Italian-American Caricature

Nothing like a plate of Spagoot and some Julius La Rosa!

"Ma! Ma! I'm gonna be late for Picture Day! Ma, you didn't pack my gabagool! And more cutlets, Ma! I only got one cutlet! Ah, fughettaboutit!"

— Tommy Devito, Gridiron Heights

Every culture has its requisite stereotype. The French are seen as snooty assholes, Americans are seen as fat, uncultured slobs, and Canadians are seen as polite weirdos with a nasty streak when it comes to hockey. But perhaps one of the most recent developments in the late 20th and early 21st Century has been the Italian-American Male stereotype. Since The Godfather started it and The Sopranos further popularized it, your requisite Italian-American Male character will embody one or more of the following stereotypes:

• They're always seen in a bowling shirt or a guinea tee.
• There's always some mention of some type of cold cut. Capicola, otherwise known as Gabagool, is the popular choice.
• There's some fanatical obsession with Italian-American celebrities, Frank Sinatra usually is the go-to.
• Family is incredibly important to them.
• They are a regular at the local Catholic Church.
• They're usually in a blue-collar profession.

And these are some of the basic tropes without venturing into Mafia territory. To be clear, this trope differentiates from Italian Mafia stereotypes, so any characters who are mobsters (with some exceptions. i.e. undercover work for cops), please refer to The Mafia.

In a similar vein, there's the Italian-American woman stereotype. There's generally two types of Italian-American women: the matriarchal figure (could be a mother, or a grandmother, or even an aunt in some cases) or the hot-headed strong, independent young woman. There are some overlaps with the male Italian-American stereotype, particularly the importance of family, the regular Catholic Church attendance, and the occasional fawning over Italian-American celebrities. But some stereotypes that tend to skew towards the female version are:

• The matriarch is purely a domestic housewife/homemaker.
• The matriarch is an amazing cook who works tirelessly in the kitchen.
• The matriarch can be overbearing.
• If the child (Male or female) of the matriarch does something that disrespects the family's staunch traditions, it will "break their heart".
• They spend a lot of time at hair salons.
• Their accents are more noticeable than their male counterparts.

Sometimes, a character will come from Joisey. Other times, they will display Brooklyn Rage. They might spout off Gratuitous Italian or Italians Talk with Hands. For those who are actually from Italy, they might be a Rambunctious Italian.

No Real Life Examples, Please! Just because the characters portrayed invoke the trope, doesn't necessarily mean that there needs to be countless examples of it in real life.

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Examples:

