The film industry has portrayed Italian Americans in a bad way since they have been in film, the films all suggest they are someway involved with a mob, if you ask the public their stereotypical Italian American they would describe them as having greasy hair and saying 'Forget about it' all the time. The archetypes are 'The Don' 'Soldiers'. Woman have small roles in these films, they cook, clean, get cheated on and know about it, the representations of Italian in my opinion is a racist one.
"To represent also means to symbolise, stand for, to be a specimen of, or to substitute for, as in the sentence, 'In Christianity, the cross represents the suffering and crucifixion of Christ"
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas is just a specimen of Italian Americans, this representation is used a lot in film, this angers Italian Americans as the publics perception of them is that they are all gangsters, most Italian American films have strong stereotypes, How ever the film "My Cousin Vinny" uses the stereotype of the Italian American but then has Joe Pesci playing a lawyer, Vinny is discriminated through out this film for being a Italian American.
"One implication of this argument about cultural codes is that, if meaning is the result, not of something fixed out there, in nature, but of our social, cultural and linguistic conventions meaning that they can never be finally fixed."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The Godfather was one of the first movies to come out about Italian American's being associated with he mob. The Characters in the film gave definition to Italians being highly associated with food,violence and family."
I disagree with this quote, there are many films with Italian Americans, films that starred James Cagney where he mostly played a mob characters, these films were from the 1930s, way before The Godfather in 1972.
http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/LOTARDO/
"To represent also means to symbolise, stand for, to be a specimen of, or to substitute for, as in the sentence, 'In Christianity, the cross represents the suffering and crucifixion of Christ"
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas is just a specimen of Italian Americans, this representation is used a lot in film, this angers Italian Americans as the publics perception of them is that they are all gangsters, most Italian American films have strong stereotypes, How ever the film "My Cousin Vinny" uses the stereotype of the Italian American but then has Joe Pesci playing a lawyer, Vinny is discriminated through out this film for being a Italian American.
"One implication of this argument about cultural codes is that, if meaning is the result, not of something fixed out there, in nature, but of our social, cultural and linguistic conventions meaning that they can never be finally fixed."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The Godfather was one of the first movies to come out about Italian American's being associated with he mob. The Characters in the film gave definition to Italians being highly associated with food,violence and family."
I disagree with this quote, there are many films with Italian Americans, films that starred James Cagney where he mostly played a mob characters, these films were from the 1930s, way before The Godfather in 1972.
http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/LOTARDO/
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