The best answers to the Final Exam
questions in "The Mafia and the Movies: The Construction of the Image of
Italians and Italian Americans in the Movies" (Ben Lawton, Chair Italian
Studies; Chair, Film Studies, Purdue University).
We surveyed 40
students in our respective organizations, in some cases where we lived, and
came up with some amusing replies when questioning about ItalianAmericans. We
surveyed a fraternity, sorority, and a co-op. It broke down like this.
Males: 50% Italian: 15% - this
includes any amount of Italian in the student surveyed
Females: 50% Italian: 20% Italians (Total): 18% Non-Italians (Total):
82% Have you seen any T.V. shows or movies containing the Mafia? 98%
Yes 2% No
Some of the
most prominent Mafia movies/shows replied were:
56% Godfather 15% Sopranos 10% Goodfellas 13% Casino 5% Bronx Tale 1% Godfather
III
Name the
first famous Italian off the top of your head.
Italians replied with: 43% Mussolini 29% Michelangelo 14% Al Pacino 14%
Giuseppe Verdi
Non-Italians
replied: 3%
Mario (Video Game) 3% Luigi (Video Game) 3% Gotti 3% Mussolini 6% Al Capone
6% Rocky 9% Tony Soprano 12% Al Pacino 15% Godfather (movie character) 16%
Joe Pesci 24% Robert De Niro
Are you
fascinated by the Mafia lifestyle? Males: 90% Yes Females: 35% Yes
Are Americans
fascinated? Yes:
98% No: 2%
The Sopranos and
HBO are being sued by an Italian-American organization for defaming
Italian-Americans in their show, is this right?
Italians: Agree: 14% Disagree: 86%
Non-Italians: Agree: 0% Disagree: 91% Un-sure: 9%
Name three
things that come to mind when thinking of Italian-Americans
Italians replied with: -smooth -good food -intelligent -charming -easy to get along
with -interesting -good-looking -cultured
Non-Italians
said:
*Mafia *Sopranos *greedy *sneaky *good food *New York *violence *accents *suits
*hairy -dark -nice cars -whacking -hot guys -guns -mean -greased hair -Dago
-wine -Frank Sinatra -pasta -cappucino -violin case *-said more than once
Some catch phrases we thought were worth noting during the survey: Hell yeah,
I wanna be in the MafiaWho doesnt? Who doesnt like watching Goodfellas Can
your dad hook me up?
Group O
2.) What percentage of Italian Americans are "made" members of
the Mafia according to the FBI?
Express this figure both as a percentage and arithmetically. I.e., 10 % = 10 out
of 100. In the height of Mafia involvement There were allegedly 5,000 Italian
Americans who were "made" to be members of the Mafia, out of 15
million Italian Americans, this means that the maximum is: ---- 0.03% of
Italian Americans were in the Mafia or 3 out of every 10,000. ----- In
present times
There are
allegedly 1,500 Italian Americans who are "made" to be members of
the Mafia, out of 20 million Italian Americans, this means that the present
percentage is: ---- 0.0075% of Italian Americans are in the Mafia or 3 out of
every 40,000 ----- Another interesting fact Out of the 500,000 members of
organized crime in America today, Italian Americans only have 1,500 members
which means: ---- 0.3% of organized crime members are Italian Americans or 3
out of every 1,000 ----
2a) Why is it
essential to know and understand these figures?
It is essential to understand these figures because the majority of
stereotypes of Italian Americans are unfairly based on these few individuals
that make up the Mafia. The problem is that, as the numbers show, these
individuals of the Mafia make up an unbelievably minute portion of the
Italian American population and it is unthinkable to base views and images of
all Italian Americans based on the alleged actions and ways of 0.0075% of
their population. That would be like singling out a small group of Americans,
like WWF and WCW professional wrestlers, and applying all the stereotypes of
that group to all Americans.
Professional
wrestlers wear tights, large boots, capes, masks, and wear underwear on the
outside of their clothes, which greatly differs from the garb of the vast
majority of Americans. The wrestlers also assign themselves nicknames like
"Booker T", "Undertaker", "the Rock", "the
Million Dollar Man", and "Stone Cold" and have a certain loud
theme song to be played whenever they are introduced.
If all Americans
only responded to their self-made cool nicknames and blared a theme song when
entering their place of business, life would be much more exciting but this
is not the case. The point is that an image of a whole group cannot be taken
from 3 of its 40,000 members (proportionally).
Another problem
is that a large number of organized crime films have the focus on Italian
Americans, which leads the public to stereotype that most organized crime is
done by Italian Americans. Once again this is unfair to the group of Italian
Americans because only 0.3% of the members of organized crime are Italian. To
be proportional, only 1 out of 1,000 movies about organized crime should be
about Italians, which is clearly not the case.
