A few weeks ago I posted an article that discussed some overused Italian stereotypes that aren't true and should be on the way out. That particular article proved to be quite popular, and not because I decided to spam 7 types of shit out of every single Facebook page and semi-related blog that I could find with it, but also because it appears I struck a bit of nerve with some of my loyal readers (again, all 3 of them).
So now I bring you a second helping of this topic. Could I simply be riding on the wave of success?
Or maybe I'm simply out of good, original ideas.
I'll let you be the judge.
3 More Italian Stereotypes That Need To Go
3 - The Gel, The Jewellery, The 'Slickness'.
Now I'm not one to lay the blame squarely on popular culture for the way our youth today act, dress and procreate as if faced with extinction, but I do believe it plays some part. There's a common myth that all young Italians are obsessed with tans, their hair, and think about nothing else other than some good old fashioned fornication.
I don't blame pop culture at all.
It seems that a certain kind of stigma has been hanging over Italian/Australians for a long time now, one that has been represented countless times in the media, and that's because it's not just limited to Australia but almost every other country that accepted Italian immigrants after WWII.
Now, this particular stereotype isn't just limited to Italians. It's an umbrella stereotype used to categorise every single person of Southern and Eastern European descent in this country - Wog.
The term Wog has its roots in the UK in the early part of the 20th Century. There it was used to refer to people of Indian, Pakistani or African heritage. Australia, being the colonial little ass-kisser that it was for it's first hundred or so years as a federated nation, adopted many of the slang terms from the mother country. The only difference now was that this word was being used to describe a whole new different group of people - ones that were suddenly streaming into the country faster than Ricky Nixon hearing about a hotel room with an underage girl.
The problem is, and this is important to understand, that not all Italians like to be classified this way. In fact, the great majority, and again this is VERY important to understand, do not like being lumped in with such a diverse ethnic group. Think about the severity of the statement "Greeks are just like Italians".
OK, to most people this doesn't sound so shocking, well to those outside of the two cultures anyway. But then say this without cringing: "The Irish are just like the English". Now, to anyone who even so much as only received a formal education right up until their 6th birthday, that particular statement is by far the dumbest thing they would ever have heard. Ireland and England are not separated by a whole lot of space - there's but a mere pond between them in global terms - yet the two cultures are very dissimilar.
The same goes for the countries of Greece and Italy. Sure, if you look at the history of the Mediterranean you can see how there was so much invading going on that if you go back far enough all of Southern Europeans are essentially the same, but as far as cultural differences go, they are almost worlds apart.
The next part of this stereotype is the look that we're expected to have.
Yes, we all look like Vince Colosimo in muscle shirts.
The look is scary. Why? Because at some point in the late 90's, I only had to go to my local supermarket to ask the question: Is life imitating art, or is art imitating life?
You buy yourself a black Kappa jacket because the guys on Fat Pizza are all wearing Kappa and your cousin Anthony also wears one with his mates. You buy yourself a big-ass gold chain to wear with a cross on the end that's so big, all you're missing to hold a public crucifixion are some Roman soldiers.
Now of course I'm talking about over 10 years ago, but today it hasn't changed a whole lot. Just replace Kappa with whatever lame brand a guy with gold teeth who calls himself a rapper is wearing. The gold chain can stay the same but get rid of the cross and get yourself an equally lame tattoo - preferably somewhere noticeable if you're wearing a singlet. OK, noticeable if you're shirtless. OK, sorry, noticeable from fucking space!
Then, there's the girls. Madonn! The girls.
Nothing has changed a bit in this department, but there are three rules: crop tops, tight pants, fake tan.
Her father assumes the acronym of 'Does This Fit?' is ironic. We won't tell him otherwise.
Where did it come from?
This particular stereotype? Years and years of shovelling it in our faces. I like to personally think that the stereotype of a young Italian guy using a small countries entire petroleum stock pile to gel his hair once a day is a complete myth that created the assumption (and then reality) in the first place, but I could be wrong since I know guys like that. The hard truth is that 1% of the Italian-Australian population even remembers Kappa.
2 - A Year's Supply of Grappa
I know one Italian man who makes and drinks his own Grappa. That man is my uncle. That is literally the ONLY Italian that I know of, and that I have known in my entire life, who makes home-made Grappa. And there's not a year's worth.
Multiple Choice: Alcohol, Mountain Dew, or Uncle Tony's Donkey's specimen?
No one in my immediate family has ever made their own alcohol. Oh, I stood in the DIY beer aisle at Big W once for more than a minute contemplating how cool it'd be, then I realised actual work was involved so I left and drove to Dan Murphy's instead.
Where did it come from?
Back in the old days (no, not when we were killing/boning neanderthals, a bit more recent) the older Italian men used to play cards and drink their homemade wine/grappa/rocket-fueld death traps. They also used to bring bottles of it to each others houses as gifts/poisonous death traps.
1 - Being Loud and Just Plain Yelling All The Time
I come from a pretty loud family, I'll admit it. We don't yell or speak loud because we're mad, it's just that there are so many of us trying to get our own parts of a very complex conversation out of the way first, that we think yelling over each other drown the other people out. It doesn't work when a dozen of you are doing this.
That being said, this isn't true for all Italian families. It may just be that we are actually the exception and this silly stereotype was based on the few psychotic families, like my very own, who happen to be excruciatingly loud at the best of times.
Also, I'm a pretty loud person, but that's just my personality. I've always believed that telling a story or asking a question involves deafening the other person or at least giving them some kind of severe ear damage. It works though because people often either respond to me straight away or keel from some kind of audible sensory seizure (I'm not sure that's a science thing at all but all those words strung together look smart enough to be).
This is me MC'ing my cousin's wedding a couple of years ago
Where did it come from?
I know many other Italian families very, very different to my own - essentially making them extremely sane by comparison.
I also have quite a few Italian friends who are very soft-spoken and polite individuals - again, complete opposite of myself.
This is definitely a stereotype laid down by those psychotic individuals (like myself) whose human amplifier system is like the one in Spinal Tap; it goes to 11.
To be deafened simply by the ferocity of his typing, you can follow @SiCar on Twitter.
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