Stereotypes of poor whites still tolerated by network TV

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 30, 1997 | by Carmine Sarracino

If television is a barometer of the culture, last season indicates that there now are only very few permissible racial, ethnic or sexual stereotypes allowed the average viewer and, therefore, the average American. Gays, for example, are portrayed in counterstereotypical ways, and in a favorable light. Ellen, of course, is the eminent example. Indeed, one of the last acceptable bigotries on television is the portrayal of Italian-Americans. Italian-American males almost invariably are handsome and studly and as dumb as the rivets in their tight blue jeans. Arthur Fonzarelli, or "the Fonz," is one of the best-known progenitors of this television caricature. Tony, the handsome, brainless would-be boxer of Taxi fame is another of the classics.

In the past TV season and among the top-rated shows, we find Joey a regular on Friends. If you are among the few who do not know the show, guess which characteristics describe him: a) handsome; b) studly; c) passionate about dinosaur fossils; d) dumb as a dinosaur fossil. Ordinarily, I respond to such politically correct prejudice with a scornful and grudging acceptance, but one recent episode of Mad About You was so egregious as to get my Italian blood, well, at least simmering. Jaime (Helen Hunt) is trying to get her husband Paul (Paul Reiser) to see a homeless man as an individual rather than as a stereotype of homelessness. In the course of his friendly overtures to the homeless man, Paul invites the man to his gym, where we meet the proprietor, Dante, who is -- well, can you guess? (The gym, by the way, is called Dante's Inferno.)

The writers of this episode were so self-satisfied with their politically correct message about the homeless that they were, ironically, oblivious to the acceptable bigotry of presenting us yet again with an insulting version of the Italian-American male -- and then naming him after the great Italian poet.

Imagine the outrage from all quarters if in an episode Paul met a very stingy and rich Jewish banker -- one so clever at dealing illegal loans that he was called "Einstein." Or, an episode featuring a lazy, shuffling African-American named "Martin Luther." Writers' heads, heads of producers, program directors -- head would roll! Peter Jennings would do a story, leading it with his best wrinkled-brow-of-the-sensitive-liberal soulful look: "Can a sitcom be a hate crime?... That's the question harried executives at NBC are pondering today following a controversial and some would say anti-Semitic episode of MadAbout You. Time would feature a "Mad About Mad About You!" cover.

Clearly, the appearance of such abhorrent ethnic or racial stereotypes on any current television sitcom literally is unimaginable -- except for the Italian-American travesties. These are routine.

The nasty little secret about the portrayals of Italian-Americans is this: They are part of the larger contempt liberals feel for poor whites, for the Fonzes, Joeys, Tonys and Vinnys are lower class. They say "da" for "the" and indicate the plural "you" with "yous." Recall that the initial liberal attack on Paula Corbin Jones was to brand her "trailer trash." Consider how often the membership of the National Rifle Association is described as rural white poor, or what liberals like to call "rednecks" -- in fact, we can generalize and say that mocking caricatures of poor whites are one of the last acceptable bigotries.

I'm sure NBC received some letters about their Mad About You episode (I considered writing one), but on balance I am pleased that Italian-Americans have not responded to such bigotry with the politics of victimology. In fact, something more interesting has happened. Italian-American writers, most of them academicians, have formed an underground of organizations, journals and Internet sites dedicated to the kind of ethnic writing the mainstream has ignored. For example, the American-Italian Historical Association sponsors conferences and maintains a World Wide Web site (http://h-net.msu.edu). Voices in Italian Americana is a journal edited by Fred Gardaphe at Columbia College in Chicago. New York is home to many Italian-American groups, such as one dedicated to the study of Italian-American radicalism, which held a conference last month. (Is a conference on Italian-American conservatism next?)

Those who are interested will find in this "underground" history, fiction, poetry and memoirs dealing with, typically, first-and second-generation experiences of growing up in America with the values, family relations, customs and traditions brought from Italy. Absent are the Fonz, Joey or anybody's "connected" cousin Vinny.

One also finds only rare and anomalous examples of identity politics and victimology. Italian immigrants generally counted themselves lucky to be in America and passed along that sense of privilege to their children.

Still, it is important that Italian-American identity not be lost in the abomination of media stereotypes that persist. My wife and I recently had our first child, a boy. We named him Dante. And we've begun reading to him something he will not see or even hear about from any "Dante" on Mad About You: the long, marvelous poem called "The Divine Comedy."