Film — Live Action

• 25th Hour: the five minutes long Cluster F-Bomb rant of Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) about New York City's inhabitants includes:
  "Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinggin’ their Jason Giambi Louisville Slugger baseball bats trying to audition for The Sopranos!"
• Brooklyn: Downplayed. Irish immigrant Eilis falls in love with Tony Fiorello, a second-generation Italian-American plumber with a big family. They talk with their hands and are impressed by how well she eats spaghetti, to which she explains she learned how from an Italian girl in her boarding house.
• Do the Right Thing: Sal is the owner of a pizza shop in a neighborhood that used to be majority-Italian but is now majority-black. One wall of his shop is covered end-to-end with photos of Italian-American stars like Frank Sinatra; it becomes the biggest source of conflict throughout the film when Buggin' Out asks why Sal doesn't have any photos of black celebrities on there and accuses him of being racist.
• Little Italy: Set in Toronto, the movie about a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers from rival pizza parlors is still awash with Italian-American stereotypes. Aside from the obvious culinary and location references brought on by the plot, characters have exaggerated Italian-American accents and attitudes.
• Moonstruck: Centering around the Italian-American Castorini family, the entire cast displays these traits to varying degrees, with the Multigenerational Household, superstitions, going to church to pray for one's sins, Johnny Camareri spending most of the film with his dying mother in Sicily, Ronny Camareri being operatically passionate and hot-tempered, and Loretta being able to give it right back to Ronny. The soundtrack even features Italian American singer Dean Martin.
• My Cousin Vinny: While most of the characters portray Southern stereotypes, Vinny Gambini, Mona Lisa Vito, and, to a lesser extent, Bill Gambini all have strong Brooklynite Italian-American traits, which mark them as outsiders in small-town Alabama. Vinny and Mona Lisa are brash and often bicker with each other, but also have a lot of passion in their relationship, while Bill himself has near-absolute faith his cousin can win their case, despite his lack of legal experience, because he is family and is "the quintessential Gambini" who will argue you to death.
• Eddie Murphy has a segment in the movie Raw where he riffs on Italian-American stereotypes from the 80s, portraying the men in particular (with his own version of an Italian accent) as massive fans of Sylvester Stallone and the Rocky movies who are full of machismo and swagger and have a preference for driving Camaros.
• Super Mario Bros. (1993): Mario and Luigi are Italian-Americans working as plumbers in Brooklyn. Mario, who is significantly older than Luigi in this version, has taken care of Luigi since their parents died and has some moments of Brooklyn Rage, while Luigi can be Hot-Blooded, rushing into things without thinking it through.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Played straight and invoked in "Undercover". Jake, who has been undercover with the Italian Ianucci crime family since the Season 1 finale, gives the toast at a big Italian-American wedding, where Italian music is playing. Jake tells the newlyweds to "Make us proud, have a son", comments on one man's spray tan, and gets kissed by all the mob bosses. His codeword for the cops to raid the wedding? "The meatballs were a little dry."
• Castle (2009): "Slice of Death" deals with a Pizza War between rival New York pizzerias, all run by passionate, bowling-shirt-wearing Italian-American men.
• In Cheers, the extended Tortelli family live out this trope. Carla, for instance, is a fiery and temperamental waitress who once punched her on-off husband Eddie across the bar. In the episode Those Lips! That Ice!, we see a card school in Carla's kitchen composed completely of Italian-Americans. They fit this trope to a man, in terms of dress, food preferences, blue-collar status, and their manner of speaking. Carla, meanwhile, goes through a phase of conscientiously trying to be the providing, submissive, loving, Italian wife and mother.
• Everybody Loves Raymond is centered around a lively Italian-American family in New York, and all its male characters have something of the stereotype about them. Ray Barone is something of a mother's boy who thinks, in his heart of hearts, that women should do all the domestic work and child-rearing. His brother Robert is a competent street cop who can talk the talk but who still lives at home with his parents. Their friend Gianni is a bluff blue-collar worker and would-be Romeo, who shows great respect for the Barone parents. Father Frank Barone is a boorish patriarch who still attends church and has respect for the structures of family life. And Marie is the overbearing matriarch of the family who sets expectations for everybody and provides the foodstuffs that hold it all together. If not capicola, there is very definitely braciole. With cannoli to follow.
• Joey Tribbani from Friends fits some of the stereotypes but not others, you don't really see him in bowling shirts as being an aspiring actor he follows fashion a little more than average. However, he has a huge family (being the only boy with seven sisters whom he is very protective of) who are Catholic (even if he doesn't attend). He is also very fond of both his grandmothers (Nonna and Nonnie) and translates for Nonnie who can't speak English. He's a Big Eater who will eat anything but does have a fondness for Italian food like pizza and lasagne in particular, and at one point realises to his horror he's becoming like his father when he gets upset and angry about wasted pastrami.
• The Reality Show Jersey Shore followed "eight of the hottest, tannest, craziest Guidos" (two of whom aren't even Italian) living and partying in a Seaside Heights beach house, playing up certain new age Italian-American stereotypes complete with a mural of the Italian flag painted over the garage door. Italian-American groups were pissed at the exploiting of these stereotypes, but it did nothing to stop the show from turning into a pop culture phenomenon.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi. His very first scene on the show has him offering zeppole to Benson and Rollins, and his early characterization leaned into the brash, working-class Brooklyn Rage stereotype with a thick accent to match. This was quickly dropped in favor of a more mellow, level-headed characterization, but he's kept the stereotypes of being close with his family (his parents, who live nearby on Staten Island and his three sisters, of which he is the Only Sane Man and their children), the squad's Token Religious Teammate whose Berserk Button is corruption within the Church, and having food as a love language. Him being a Through His Stomach type partner to Rollins prior to their Relationship Upgrade bordered on Running Gag, not only insisting she needed to eat more but often seen at her apartment cooking and teaching her oldest to do so, as well. In season 23, we meet his mother, who embodies most of the female stereotypes listed, including a Brick Joke of taking one look at Amanda and insisting "she needs to eat."
• Played with in What We Do in the Shadows (2019) with the Rinaldis, the vampires' neighbors. On the one hand, Sean and his wife are quite loud and animated, and quite often quarrel with one another, but on the other hand, they're a lot more forward-thinking than most Italian-American stereotypes, with Sean even running for office on an LGBT-friendly platform and enlisting the vampires to help him organize a Pride parade.

Music

• The How You Doin' Boys released a The Twelve Spoofs of Christmas single which focused on what a stereotypical Italian-American would receive from his Paisano. The gifts were as follows:
  • A ride in his IROC-Z
  • Two Guinea Tees
  • All three The Godfather films
  • Four fresh cannoli
  • Five pinky rings
  • Six Sergio Tacchini's
  • Seven Mike Piazza jerseys
  • Eight "How You Doin's"
  • Nine "Balls a Grabbin''
  • Ten new hand gestures
  • Eleven Frank Sinatra CD's
  • Twelve gobs of hairgel

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed II: Invoked as a joke by Desmond Miles, who has been relieving the events of the game through his Italian ancestor, thanks to technology from an ancient civilization.
  Desmond: [in an extremely stereotypical Italian-American accent] Eyyy, whassa-matta-you, Altair?
• The Driver series aims a Take That! at Grand Theft Auto: Vice City protagonist Tommy Vercetti with a knockoff named Timmy Vermicelli. There's a special objective to kill him 10 times scattered over the game map. He shows up again in the sequel as well.

