America on Film. Sean Griffin
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areas (including New York City, Chicago, and Boston) were made up of immigrants. This influx of people produced a new round of xenophobia, the irrational fear and/or hatred of foreigners, among many Americans. Much as Irish immigrants had been compared to and equated with African Americans a few decades earlier, so too were Italian immigrants thought by some to be “black.” Conventional representations of Italian Americans in newspapers and early films depicted them as having darker skin tones, thick curly hair, and little to no education. Consequently, while Irish Americans were slowly coming to be regarded as white during the silent film era, Italian Americans were just beginning their own struggle for assimilation. Furthermore, Italian Americans themselves were sometimes prejudiced against other Italian Americans. Until the late 1800s, Italy was not a unified nation but a collection of separate principalities – thus many Italian immigrants had a stronger regional than national identity. Not all people from mainland Italy liked being compared to those from Sicily (and vice versa), although the popular media of the day often used the same stereotypes to represent people from both regions.
One of the earliest of those stereotypical representations (in newspapers, theater, and film) was that of an assimilationist small businessman. Sometimes named Luigi, or Carmine, or Guido, this Italian American stereotype was a simple‐minded, working‐class man who spoke in broken English and who often wore a bushy moustache. He was always smiling and gracious, and he worked as a street vendor, cranked a street organ, or ran a small café in order to support his large family. This stereotype continued to be a recognizable stock character throughout decades of Hollywood film. He appears as a friendly restaurateur, small business owner, or fruit‐stand manager in small roles in countless Hollywood films. The type was so prevalent that one of the Marx Brothers (who were of Russian and Jewish heritage) became famous for his Italian American persona “Chico.” The type was also popular on radio (and later television) programs such as Life with Luigi (CBS‐TV, 1952 –3). To this day, the name “Guido” is sometimes used to describe a young, none‐too‐bright Italian American working‐class man, as in the films Kiss Me Guido (1997) and Don Jon (2013), or in the MTV TV show Jersey Shore (2009–2012) and its various spin‐offs. The stereotype is also invoked by the video‐game (and film) characters, the Super Mario Brothers (1993).
While the Luigi or Guido figure was somewhat simple‐minded, he was at least non‐threatening, and seemed to indicate that Italian Americans could eventually be assimilated into American whiteness via their hard work and capitalist ethics. However, there was another more ominous Italian American stereotype present in the public consciousness during the first decades of the twentieth century: that of the socialist radical or anarchist. An anarchist is someone who believes in toppling all forms of social control and/or government, often through violent means. The Italian American anarchist type (sometimes he was also depicted as coming from neighboring Southern or Eastern European countries) actively battled against white America rather than trying to assimilate into it. In films of the era, this dark‐skinned antagonist was defeated by heroic white men.
By the 1920s, yet another image of Italian American men could be found on the nation’s movie screens: the Latin Lover, a handsome and exotic, sexually alluring leading man. The most famous Latin Lover of the decade was Rudolph Valentino, an actor who had been born in Italy and who appeared in films such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and The Sheik (1921). While the ascendancy of Valentino and the Latin Lover type may be seen as a step toward acceptance and assimilation, the appeal of the Latin Lover lies precisely in his Otherness. He is bold, aggressive, and potentially violent in his sexual passions – quite unlike respectable white men. Furthermore, as will be discussed in chapter 7, the Latin Lover type also included men from Hispanic cultures – a fact that again suggests how the dominant culture groups together different racial/ethnic Others as a means of opposing (and therefore defining) whiteness. The Latin Lover image was also used in more forthrightly derogative ways, as when he was represented as a gigolo trying to sleep his way into wealth and white society.
By the early 1930s, the image of the Italian American man looking for success and respect via disreputable means took a more ominous turn on the nation’s movie screens. Italian Americans became the ruthless lead characters of the gangster film. Partly, this linkage of Italian Americans and mobsters was drawn from real life. Stories of Italian American ghettoes being controlled by almost feudal family gangs (the so‐called Mafia, a concept originally derived from Sicilian culture) had begun to proliferate in the American popular press in the earliest years of the century. During the Prohibition era (1919–33), various criminal organizations thrived by distributing illegal alcohol. While people of numerous backgrounds were part of these organized crimes, many people focused on the Italian names being reported in the nation’s newspapers: Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Johnny Torrio, etc. Thus, when Hollywood began its cycle of gangster films in the early 1930s, Italian Americans were prominently featured. Little Caesar (1930), a film that many regard as the first film of this genre, focuses on the rise and fall of Italian American gangster Rico Bandello (played by Jewish actor Edward G. Robinson). Little Caesar was followed by Scarface (1932), which focuses on the corrupt, ultra‐violent, and vaguely incestuous Tony Camonte (played by another Jewish actor, Paul Muni). Throughout the 1930s and continuing for decades, the most conspicuous representation of Italian Americans on Hollywood movie screens would be as mobsters.
Edward G. Robinson played Italian American mobster Rico Bandello in one of the most famous classical Hollywood gangster movies, Little Caesar (1930).
Little Caesar, copyright © 1930, Warner Bros.
Other stereotypical and more fully developed Italian American characters began to emerge during and after World War II. As the United States fought a war against Germany, Italy, and Japan, Italian Americans increasingly promoted their patriotism and loyalty to America. As a consequence, they were often featured in Hollywood’s wartime propaganda movies. In the many war movies made during these years, such as Sahara (1943), The Purple Heart (1944), Back to Bataan (1945), and The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Italian American characters were included; they fought with courage and dedication alongside American soldiers of a variety of other ethnicities. In the postwar years, Italian American musical performers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Mario Lanza became increasingly popular, both on radio and in Hollywood films.
Postwar filmmaking in Italy also had an affect on Hollywood images of Italian Americans. The popularity and critical regard of the film movement known as Italian Neorealism spurred greater attempts at cinematic realism in a number of countries; the movement regularly represented Italians as poor and/or working‐class people. Consequently, 1950s American film also saw an increase in down‐to‐earth, working‐class Italian American characters. Part of this “earthiness” expressed itself via sensuality. Italian actresses such as Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and Anna Magnani became internationally famous during these years, partly because of their (relatively) uninhibited sexuality. Like that of the 1920s Latin Lover, the sexual appeal these women exuded for American audiences was partly due to their Otherness. (The fact that many of their films were made overseas – far away from the Hollywood Production Code – also contributed to their reputation as sexually unbridled.) Earthy, working‐class representations of Italian Americans became so popular that they swept the Oscars for 1955, when a film about a lonely Italian American butcher (Marty) won Best Picture and Best Actor (Ernest Borgnine), and Anna Magnani won a Best Actress award for her first American film, The Rose Tattoo. Both properties had their origins in other media: Marty began as a live TV broadcast aired in 1953, while Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo was first produced on Broadway in 1951.
During the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of Italian American actors and directors became prominent in the Hollywood film