A Chorus of Reactions to ‘Sopranos’

Although it’s easy for me, as a non-Italian, to suggest that Bill Dal Cerro should lighten up, I do think he overreacted a tad in his July 26 screed attacking the HBO series (“Why No Outrage Over the Offensive Stereotypes on ‘Sopranos’?,” Counterpunch).

The Italian characters portrayed on “The Sopranos” are too varied to support the claim that the show presents a stereotypical view of Italian Americans as mobsters. Tony’s psychiatrist is Italian; so is the neighbor, a doctor, who referred Tony to her. Tony’s daughter is an intelligent, high-achieving student on her way to an elite college, and his late father, seen in flashback in one episode, wanted out of mob life, staying with it only because he was pressured by his friends and his harpy of a wife.

Tony himself is much too layered a character to be written off as a guy who goes around shooting people in the head. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the work he’s doing and with a lot of the people with whom he has to associate.

How many of us are very, very good at work we don’t particularly want to be doing? How many of us are afraid to break away from work that’s making us crazy because we’re afraid of being without a livelihood? Such questions cut across every ethnic line and every walk of life. It’s their universality (along with the excellent writing and acting) that makes “The Sopranos” such a success, not any pandering to what HBO thinks Americans want to see in portrayals of Italians.

ELLEN JAFFE-GILL

Culver City

The reason there was no outrage over the “offensive” stereotypes on “The Sopranos” is that when you have three-dimensional, human characters, you don’t have a stereotype. Also, most viewers of “The Sopranos,” like most viewers of the “Godfather” films, saw the stories as being more about the American experience than about any particular ethnic group.

STEVE BARR

Culver City

Rather than calling for Italian Americans to wake up and smell the cappuccino, it’s Bill Dal Cerro who’s in need of a direct caffeine injection.

He is overly sensitive to any depiction of Italian Americans that is less than noble or heroic. He might prefer no one ever makes another TV show or film about the Mafia, but ultimately the question comes down to believable writing and casting. Would he expect to see an Irish American play a member of a tong? An African American yakuza? How about a Chinese American as a Gypsy scam artist? Denying the racial, ethnic and historic roots of these particular criminal lifestyles is just as wrong as pretending they don’t exist. “The Sopranos” is a show about one mob family, not about typical Italian Americans. Dal Cerro, as a history teacher, should know better.

JEFF BLUTH

Glendale

Bill Dal Cerro’s eloquent comments regarding the media trashing of Italian Americans through unrelenting stereotyping are long overdue. Insulting words like “dago,” “guinea” and “Guidos” are gratuitously tossed around like popcorn in movie houses across the land.

To those who say, “Lighten up, it’s only a movie,” I ask: Why don’t you say the same thing when blacks, Jews, Native Americans and other minorities are involved?

What seems to annoy some is that educated Italian Americans are finally waking up from their coma and objecting to the hypocritical double standard that poisons their futures and that of their children.

MICHAEL J. POLELLE

Chicago

I am a 37-year-old American-born male of 100% Italian descent. I lived in New York for the first 22 years of my life and have lived in California since 1984. I grew up on the first two “Godfather” movies and can recite the dialogue from both films almost verbatim. This goes for “GoodFellas” and “Casino” too. I regard all four of these movies as American classics, with “Donnie Brasco” not too far behind. Recently, I saw “Analyze This” and found it to be amusing. On television, “The Sopranos” is consistently well written, expertly acted, funny and entertaining.

I do not find any of these works nor the action depicted within them to be offensive to my heritage. Not one iota. To me, they’re just entertainment. After all, regardless of their portrayals, movies and television shows will never circumvent the positive role that Italian Americans by and large have contributed to the moral, economic and social development of this country.

In short, to the writer of the tirade, I extend this quote from both the book and the movie “Donnie Brasco”: “Fuhget about it.”

DAVE DELVAL

San Clemente

Dal Cerro made an error in his article concerning the part that Italian Americans played in American culture. He stated that the U.S. Marine Band was formed in 1805 under the direction of Maestro Gaetano Carusi. This is not true. On July 11, 1798, President John Adams signed an act of Congress establishing the formation of the fledgling Marine Band of 32 drums and fifes. The first director appointed was William Farr, who served from Jan. 21, 1799, to Nov. 22, 1804.

THOMAS J. KIRK

Sylmar