Posted on 02/13/2008 8:16:00 PM PST by kellynla
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. has convicted "The Sopranos" of spreading what he says are stereotypes about Italian-Americans.
During a visit to Rutgers University on Wednesday, Alito complained that the hit HBO television drama not only associated Italian-Americans with the Mafia, but New Jerseyans, as well.
"You have a trifecta _ gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey _ wedded in the popular American imagination," Alito said at an event sponsored by the Italian studies program at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey.
Alito, himself an Italian-American, lived for nearly two decades in a West Caldwell home in the same area of New Jersey where the fictional Tony Soprano lived.
Alito told the gathering of about 100 people that a friend in California once sent him a map of "Sopranos"-related locations. "He wanted me to put down where my house was on the map," Alito said to laughs.
Alito's comments about "The Sopranos," which went off the air last year, were part of a talk in which the New Jersey native lamented that there are too many stereotypes about Italians in the United States.
He said the real story of Italian people who came here, some succeeding and some failing and going back to Italy, needed to be preserved because it told something about the United States' "true nature as a nation of immigrants."
Alito, 57, was born in Trenton, grew up in Hamilton Township and attended Princeton University before going to law school at Yale. Last year, Alito and his wife moved from West Caldwell to northern Virginia to be closer to his new job.
Since taking his seat on the court in January 2006, Alito has generally sided with other conservative members of the court, including fellow Trenton native, Antonin Scalia.
Judging by the article he wassn’t seriously offended- he was just using the ‘complaint’ in a humorous way to lighten up his speech.
Thanks for your post. I am glad to hear that.
Everybody knows there is no more mafia. Rudy eliminated them.
I think Justice Alito need to calm down LOL!
Ping for later...
” ....he also has one hell of an ability to get Justice Kenndy to side with the Conservatives BY FAR MORE THAN NORMAL.”
Maybe he made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
I agree that the tv show portrayed a stereotype.
I also know that the mob had a shill group in the 1970s established to do the same task that CAIR does to shield the bad members of the group from any criticizism on the basis of “stereotyping”. It wasn’t just that the mob operated while this group deflected criticism, it was established BY the mob to deflect criticism.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Really topical, the show ended last year. And in it’s first season it addresses the whole “mob movies perpetuating negative stereotypes” situation. The punchline is it doesn’t. People know all Italians aren’t mobsters, the problem is the non-mobster Italians aren’t interesting enough to make movies and TV shows about. Of course if Italian American really are bothered by it maybe they should stop giving examples, almost all the mob fiction out there, including Sopranos, is based (sometimes more loosely than others) on real people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.