I'm curious to know the opinion of others on this topic. Is Hollywood biased, for example? I mean, does movies generally portray the mobsters as heroes in some kind a way rather than portraying the damage the Mafia has done to American sociaty? Are they considered as some kind of benefactors in the neighborhoods today? I can understand the fascination and the curiosity we share, surrounding the Mafia but is idolizing or admiring it really warranted? If so, why? This could be a good topic to discuss, but please be civil.

Never really watched the Sopranos outside of 2-3 episodes so I can't say whether that show portrayed Tony as a hero...but I think any complex depiction of a gangster makes him harder to label with one word or one way.

I think American Cosa Nostra, like any ethnic crime organization..rises by first victimizing members of their OWN community so I'm not sure that there are many or any of the Italian American members here who idolize the mob.

The fascination is due to a few things.
1) think about a boss, a bully, or some sort of an injustice done to you or your family and you felt helpless or the police had their hands tied for whatever reason. The mafia would take care if it asap.
Here's a story. A guy works in a factory and his boss is after his wife so he is going out of his way to make life hard for the guy; making his work environment miserable. So,the poor guy goes to a the social club around the corner and explains his situation to a guy he knows from the neighborhood. The guy listens to his problem and tells him not to worry about it. A few days later as his jerk off boss is walking to his car, 2 mean looking guys confront him and give him a beating and scare the shit out of the guy. They then tell him if he ever even looks at their friend again, he will be eating all his future meals by way of a straw.
Problem solved !!!!
A nice guy puts a pool in his yard and spends about 75k on it. After he puts his pool in, his neighbor in back of him says his nice, new renovation is on his property by almost a foot. The neighbor goes to the town and asks that all that hard work and all that hard earned money get thrown away because he said its his property and he wants all the fencing and even the pool moved and he is taking it to court. Now this guy has a rather large yard and coming about 6 inches on his property isnt going to effect his quality if life; it was purely an accident but now he is taking advantage and threatening to sue the poor bastard. Distraught and stressed, he mentions his issue to a friend who knows a guy. 2 mean guys approach the jerk off while he is in his garage doing some painting. Without a word, the guy gets pummeled and warned if he doesnt drop the law suit and doesnt stop going to the town, his head is going be chopped off and shoved straight up his ass.

How bout this. Your daughter is at college a d some scumbag kid snaps a picture of her while she is passed out at a party and its on his facebook page. The kid wont take it down and the cops say there is nothing they could do. The only thing they suggest is that your daughter stay away from the guy and perhaps try to take him to court. The father contacts a cousin who has a few connected friends and tells his story. Fathers themselves, the connected guys can surely empathize with the guy so they take care of it. As the fa***t college kid leaves his dorm, he is cracked a few times with a black jack and thrown into a car which is driven to the back of a shopping mall. As the kid is basically shitting in his pants, the one guy gives his hair a nice jerk and shoves a gun in his mouth. He then proceeds to tell the guy if every single picture of that girl is'nt deleted from his phone and taken off facebook within 4 hours, he's going to be sent back to his parents in a suitcase missing his arms.
Thats why America loves the mob.

Belmont

in those fictional scenarios.....are we to believe that the wise guy helps these regular guys out of the kindness of his heart?and that after the fact, the regular guys just walk away?

Kindness of their hearts? Sometimes. Thats kind of how the mafia started in italy, a police force for the poor.
If a guy who gets a favor owns a business, maybe a few guys get things for free ect....thats also why a lot of mob guys get support from the public.

lol @ those scenarios. what, no follow-up about the favors now owed and what they may consist of?

I've noticed that some people on here do idolize OC or claim that things were better decades ago or many years ago when la famiglia was more visible or public, say it's a shame about how things are not like they were decades ago, that some people involved in OC are sexy (!!!?), and that people involved in OC deserve respect.

And what if you're on the flip side of that home improvement?

