THIS PIECE IS ABOUT THREE YEARS OLD. WHAT ENSUED AFTER IT WAS PUBLISHED IN THE ITALIAN AMERICAN ARTS FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER YOU CAN SEE FOR YOURSELF IN THE DOCUMENTS THAT FOLLOW. ANTHONY NAPOLI HAS ALWAYS CLAIMED THAT HIS LAWYER ACTED ON HIS OWN...THAT HE (NAPOLI) HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE LETTER AND ON AND ON...HOWEVER, I RAN INTO ANTHONY NAPOLI AT A LOCAL WHOLE FOODS RECENTLY (AROUND CHRISTMAS I THINK IT WAS) AND HE PROCEEDED TO BERATE AND HARASS ME ABOUT THE ARTICLE...AGAIN... HE BECAME VERY AGGRESSIVE AND RUDE, CALLING ME NAMES AND TELLING ME TO F**K MYSELF ETC. NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE PRODUCE SHOPPERS AT WHOLEFOODS PROBABLY HAD NEVER HEARD THOSE WORDS AND FELT ALL THAT ANGER AMONG THEIR GREENS BEFORE...I JUST HOPE THAT THEY HAVE CAMERAS IN THERE AND THAT HIS PERFORMANCE WAS CAPTURED FOR POSTERITY...AFTER THAT I THOUGHT THAT THE ARTICLE HAD IMPRESSED HIM SO MUCH AND WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT NEEDED TO BE BLOGGED.

An Opinion on the ANTHONY NAPOLI Billboard
Located on India Street, next to the Little Italy Sign

(this billboard was removed and then put up again...and then removed...the ad has however appeared in other ad formats and remains on Napoli's website where he proudly displays San Diego Magazine's granting of it its Best Billboard prize...congratulations to both of you!)

Have you ever felt like a salmon swimming upstream in that end-of-life attempt to ensure the survival of your species? Up you go, past rapids, over tree-trunks and other obstacles; almost there, almost home and then, all of a sudden a big grizzly claw rips you up out of the stream and you’re dinner! Well, that’s the feeling I get when I come across things like the publicity sign that you see in the photograph. In the midst of all the complaints about The Sopranos, and the unending whining about the negative image of Italians proliferated in the media, it’s heart-rending to find hypocrisy emerging blatant and smiling from your own community. There it is, big and bright, right up next to the Little Italy sign. You might as well put an equal sign between the sign and the billboard. Our respected real estate guru for Little Italy, Anthony Napoli, seems to find it fruitful to exploit the most banal and negative image of Italians to put a buck in his pocket. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s a shame that other prominent local personalities allowed themselves to be dragged into his cynical spectacle.
I remember how, a few years back, the Little Italy community came together to establish a task-force to stand up to the series of articles about the local mob published by San Diego’s weekly The Reader. When I see something like Napoli’s billboard I ask myself if maybe, instead of reacting to how outsiders perceive us, we should not turn some of our anger and dismay inward, toward educating ourselves. Did Napoli even hesitate a little before he concocted his publicity campaign? I doubt it. If he had, he would not have gone on with it. Not one, but a number of prominent business people appear in the photograph. Their names and images are well known outside of the community. They would, in theory, be our community’s role models of success and prominence. And yet, there is the billboard announcing in all its glory that it’s just fine if the image of the Mafioso, the guido, the “connected” guy is what continues to define us. These individuals seem to revel in the adolescent fascination with “the life”. What could be better than be pictured like a bunch of “Goodfellas” wannabes? See, you’re right! We are telling the outside world. Nothing but “gumbas” down here! In the end we are caught between the image that we despise and the image that we fantasize about, and they are the same.
I like movies like Goodfellas, The Godfather and the HBO series The Sopranos. They take the Mafia image and go beyond the stupid stereotypes. Scorsese and Coppola humanize their characters and place them within historical and socio-cultural contexts that give them multidimensional and realistic lives. For example, The opening scene of The Godfather stands among the most excellent, effective and significant pieces of cinematography. Beginning with a black, darkened screen, the 120-second retreating opening shot introduces the film with the words “I believe in America.” The statement is quickly associated with the first figure to be introduced by the film, Amerigo. From that point on, as Amerigo tells his immigrant’s tale of a trust betrayed, of a dream shattered by the brutal reality of American society, the camera conspires to slowly widen our field of vision. The director uses the camera to open our eyes to the reality of the situation to which he is introducing us.
Out of the darkness, the first element to be included in this greater field of view is a partial shot of a head resting on a hand. The hand then motions to someone outside the frame, on the right side of the screen. From that same side, another hand reaches into the frame to offer Amerigo a glass of water. This progression effectively captures Italian Americans’ position within American society. Italian Americans’ disillusionment at finding cultural and moral traditions that differed sharply from their own underlined the inadequacies of a system that supposedly welcomed them. It was this that created the need to seek out “one’s own” as a way to achieve justice and recognition in an age-old story that the immigrants knew back in “the old country” as well.
Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo have both said that The Godfather is about family and not the Mafia. Preoccupations with the family as a social unit in fact dominates the trilogy: how far one strays from the family, how one interacts within it, how the family restricts its members and how it drives them away. This film becomes a history of family relations in the context of US history by opposing it to an outside system, a competitor for the attentions and allegiances of individuals. The contrast is also between two social and economic systems. One is based on the acquisition of power through barter, collaboration, exchange and production of immaterial goods and services (favors) while engaging in a capitalistic enterprise with those outside of it. The other system is purely capitalistic, where production is repaid with a wage and in which all other responsibilities are severed.
Let’s face it, like it or not, the Mafia is part of our reality, it’s part of our history. While I am not by any means justifying Mafia-like activities, the matter cannot simply dismissed as the symptom of a degenerate race of people; which is exactly what the stereotype does! Some of us have been mixed up in its tangled threats and some of us know someone involved in it or at least know stories of the sort. There is no denying it. But there is also no denying that the Mafia, camorra or ‘ndrangheta that originally emerged as aid societies have long mutated into self-serving, power-hungry institutions that do not have people’s best interests at heart. These organizations are a dark stain on our culture here, in Italy and everywhere Italians have gone. The associations that are made between Mafia and Italians in general, from the stupid ethnic joke to President Bush’s equation of the Mafia with terrorists in the post-9/11 period, are harmful and demeaning to all of us. The underlying link that has established itself between the word Mafia and being Italian is a hard-etched and apparently indelible line. When shortsighted individuals the likes of Anthony Napoli stoop to using this awful stereotype for personal gain it’s a slap across the face of all Italians.
So, I plead with all of you, when you see these idiotic representations, when you are asked to participate in them, when you know that what is being done is of little use except to some single individual’s personal gain, do your best to halt it and prevent it. Do not let your self or your heritage be disparaged by fools. If you do not take a stand against this sort of abuse from our own, you have no right to complain about Mafia movies or disparaging remarks made about Italians in general. I want my children to be able to live in a world where Italian does not equal Mafia, Dago, Guinea, Wop or Cafone. Let’s clean up our own act and be proud of who and what we are. Let us provide positive and constructive role models to our community and present to the outside world the accomplishments that we all know Italians have contributed. Let us recognize those who provide leadership and let us reprimand those who tarnish the good name of all people, whatever their background or culture. Shame on you Anthony Napoli!

P. Verdicchio