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There are a very few Italian-Americans still alive! I think this debate is directed more towards Americans of Italian decent.

I do not think the Sopranos show hurt the image of "Americans of Italian decent!" If anything, it hurt the first and second generation New Jersey Americans of Italian decent with bad accents, big hair and cheesy personas.

Any intelligent person understands the mafia speaks for a minute percentage of Americans of Italian decent. New Jersey Americans of Italian decent do not speak for the rest. Like any other filtered culture in America, there are good and bad, but as Americans, we are fixed on the bad, which in a weird way is romanticized. Thank you Hollywood!

What I did enjoy behind the Sopranos mafioso theme was the backdrop of family or was family the theme and mafia the backdrop? Regardless, the Sopranos love for family, pride in heritage and struggles in and passion for life struck a chord with me.

Movies, like "The Departed" do not hurt the image of Americans of Irish decent. It speaks for a small group of Bostonians from Irish decent, especially one who made fools out of the real American mafia, the FBI. This issue comes up every time another movie or show comes out about the mafia or gang related theme. We will be debating a similar issue after the media and public have absorbed the movie, "American Gangster?"

In brief, did the Sopranos help the image of Americans of Italian decent? I do not think we need the help.

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