SW15
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- May 31, 2020
- Messages
- 12,271
- Reaction score
- 10,527
I liked Do The Right Thing.I feel the same way. I'm part Italian and I HATE the Italian-American organizations that bytch and moan about Goodfellas, the Godfather, etc. Those are great works of art and everyone knows most Italians aren't "connected." Plus, nobody forces anyone to watch them.
One difference is that at least those two movies were made by Italian-Americans from NY, so they understood the background. Whereas up until recently there weren't a lot of black directors telling black stories. But a great movie should stand on its own merit, even if the message is uncomfortable. (By that metric I think Do The Right Thing is really good, for example.)
I actually thought Jersey Shore was wildly entertaining. I'm definitely a Gym Tan Laundry guy. Even in 2009-2010 when Jersey Shore was in its first season, I had been into those sorts of things but I never thought to put the words of Gym Tan Laundry together to summarize a lifestyle. Women definitely are into GTL guys. A guy will look good implementing GTL. I don't do anabolic steroids though, as a lot of juicehead guidos do. I also do not find the term guido offensive, but it is an unfairly treated slur. It's considerable acceptable to use the guido slur against Italian-Americans as they are white people, but using slurs against any other race/ethnicity is not considered socially acceptable.
Goodfellas is definitely great. I have not seen Casino in its entirety. Maybe 5-10 minutes on TV once. Speaking of films about criminal life, neither version of Scarface has been mentioned in this discussion. I never saw the 1932 Scarface based on Al Capone, but I did see the 1983 Scarface centered around cocaine trafficking.I'm Italian American too (half Italian). While Goodfellas is great, I like Casino even better. Casino also has a great soundtrack.
A few years ago, PBS did a multi part documentary called the Italian-Americans. It was excellent.
I would be interested in the PBS documentary.
No one has mentioned The Wizard of Oz which is completely different from than content about Italian-Americans. It's much different to make a film involving mainstream white people in Kansas than Italian-Americans in New York/New Jersey. Italians are white, but an ethnic white.