Italian American Stereotypes Research Paper

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Laila Dotson IDS 121A19 May 2, 2024 Final Paper.

There are a multitude of stereotypes that have followed Italian Americans for generations, today I want to dive deeper into where these stereotypes originated and how the media has embraced them. I am going to explore further how true or untrue these stereotypes hold and how gender roles and other races play a part in them. When Italian people were first immigrating to the United States, these stereotypes might have been based on reality, but as Italian Americans became more integrated into American culture, these stereotypes may have just become a way for the media to entertain the public and capitalize on these ideas. I will be using sources such as “Do the Right Thing” directed by Spike Lee, “Mean Streets” …show more content…
The most common stereotypes of Italians that we see in the media are that Italians are gangsters, boors, bimbos, buffoons, or bigots. These are obviously negative stereotypes, but according to “The Italic Studies Institute,” almost three-quarters of Italian or Italian American characters in Hollywood feature films between the years of 1928 and 2000 were portrayed as these stereotypes. This is very damaging to the image of Italians in the public eye and further attested to these detrimental ideas, and encouraged more discrimination against Italians in America. Early Italian Americans came to the US with talents useful to early Hollywood. As said by Rosanne De Luca Braun in her article “Made in Hollywood: Italian Stereotypes in the Movies” “Their training in stone cutting and sculpture, church decoration and garment-making made them natural resources as costume designers, set decorators, painters, masons, and the all-purpose artisans desperately needed on the movie set.” This quickly got Italian immigrants into the door of filmmaking from the moment they started migrating to the United States. Off-screen Italian Americans were extremely important to the industry,
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