True story: A guy buys the house across the street from the _________ on Schurz Avenue, right on the water, here in Throggs Neck. There are beautiful hundred year old trees on the property. One day, _____ decides he wants a better view of the water and "asks" the guy to cut the trees down. He politely declines. Awhile later, the guy and his family go on vacation, come home and find these beautiful trees cut down to the ground. Less than a year later, the guy is so fucking scared he sells the house and moves away.

My point is, you can cherry pick these scenarios all day long. But unless you've lived with these people all your life, and you know firsthand what they expect of you when they do you a favor, you really aren't in a position to give an objective answer.

Don Corleone doing favors on his daughter's wedding day is a fantasy. In America, anyway. I admit, in Sicily, what with the history, things are a little different.

The studios know what makes money and what doesn't make money.

Movies about crime make money.

Was their every a movie about the mob where the lead was able to walk a way with money, and not get caught? I can't remember one.

I wish there were I like the bad guys winning.

I was hoping the character in Breaking Bad would beat cancer. Take his 80 million and get out, and open his car wash keep his family and live happily ever after.

These scenario's are'nt made up .. The last one involving facebook was changed a bit because facebook wasnt around 15 years ago.
The second story regarding the pool: the guy owned some sort if paving company. Im sure he paved a few driveways on the house.
The neighbor who threatened to take the guy to court was a real scumbag. He was a retired guy who was bored and tried acting important. He even called the town on another neighbor because he wasnt sure if the neighbor obtained proper permits to have his grandmother living in the basement apartment . The guy took a beating ; he fuckin deserved it. No offense.

@ Belmont

Yeah. And then for taking vigilante justice and doing a "favour" for you, they start coming to your business offering their "protection" services and start extorting you as reciprocation.

More than likely, Belmont, is a scenario where mobsters kill civilians (Kubecka, Barstow), kill family members (Chiodo's sister), watch their children become junkies (D'Arco), encourage their children to become criminals instead of fulfilling their potential (Persico, Gravano, Gotti), kill an architect because they don't want to pay him (Casso), drive a jeweler to suicide after trying to break into his business (seen this in a documentary on the Philly family; perhaps someone can rejig my memory) or the countless circumstances where they have killed people because of unbridled greed.

Most of them are cowards who will turn state evidence at the slightest hint of a jail sentence anyway and people who hide behind guns and posse beatings.

Neither are these:



Again, the point is, you can cherry pick scenarios all day long. But whatever "good" they do is balanced out by the bad (like the "wrong" Nicky Guido getting killed on Christmas Day at twenty something years old).

I don't know about America, but in Italy there are plenty of mafia movies (especially those made before the 2000s) where the "good guys" lose and the mafia/corrupt politicians/secret services win. For example, in most Damiano Damiani's movies there is a clear and realistic message that single people can't beat the corrupt system.

As for idolizing mobsters in movies, I think that in many cases it's due to misunderstandings by the viewers of the author's intentions. For example, the scene in the Godfather where Michael "renounces" his sins in a church and at the same time his hitmen whack everybody, I think this is a powerful scene which clearly shows the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of the mafia and how Michael betrayed his original ideals. Nevertheless, many people consider Michael as a "cool" character to be sympathized with, probably even admire how he managed to wipe out all rivals at once.
I personally like watching mafia movies, especially realistic ones, as illustrations for certain historical periods, but that doesn't mean I like the protagonists from a human point of view; in the Godfather I wished everyone to fry on the electric chair.

Dominick Ragucci is the one that slays me. The terror that that kid must have felt in his last moments on Earth. Poor guy...

That's a myth created by Hollyweird and the media. They do not do that in Sicily, and a leader of OC does not do that.

Belmont

Scenarios seem made up and based on scene in the Godfather film.

But the book was 10 times better than the film. What the film didn't or couldn't show, was expertly written in the book.

The same mortician gets a call...it's from Haugen...telling him that the Don needs a favor.Nothing more is said to him. The poor mortician worries himself sick imagining what crime or killing that the Don wants him to help cover up..and he regrets ever asking for the Don's assistance.

