How stereotyping shapes the public image of today’s Italian Americans. Send your contributions to [email protected] or mail to: “It’s Only a Movie,” Italian America Magazine, 219 E Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002. Include name and daytime telephone number. No telephone calls please. Mailed submissions cannot be acknowledged. Contributors’ names, when known, are in parenthesis.

By Dona De Sanctis • PASTA PIGS Six hundred years ago, Italians invented • HOW SAD IT IS Last sum- the fork and taught the rest of Europe good table man- mer, The New York Times ners, but appar- panned the movie, How Sweet ently three Ital- It Is for its predictable plot and ian restaurants in “unpleasant clichés” which is Virginia Beach, how critic Rachel Saltz catego- VA are ignorant rized the stereotyping at the movie’s core. The story of our contri- involves a failed alcoholic producer, Jack Cosmo who butions to fine owes a Mafia don big bucks. Cosmo can avoid being dining. Witness murdered if he puts on a show for the gangster’s birthday. their unflattering advertisement promising “an incred- It was written by Brian Herzlinger with Jay Black, but, ible Italian experience.” Incredible, all right. And as usual, the stars are Italian American: Joe Piscopo and insulting. Lucien E. Votta, Maryland Paul Sorvino. National CSJ, Washington, DC • JUDICIAL MENU A New Jersey divorce court judge • COME AND [DON’T] GET IT! First, New York was forced to step down from a case last October after State’s “Wandering Dago” food truck and now Louisi- he referred to the Italian American litigants as “toma- ana’s “Wop Wagon”! That is the name Adam Parma, a toes...in need of straining.” The judge’s name? Philip second-generation Italian immigrant, chose for his roving Maenza. Wonder what would have happened to the fast food truck. He says it means “With Out Pizza” but good judge if the litigants had been African Americans the popular Italian snack is on his menu. Despite com- and he called them watermelons? Vito Sciancalepore, plaints, he does not plan to change the name. Manny Al- New Jersey fano, Italian American One Voice Coalition, New Jersey • VATICAN WISEGUY A new TV series, The Young Pope, now in pro- Luigi Del Bianco was the chief carver of Mount duction features a corrupt American Rushmore, who also refined the faces’ expressions. pope whose scandalous character “will Despite documents and photographs proving this, the rival ...Tony Soprano of The Sopranos; National Park Service refuses to formally recognize Del Walter White of Breaking Bad; and the Bianco on its website. devious politician Frank Underwood Now the Italian American One Voice Coali- of House of Cards,” according to the Paolo Sorrentino tion is circulating a petition that will go to the producers. Of course, the pope is Ital- U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama. It ian American: His Holiness Lenny Belardo. The 8-part asks that the National Park Service formally rec- series is written and directed by Oscar-winning director, ognize Luigi Del Bianco as the chief carver of Paolo Sorrentino (La Grande Bellezza), who previously Mount Rushmore. To sign the petition, go to: directed Sean Penn as a relentless Nazi hunter in This http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/luigi-del- Must Be the Place. Bravo, Paolo. You do us proud! bianco-recognition.

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