Abstract
This chapter examines the representation of homosexuality in three Italian American/Canadian films: Nunzio’s Second Cousin (1994), Kiss Me, Guido (1997), and Mambo Italiano (2003). The piece opens with an exploration of queer Italian Americans in literature and critical theory, charting an evolution from Masculinity Studies to Homosexuality Studies. Then, the author discusses the theoretical framework for his work, considering both the concept of bella figura versus brutta figura, as well as the significance of private versus public spaces, especially within an Italian American context. Additionally, he uses Eve Sedgwick’s theory of the closet to analyze how homosexual Italian Americans confront their identity—either before or after—leaving the closet. Although each film has a unique relationship with homosexuality, all three male protagonists end with a better understanding of one’s own identity and the concept of gender, whether homosexual or not.
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Notes
- 1.
The Celluloid Closet was originally published in 1981 and saw a revision in 1987. In his “Introduction” to the revised edition, Russo addresses various issues and concerns brought to life from the first edition. The “Introduction” itself is useful to understand the mentality of the LGBT community at the time as Russo himself is best described as a militant and activist. It was first translated into Italian in 1999 with the title Lo schermo velato. L’omosessualità nel cinema.
- 2.
In retrospect, the fact that Russo focuses solely on gay male characters underscores, and maybe more accurately, highlights, the various problems the LGBTQIAA+ community faced as a movement, particularly in the 1980s (pre-AIDS). Excluding lesbian characters, which may have also been a more difficult task due to the ability of gay women to mask/closet easier than men historically, further separates the cause, creating tension rather than unity.
- 3.
It is important to note the chapter titles of the work: “Introduction: On the Closet Mentality”, “Who’s a Sissy? Homosexuality According to Tinseltown”, “The Way We Weren’t. The Invisible Years”, “Frightening the Horses Out of the Closets and into the Shadows”, “Struggle, Fear and Loathing in Gay Hollywood”, and “Take the Game Away from Hollywood Finding a Voice and Facing Backlash”.
- 4.
See Vito Russo, “Introduction: On the Closet Mentality” for a deeper discussion on the topic.
- 5.
- 6.
The earliest and most robust to date is Peter Bondanella’s Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys and Sopranos (2004). Although less critical, it offers a huge panoramic of Italian American cinema by category, similar to Russo’s gay version. See also Jonathan Cavallero’s Hollywood’s Italian American Filmmakers: Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola, and Tarantino (2011).
- 7.
It is important to remind the reader that a few anthologies on homosexual Italian American writers do exist. The earliest is FUORI: Essays by Italian/American Lesbians and Gays, edited by Anthony Julian Tamburri and introduced by Mary Jo Bona (1996). Immediately following, Giovanna (Janet) Capone, Denise Nico Leto, and Tommi Avicolli Mecca edited Hey Paesan! Writing by Lesbians & Gay Men of Italian Descent (1999), which was a much more robust collection when considering participation and genres included. The last anthology on gay Italian American writing is Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (2013), edited by Joseph Anthony LoGiudice and Michael Carosone. Still, in 2013, the gay male community finds it necessary to separate the stories according to binary gender lines.
- 8.
Russo most clearly uses the AIDS epidemic as a way to evidence this argument.
- 9.
- 10.
This chapter (129–148) is included in Anthony Julian Tamburri, Re-viewing Italian Americana: Generalities and Specificities on Cinema (2011).
- 11.
Most recently, George De Stefano also wrote “Fuori per Sempre: Gay and Lesbian Italian Americans Come Out” in The Routledge History of Italian Americans (2018). Although the piece focuses on literature and the evolution of the field in an academic sense, it remains critical for its detailed development of gay and lesbian Italian Americana.
- 12.
See also Alan Ryan, “Private Selves and Public Parts” (1983).
- 13.
“Most Homophobes are Gay.” September 15, 2016. https://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/homophobes.htm (accessed April 10, 2023).
- 14.
It is also important to remember Alfred Kinsey’s ‘Kinsey Scale’, or ‘Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale’, a system he created to rate one’s sexual orientation. One would take a survey on sexual desire and the response would range from 0 (meaning exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). In the end, Table 147 of the study showed that 11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this moment in their lives. Additionally, 10% of American males were “more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55”—within the 5–6 range (Kinsey et al., 651). Kinsey’s research suggests a homophobic attitude or, at least, a fear of living as a declared homosexual.
- 15.
The director, Tom DeCerchio, is a seasoned writer for top Hollywood production companies, among the likes of MGM, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Walt Disney Pictures, and is the founder of Incubator Films.
- 16.
See http://www.incubatorfilms.com/press/press_tom.html (accessed April 10, 2023), and Anthony Julian Tamburri, Italian/American Short Films and Music Videos: A Semiotic Reading (2002), especially 29–52.
- 17.
http://www.incubatorfilms.com/press/press_tom.html 15 September 2016 (accessed April 10, 2023).
- 18.
See Mulvey (1975).
- 19.
