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THE INFLUENCE OF THE AMERICAN CINEMA
ON HOW ITALIAN AMERICANS WERE PERCEIVED.
DAVID
Professor:
Class:
January 19, 2012
1
“The Godfather is a fictional account of the activities of a small group of ruthless
criminals. It would be erroneous and unfair to suggest that they are
representative of any ethnic group.” (1)
Ridiculous as it may sound, the previous statement was an attempt by the American
cinematic industry, to rectify what had become almost a tradition within American
society, when it concerned the Italian/American population. It basically went nowhere,
because except for a few instances, most of the criminals had Italian names and not only
spoke English, but also Italian, while keeping certain Italian customs. The problem here,
was the heavy influence of the American cinema, when it came to stereotyping a
segment of the American population. This is not to say that there were not any other
influences, such as government laws, and elite societal propaganda, but it was the
cinema industry, which entertained the masses, which had a far greater influence in
changing attitudes.
Cortes (1987) explains the different periods of the immigrant genre, like before and
after the WW1, Italians were looked at and portrayed as people who were bond by
tradition, unAmerican practices and “victims of unfortunate economic conditions” (2)
But this would soon change by the 1930’s when the Italian Americans were soon
labeled as gangsters and it never looked back, even though the patterns ebbed and
flowed up to now. According to Martin (2002) the gangster, especially the
Italian/American gangster was seen as staging “ a full scale corruption of the Protestant
Success Ethic and the American Dream. They work hard and outmaneuver their
