by Katherine Johnson

Created on: September 17, 2007   Last Updated: July 14, 2010

The show definitely hurt the image of Italian male. For the most part the show represents Italians men as coke-snorting (the drug), wife beating and cheating, murdering mafia animals who cannot put two words together without saying the f-word. But wait the show doesn’t stop there, you also get to throw in dirty cops, crazed mistresses and drug lords and the Italian people really look bad.

There are some really great Italian peoples all over the world; they are accepting, comforting and for the most part extremely loyal people. Once you meet them you are able to get the feel of real family, they are also honest to a fault. There are some that are very articulate and most are very faithful to their wives. Contrary to popular belief, very few Italian males have ever even met anyone who had even the smallest mafia ties and they are over all very happy people who love others.

 There are a few stereotypes that seem to be true, but clearly not for everyone about Italians. Many times you may meet an older Italian woman who wears entirely too much makeup, but others do not wear even the smallest traces of makeup as many are naturally beautiful. You may still find a lot of Italian women do indeed have big hair, but it usually looks very attractive with the shape of their faces. The biggest stereotypes you may find to be true is that many of the men are named Anthony; they love their mother to distraction and will become quite agitated if anyone should bother their mother. They also tend to look for the good girls to marry as well. However none of these more endearing stereotypes are actually in this television show

As you watch this show, remember this is not exactly what Italians are like, while there are sure to be some that are exactly as the show implies, it should not be taken as representative of the entire culture. If you are Italian, you certainly would not want your children to think that this is how actual Italians are, because surely this would cause them to have an extremely distorted view of Italians, which eventually breeds hate.

There are some very good shows that depict Italian people as close families who love and care for their family members while using comedy to show potentially distressing situation that any family could encounter including the Italians. It is not recommended for people to actually watch this show, especially with your children.

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