Full Description
Italian Americans on Screen: Challenging the Past, Re-Theorizing the Future reconsiders Robert Casillo's definition of Italian-American cinema as "appl[ying] to works by Italian-American directors who treat Italian-American subjects" to expand this classification. Contributors situate Italian-American cinema and media within the contemporary and intersectional debates about ethnic identity, including race, class, gender, and sexuality studies. This book links past scholarship to theoretical underpinnings with new hermeneutical approaches in television and film to establish new interpretations concerning Italian Americans on screen. Scholars of film studies, media studies, cultural studies, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.
Contents
Introduction
Ryan Calabretta-Sajder & Alan Gravano
Part I: What is Italian-American Cinema?
What is Italian about Sofia Coppola? Tracing Ethnicity in Third-Generation Feminist Cinema
Colleen Ryan
Edible Ethnicity: Italian-American Representations, Cinematic Style, and Ethnic Commodification in Stanley Tucci's and Campbell Scott's Big Night
Jonathan Cavallero
Questioning the Italian-American Palooka: From Definition of Race to Disabilities in Avildsen's Rocky, Coogler's Creed, and Caple Jr's Creed II
Alan Gravano
Part II: Blurring the Lines between Italian and American on Screen
The Italian Pursuit of Hollywood
Mary Ann McDonald Carolan
Comedies of Identity: Italian Cinema and Television Narrating Italian Americans
Giuseppe Sorrentino
Part III: Re-Viewing Italian Americana on Screen: Reception and Reflections
Who's Laughing at Whom? Masculinity, Humor, and Italian American Lives on Mainstream Television: Friends
Ryan Calabretta-Sajder
Tony Soprano Meets Furio Giunta: Italian Americans and the 'Real' Italians in The Sopranos
Francesco Chianese
Part IV: Italian Newspapers, Italian Cinema, and 2.0 Media
Serializing Italian American Futurities
Sarah Salter
Cinema Paradiso: Toronto's Italian Language Cinemas and Distribution Networks
Jessica Leonora Whitehead and Paul S. Moore
Conversing about National Attributes Online: The Case of Italy and the U.S.
Giacomo Sproccati
Index
About the Contributors