Web Animation

• Gridiron Heights: New York Giants quarterback Tommy Devito (not to be confused with the mob dude of the same name played by Joe Pesci) is portrayed like this, wearing a bowling shirt and chain, yelling to his mother, complaining about his lack of gabagool and the fact that he has only one chicken cutlet. He attempts to eat said chicken cutlet, but drops sauce on his shirt and resignedly says, "Ah, fughettaboutit". In a follow-up appearance, he’s shown working a construction job when the backup quarterbacks recruit him for the B Team. Devito's character is based on his real-life counterpart's embodiment of the tropes as well as the media and the fanbase's embracing of him as a cult hero. Adding further hilarity is that Devito is voiced by a toddler due to the series' longstanding tradition of having rookie quarterbacks portrayed with baby voices.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "Shell Game", Francine decides to buy jarred pasta sauce for her spaghetti. The sauce is so good, that the family gradually develops Italian-American mannerisms like Francine sticking to the kitchen and making a big pot of sauce, Stan and Klaus listening to old Italian records with the living room redecorated with Roman Catholic icons, and Hayley and Jeff turning into a bickering couple. Steve in particular has a flashback to life as an Italian-American immigrant youth who ultimately saw his best friend Snot get blown up in a car bombing.
  Steve: What the hell was in that sauce?
• Family Guy:
  • In "Blue Harvest", when Beru yells at Luke, a stereotypical Italian-American neighbor (overweight, slicked-back hair, white tank top, gold jewelry) sticks his head out of a window and yells "Hey! Shut up-a with the noise-a!" He's then joined by a chorus of identical-looking Italian-Americans who all start yelling at each other to "Shut up-a with the shut up-a!"
  • In "Brian Griffin's House of Payne", Brian cracks an ill-timed World War II joke to some NBC executives. He awkwardly asks if anyone's Jewish, causing the execs to look at each other and reveal comically large, hooked noses. Brian hastily apologizes, but the execs laugh and admit they're just Italian-Americans.
  • A cutaway gag in "Partial Terms of Endearment" shows an Italian-American getting a vision test at the eye doctor's and reading off every letter as "Ey!" or "Oh!"
  • "Seahorse Seashell Party" has a cutaway gag in which a fight between a stereotypical Italian American and a Sassy Black Woman is given a Wildlife Commentary Spoof narration.
  • In "You Can't Do That on Television, Peter", Peter says his life without a TV show would be like an Italian mother without bad kids. It then shows a cutaway gag where it shows an Italian-American woman yelling at her sons for being such delinquents when they're shown to be mild-mannered straight-A students.
  • In "Space Cadet", a cutaway gag shows an Italian-American climbing in a space shuttle and going into orbit so just he can say he's "had it up to here" with a friend he's upset with.
  • "Stewie, Chris, & Brian's Excellent Adventure" sees the three time-traveling back to Italy before the invention of pasta, where it shows a bunch of stereotypical Italian-Americans living like cavemen, banging rocks and going "Ey!" "Ah!" and "Oh!" It then cuts to a live-action Tony Sirico angrily threatening the showrunners in character as Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos:
    Tony Sirico: Hey Family Guy! You're lucky I've got a manicotti in the oven, or I'd bash your face into a bolognese! That's two kinds of food! That's how angry I am!
  • In "Bookie of the Year", one of the activities at the San Gennaro festival is "teach an old Italian lady how to use an iPad." Peter tries, gets frustrated at her stubbornness, brings up how she refuses to move past her son Joey's death, and says she's in denial that Joey was dirty. She storms off to church crying, causing Peter to despondently shout "Ma!" as she leaves.
  • In "Peter's Def Jam", Peter complains that Cleveland's rambling monologue on their first podcast episode was worse than an Italian guy describing someone's sexuality. Cut to Peter at a dinner with an Italian-American family where an unnamed man is trying to describe to Peter his brother Louie, while not explicitly referring to him as gay. Peter finally says it, causing the mother to burst into tears. The brother admonishes Peter before trying to plead to his mother that Louie isn't gay, just "creative"
  • In "Stand by Meg", Chris is sent to a vocational school full of Italian-American Greaser Delinquents. He starts slicking back his hair, wearing only white tank tops, and referring to himself as "Chrissy"; Peter only gets him to snap out of it by slapping his face and telling him "You're breakin' ya mother's heart!"
  • One cutaway gag in "First Blood" depicts an Italian-American baptism, which includes the vows "You will now drive a Camaro, hate every minute of your yearly vacation to Italy, and get very upset when your sister starts to date." When the older sister shows up to the baptism with her boyfriend, the Italian relatives all let out an angry "Ey!" and the baby's first words are "Father, drown me in this water, she's breakin' my heart!"
• Super Mario Bros. (DiC): Exaggerated. Mario and Luigi are Italian-American New Yorkers described as Pizza-tarians, and while Mario's Trademark Favorite Food is pasta, he has also been known to enjoy pepperoni cheesecake and mozzarella milkshakes. It helps that both of them were voiced by people with Italian heritage at one point^note Captain Lou Albano for Mario in the Super Show and Tony Rosato as Luigi in the latter two cartoons, with Luigi's retaining a slight accent.

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