Italian-American Group Accuses De Niro of Cultural Minstrelsy
Echoing back to a controversy over the Sopranos, both as a topic of an episode and the public reaction to it, an Italian American group, the Order Sons of Italy in America have condemned the honoring of Robert De Niro at the Venice Film Festival this September. The Italian government plans to grant the American thespian honorary citizenship. But the lobbying group, based in DC, objects to this claiming De Niro has offered nothing but negative stereotypes of Italian Americans in his nearly four decades of work.
However, after investigating De Niro filmography, we at Worldwide have found that in only a fraction of his work does he play an "Italian gangster." In fact, he seems to have played a detective, a doctor or a priest far more often. In at least two of his gangster rolls, De Niro's mobsters are Jewish (Casino and Once Upon a Time in America). But most of the time, De Niro plays an ethnically ambiguous, though red-blooded, American whose edgy though understated performances leave such memorable impressions on us.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | US Italians attack De Niro prize
posted by Jimbo Trout @ Friday, August 13, 2004
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