Giving The Finger

Brandweek, May 8, 2000

In response to a Sopranos-fueled interest in Family Values, Medalist Entertainment has released the second offering of its budding Mob Hits franchise, a sequel CD Mob Hits II: More Music From and Tribute To the Great Mob Movies. Looking for a high-impact calling card to announce its arrival and get media pickup, pr firm Oui2, New York, decided on something smaller than a horse's head yet nearly as memorable.

Journalists received kits containing the CD along with a bullet-riddled news release and one gruesome tchotchke: a rubber finger adorned with a garish pinky ring, fake blood and exposed bone--as if it were freshly hacked off the hand of some goodfella, Intended as a satirical tribute to the mob film genre defined by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, the bid may have done its trick a little too well--some members of the Italian community could not simply "fuhgeddaboudit."

The Italian Tribune lambasted the promo's gory gift, saying it was up to here [raising hand to chin while being careful not to scratch neck and make unintentional obscene gesture] with the perpetuation of the negative stereotype depicting Italian Americans as Mafia members. "We've seen a lot of slanderous material, but never has an item so disgustingly linked Italian Americans with the mob," read the paper's scathing editorial, focusing on Oui2's kit, not the CD." Is this the image that our forefathers fought and worked for? Our parents and grandparents who sacrificed much to earn a respectable place in American society deserve better than to have their character slandered every time some idiot with a product to sell and a mob joke to tell makes a commercial."

Mob Hits II has songs by Louis Prima, Jerry Vale and Dean Martin featured in such films as The Godfather, GoodFellas and Married to the Mob. If the CD races up the charts with a bullet, marketers plan a Mob Hits Christmas for the holidays.