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Sopranos Family is A Far Cry From Italian Americans
by Bryan Smith of the Chicago Sun TimesPlease note that there is a second Article which Reports that the ItalianConsul General of Chicago Is backing the Anti Soprano Law Suit! He now joins IAOV and The Sons of Italy/ Commission for Social Justice.(Seperate Article). We are awaiting word from NIAF and UNICO.
April 6, 2001 - - The Italians whom Tony Scariano knows don't pack heat. They don't hang out at the Bada Bing, and they don't muscle their associates. The only hits they're involved with are the ones they play on their stereos.
So it isn't rage he feels watching "The Sopranos," the popular HBO show about mobsters--though he doesn't like what he perceives as "dime-store art" built around stereotypes and cliches. It's bewilderment.
"I don't know any Italians who behave that way, talk that way or act that way," says Scariano, 54, a Chicago attorney who represents school districts. "That's not representational to me of what I grew up with."
Scariano is not active in any anti-defamation leagues. He knows little about a lawsuit filed Thursday against the HBO series. He doesn't want the show yanked and doesn't think it needs to make apologies.
But he was glad for the chance to share his own perceptions about Italian life from growing up in a family whose roots reach back to Sicily.
The Italians he knows "don't bear grudges. They love life, and they respect other human beings."
They are his two uncles, Joe and John Scariano. "They drove trucks for a living," one for a dairy company and the other for a bakery goods distributor.
They are his grandmother, who lugged 180-pound vats of chocolate at work and made her own bread and pasta and "walked 2 1/2 miles to work each day to be able to buy milk for her four children."
Or his father, Anthony Scariano, a distinguished attorney and judge who began as an assistant state's attorney and retired a few years ago from the appellate court.
The Italians he knows do like big meals and do cherish family.
His Aunt Betty, he says, "makes the best lasagna."
His mother "is the best Italian cook in Chicago."
On Saturdays, he says, "30-some people would sit around the dining room table and have a full-course Italian meal. And after the meal was over, they would sit around and tell stories."
Scariano says the Italians he knows "have never stolen a dime or taken a dime of anyone else's money. "They've never used language like that; they've never treated their women that way. They're true Italian Americans."
Scariano admits that his son likes "The Sopranos," mostly, he thinks, "for the machismo."
It doesn't surprise him. "There are no heroes left to watch anymore," he says.
And his father, now 83, does feel rage when he watches such shows.
In fact, when Tony Scariano brought home a CD called "Mob Hits," with artists such as Connie Francis and Frank Sinatra, his father "was furious. The whole notion just enraged him."
Still, Scariano says he won't be joining any lawsuits.
He just won't watch the show. Or buy products associated with it.
Instead, he says, he'll cling to what's real, the Italian life he knows.
CONSUL GENERAL BACKS SUIT AGAINST 'SOPRANOS'
By Abdon M. Pallasch, Staff ReporterItaly's consul general in Chicago publicly supported the lawsuit by Italian-American attorneys and civic leaders against HBO's "The Sopranos" series.
"We are facing negative stereotyping of Italians and Italian Americans," Enrico Granara said.
The civic leaders, under the umbrella of the American Italian Defense Association, are using the Illinois Constitution's overlooked clause of "individual dignity" to ask a jury to condemn the show for stereotyping Italian Americans as mobsters.
"The Sopranos" "suggests that criminality is in the blood or genes of Italian Americans," said an AIDA vice president, Robert U. Dini.
In the weekly series, a New Jersey mob family feasts on Italian cuisine and listens to Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Andrea Bocelli as it kills rivals. The show attempts to connect Italian-American culture with organized crime in the American psyche, the suit states.
Section 20 of the Illinois Constitution states in part: "Communications that portray criminality, depravity or lack of virtue in . . . a group of persons by reason or reference to religious, racial, ethnic, national or regional affiliation are condemned."
The suit against Time Warner Entertainment Co. seeks neither money nor cancellation of the show. "AIDA is not after Time Warner's money," Dini said.
"I think they might have a chance," said William Schroeder, an expert in state constitutional law at Southern Illinois University.
"The Sopranos" is hardly the first production to stereotype Italians as mobsters, but movies don't have the impact of a weekly series so relentlessly promoted, said attorney Enrico J. Mirabelli. In just the last two weeks, "The Sopranos" has been on the cover of Newsweek, TV Guide, Rolling Stone and even Cigar Aficionado magazine.
An Italian network has just bought the rights to show it in Italy, and "I don't think they will be happy to see the Italian Americans portrayed like that," Granara said. Italian visitors to this country are often surprised to encounter the mob stereotype here, he said.
Time Warner issued a statement Thursday saying, "We are very proud of `The Sopranos.' We're hardly alone in our assessment that the show is an extraordinary artistic achievement."
Soprano family is a far cry from Italian Americans
www.suntimes.com/output/news/ital06.html
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