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Italian Mafia in the Media in the 1940s and 1950s

Italian Mafia in the Media in the 1940s and 1950s.

Today, the most common media images of Italians and Italian-Americans are arguably those images made popular by film and television. Most notable among these are images of the Italian mafia portrayed in films such as ôThe Godfatherö and ôGoodfellasö and television shows, particularly ôThe Sopranos.ö No one familiar with these particular media images would argue that the above-named works advocate that a criminal life is ultimately a rewarding one. However, as the literature reviewed in this paper will demonstrate, American media images of the Italian mafia have created a mythology of the Italian mafia with the intention of sensationalizing its criminal elements. This mythology began as an attempt to hide the fact that such criminal elements existed among native-born white Americans. But today it serves the wider purpose of allowing all Americans to participate in the imagined glamor of the mafiaÆs criminality.

In a 2000 lecture, State University of New York Italian-American Studies professor Fred Gardaphe argued that the American media, including newspapers, television news and original programming, films and fiction, have turned the Italian gangster archetype into an American myth ôalmost as popular an archetype and myth as the cowboyö (Comeau, 2000). Vic Fortezza also agrees that how gangsters are perceived has a lot to do with film and media hero-worshiping of ôthe man with the gunö (Gahlot, 2002). For example, film reviewer Deepa Gahlot notes a 2002 survey that found 90 percent of American men and 35 percent of American women admitted they were fascinated with the mafia lifestyle (Gahlot, 2002).

Essentially, Gardaphe and other researchers argue that the myth of the Italian gangster has allowed American audiences to cinematically oppose the Protestant work ethic while at the same time reaffirm their belief in its value. In media-generated images of the m...

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Italian Mafia in the Media in the 1940s and 1950s. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:43, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701352.html