Mulvey’s framework assumes a ‘classic film spectator’ and a ‘classic narrative cinema’, generally excluding any type of ‘gendered’ spectator. For more information on the gendered spectator, see Caroline Evans and Lorraine Gammon, “The Gaze Revisited, or Reviewing Queer Viewing” (1995).
- 20.
Through his semiotic reading, Anthony Julian Tamburri underscores the shape and color, a dark salami, referring to both Levon, his Black lover, and Jimmy.
- 21.
It is important to note that CBS took Kiss Me, Guido from the big to the small screen in 2001, with the title Some of My Best Friends (2001). The show was still written by Tony Vitale and Marc Cherry, known for Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), but was canceled after one season.
- 22.
See Jessica Segal, “Film and Digital Media. A Multi-Author Discussion of the Creative Industries in the Digital Age.” https://filmanddigitalmedia.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/556/ (Accessed September 4, 2023).
- 23.
Pino, Frankie’s brother, is completely stereotyped in the film as an ‘Italian Stallion’ who continually sleeps with women outside of relationships. The fact that he sleeps with his own brother’s girlfriend is also exceptionally low. Then he comes to Manhattan and sleeps with his landlord. This negative stereotyping reinforces the negative image of Italian American men and masculinity on screen.
- 24.
Italian American author and actor Michael Carosone has continually argued for the importance of hiring Italian American actors to play Italian American roles at various conferences and venues in NYC as well as via social media.
- 25.
- 26.
Steve Galluccio is an Italian Canadian screenwriter. He has written Mambo Italiano, the theatrical script, and collaborated on the film version, along with Surviving My Mother (2007) and Funkytown (2011). He has additionally written the screenplay for the television series Ciao Bella (2004–2005). Galluccio assumes an active role in writing and composing music for his films, earning two Genie Award nominations for Best Original Song: “Montréal Italiano” in Mambo Italiano (2003) and “Waiting for Your Touch” in Funkytown (2011).
- 27.
I use Italian American to include Italian Canadian.
- 28.
See Peter Fletcher (2010).
- 29.
See Bersani (2009), especially 3–31.
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Bondanella, Peter. Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos. New York: Continuum, 2004.
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———. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Capone, Giovanna (Janet), Denis Nico Leto, and Tommi Avicolli Mecca (edited by). Hey Paesan! Writing by Lesbians and Gay Men of Italian Descent. Oakland: Three Guineas Press, 1999.
Cavallero, Jonathan. Hollywood’s Italian American Filmmakers: Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola, and Tarantino. Urbana Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
De Stefano, George. “Fuori per Sempre: Gay and Lesbian Italian Americans Come Out.” In The Routledge History of Italian Americans, edited by William J. Connell and Stanislao Pugliese, 565–580. New York-London: Routledge, 2018.
———. “A ‘Finook’ in the Crew. Vito Spatafore, The Sopranos, and the Queering of Mafia Genre.” In The Essential Sopranos Reader, edited by David Lavery, Douglas L. Howard, and Paul Levinson, 114–123. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2011.
———. “Identity Crises: Race, Sex and Ethnicity in Italian-American Cinema.” In Mediated Ethnicity: New Italian-American Cinema, edited by Giuliana Muscio, Joseph Sciorra, Giovanni Spagnoletti, and Anthony Julian Tamburri, 159–170. New York: John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 2010.
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———. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
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Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction Is about You.” In Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, edited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, 1–38. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.
LoGiudice, Joseph A. and Michael Carosone (edited by). Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men. New York: Bordighera Press, 2013.
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———. FUORI: Essays by Italian/American Lesbians and Gays. Edited by Anthony Julian Tamburri. New York: Bordighera Press, 1996.
Films and TV Series Cited
Big Night (Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci, 1996).
Boys Life 2 (Mark Christopher, Tom DeCerchio, Tom Donaghy, Nickolas Perry, 1994).
A Bronx Tale (Robert De Niro, 1993).
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995).
Ciao Bella (TV Series, 2004–2005).
Desperate Housewives (TV Series, 2004–2012).
Funkytown (Daniel Roby, 2011).
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).
The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974).
The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990).
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990).
Happy Days (TV Series, 1974–1984).
Kiss Me, Guido (Tony Vitale, 1997).
Mambo Italiano (Èmile Gaudreault, 2003).
Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973).
Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987).
Nunzio’s Second Cousin (Tom DeCerchio, 1994—Segment of Boys Life 2).
The Sicilian (Michael Cimino, 1987).
Some of My Best Friends (TV Series, 2001).
The Sopranos (TV Series, 1999–2007).
Surviving My Mother (Émile Gaudreault, 2007).
Vito (Jeffrey Schwarz, 2012).
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Calabretta-Sajder, R. (2024). The Celluloid Closet: Sex, Power, and Coming Out Repression of the Italian American Closet in Nunzio’s Second Cousin (1994), Kiss Me, Guido (1997), and Mambo Italiano (2003).
In: Fioretti, D., Orsitto, F. (eds) Italian Americans in Film and Other Media. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47211-4_6
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