U.S ITALIANS
OPEN FIRE ON SHARK TALE
Copyright 2004 news.yahoo.com
[ October 6th 2004 ]
Italian
American groups opened fire on movie mogul Steven
Spielberg and star Robert DeNiro for what they
say is a racist portrayal of Mafiosi sharks in
the animated movie Shark Tale. Organisations representing
Americans of Italian descent and anti-discrimination
groups called for a boycott of the hit children's
film and accused its makers and stars of promoting
violence and racial stereotyping. The Dreamworks
studios movie which opened Friday and took a whopping
47.6 million dollars in its debut weekend, tells
the story of a Mafia family of sharks, led by
patriarch Don Dino - voiced by DeNiro. The film
also used the voices Italian-American filmmaker
Martin Scorsese, actor Will Smith and screen beauty
Angelina Jolie.
But
Italian-Americans are sensitive about the decades-old
on-screen portrayal of gangsters as Italian-accented
thugs. "In Shark Tale, bad guys are identified
by Italian and Italian-American names, such as
Lino and Luca, and by their use of Italian-American
phrases of speech and slang," said Lawrence Auriana
of the Italian group, the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
The movie introduces a new generation of children
to the idea that people with Italian names - like
millions of Americans across the country - are
gangsters. Spielberg is looking to make a profit
from the mafia genre at the expense of innocent
children who are inculcated with prejudice from
negative ethnic stereotyping," he said.
The
Coalition Against Racial, Religious and Ethnic
Stereotyping also weighed in against the movie
made by Dreamworks studios, which was co-founded
by Spielberg. "The gangster-fish have Italian
names and prey on the weaker fish," she said,
adding that her group had appealed to Dreamworks
to remove Italian expressions from the film's
dialogue. "Since our requests fell on deaf ears,
we are calling for a boycott of the film" and
its corporate sponsors including soft drink giant
Coca-Cola, fast food chain Burger King, said De
Sanctis.
A
leading Italian American group last month protested
to Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi asking
that he withdraw the honorary Italian citizenship
that the country bestowed on DeNiro, who starred
in the classic Mafia movie The Godfather II. The
government rejected the plea.
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