Where’s My Checkered Tablecloth?
So, the other day we’re ordering Italian food for the office. I called a local pasta joint that delivers and was put on hold. And what music should I hear but the most stereotypical Italian music ever. I don’t even know the name of the piece, but you’ve heard it in every Italian film you’ve ever seen, usually in the wedding or party scene. Anyway, it kind of pisses me off.
I get tired of people who constantly pigeonhole an ethnicity into what Hollywood told you it is about. So let me dispel a couple myths:
- I don’t know any gangsters. Not a single one.
- We don’t eat spaghetti and meatballs at every single meal. It’s a fine dish, but every single night. No.
- We don’t wear excessive amounts of jewelry. I’ve never seen any of my family members wear an expensive D&G watch or a gold necklace. I wear a wedding band and a watch I got at Target four years ago.
- I don’t have a music box on a stick or a monkey that dances when I play it.
- I say ‘oy vey’ far more often than I say ‘mama mia’.
- I have said the phrase ‘you got a problem with that?’ maybe twice ever.
I can’t think of anymore, but stop getting your Italian history and culture lessons from the Soprano family. Seriously. Or I’ll have my uncle, Giuseppe Giovanni, take you down to the docks.
You got a problem with that?
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November 18th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Actually, those stereotypes hold pretty true here in the Garden State. My Italian family is not here, but through friends I have met gangsters, eaten in many restaurants with mirrors and one that required a knock on a special door (it was sooo Goodfellas I almost laughed), often see men with jewelry like that, even 2 year olds with pinky rings, heard, “you gotta problem?” plenty of times and my favorite, from a guy named Vito in a track suit, to my husband, “You Italian? Cause I’m Italian”. Said outside a water-ice place in South Philly. He is Italian, so it was all good. And I know people who refuse to go on South Beach because they have to have their pasta!
Now, I’ve never seen the monkeys or heard Mamma Mia!, except on Broadway, and I agree that stereotypes suck, but The Sopranos is not that far off out here. Are they playing up to the stereotype? Sure. But people do dress, talk, and eat like that here. And no one bats an eyelash.
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November 20th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Everyone’s experiences are different. I personally loved the food I had for 6 days in Italy and never had red sauce once (except on that crappy pizza I had in the train station in Pisa just to be able to say I at pizza in Pisa).
Don’t talk bad about my ‘Pranos!
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