While he's waiting for the Don to show up.....he almost has a breakdown.

That's what I said. It's a fantasy.

What I meant by things being different in Sicily is that with the mafia there being so ancient, that it's far more ingrained into the culture than it is here. It's far more an accepted way of life over there than it's ever been over here.

OK, now I understand what you mean. Yes it has been there, and like that for close to 800+ years.

There was that kid the tangle wood boys stabbed to death and their dads tried to cover up, shamrock bar killings, the nun that got killed during the perano hit. I think its all good having them in your neighbourhood and maybe they do keep things safe but once things do go wrong i don't see them protecting the neighbourhood then. Another example is when the lucheses were running that crack cocaine ring in bensonhurst.

Who is or was Dominick Ragucci?

A 19 year old kid, with no mob ties, shot to death by Roy DeMeo during a car chase.

But they only kill each other, right?

Anyone who idolized a mob guy deserves what he gets. You don't idolize those guys. They prey on mob fkers.

I remember Spider's sister (or was it mother?) called in to Howard Stern's show when Henry Hill was a guest and confronted him. Hill felt bad about what happened but he did try and justify it by saying that Spider was a Mob groupie.

It really was pretty unsettling listening to Howard Stern guffaw and crack jokes while a grieving woman is having a breakdown live on air.

Belmont, even I know that those gangsters are not going to just go beat up the guy's boss out of the goodness of their hearts. The mafia only wants power, money, and respect. 99% of the time it will cost you something, say the guy's brother owns a gun store or something, it will cost him something in the end. Once they get into your personal life and find out what you own or where you come from they are going for the jugular.

Just like I read in the Family Secrets book, Calabrese Sr. after finding out Junior stole from him and used it to start a restaurant that was making money Senior supposedly busted it out anyways to make the quick buck instead of raking it legit money. That is their mindset.

I'm not Philly expert but it was Sal Testa and maybe Leonetti I forget but I'm pretty certain Sal Testa was there. I think he jeweler was actually Enrico Riccobene, Harry the Hunchback's nephew. But that was more about the wars between the Scarfo faction and the Riccobene's than it was Testa and crew getting into his business.

Idolizing anyone outside of your own family is pretty retarded and never warranted.

Hairyknuckles, Great topic!

I think some members of the older Italian generations born in America in the 10's, 20's and 30's see the mafia as a protector of sorts. I have no doubt this was not the case but some folks think that way. The older members of my family that grew up during that time that I have talked to over the years say that the mafia kept the neighborhoods safe and minimized the effects of discrimination against the Italians. Now what they failed to realize or mention was this was their reality because my Grandpa was a Black Hander and they were protected but that most Italians in the neighborhood were victimized by the Mafia back then, if you weren't in the mafia you were exploited by them. The old saying goes you can't graft a new idea onto a closed mind and despite all evidence to the contrary some people believe that the mafia did some good and you know what on the rare occasion way back when I sure they did..... as long as there something in it for them

Agreed. This question is not Mafia related, but what about dying for somebody else but for your own family? Is dying for your country (in a war overseas) warranted?



Excellent post and I agree with you. But back in the day, in some cases perhaps, the Italian-Americans only had the Mafia to turn to for help, because they were the ones with the connections. What about today? Does the younger generations of Italian-Americans think that turning to the Mafia is an option?

How did Irish Americans do so well for themselves? They didn't have any criminal organisations looking out for them? Similar profile to the Italians too. Not as privileged as the German or English immigrants. Come to think of it, how did the Jews do so well for themselves also?

Irish, Blacks, Jews and Italians too should all be able to make something for themselves without resorting to crime.

And idolising your family is the ideal but plenty of people grow up without positive role models in their own families.

Friends, teachers, lecturers, Joe Di Maggio, MLK, JFK, Nelson Mandela.. these people can all be positive figures to learn from.