or ever, they are forced to do these roles which depict Italians as linked to organized crime. Where is the artistic freedom here?
Italian communities across North America have been protesting programs such as The Sopranos, now we know how some of these films are produced. It is not about art or freedom of speech but about money and power of communication conglomerates like HBO and Time Warner. June 1, 2001: 8
The question should definitely come up: Are these actors playing their parts as professionals or as pawns? Do they really have a choice? Again "Fanon asks us to remember the violence of identification, the material practices of exclusion, alienation, appropriation, and domination that transform other subjects into subjected others. Identification is not only how we accede to power, it is also how we learn submission" (Fuss 14).
Money and "fame" are powerful controls. Powerful Media conglomerates " have the power to render invisible and inaudible the images, stories, and voices of ethno-racial minority communities, their artists, and their activists" (Tator 6). Therefore, as already established, this powerful domination of mainstream media with the negative stereotypical renditions of Italian North Americans, has definitely influenced the creative product and identifications of some Canadians as well. The stereotype is repeated over and over again by actors who are Italian, sometimes because they need the money, other times because they feel it is a creative endeavour. Like Coppola who took the job of directing The Godfather because he too needed the money, it seems that actors of Italian heritage can get stuck in a vicious circle. As long as actors in mainstream media are willing / or manipulated into playing the parts because they need to work, the mafia mystique will continue to "sell" its bigotry through film and video. It will then inspire defamation in our communities. The actions of the protesters as well as the actions of actors such as Nardi, which are only recently starting to come forward, are all contributing towards raising the level of consciousness on this issue both within Italian North American communities as well as within the mainstream of society. This bodes extremely well for the future of Italian diasporic communities as well as for the National Cinemas in both the United States and Canada.

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