FRANK SINATRA - JUSTICE ALITO FINDS SOPRANOS GUILTY OF STEREOTYPING

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. -- one of two members of the high court born in New Jersey with, as Frank Sinatra used to say, "names ending in vowels" (the other is Justice Antonin Scalia) -- spoke out Wednesday against the portrayal of Italian Americans in movies, on television, and in pizza parlors. "The most prominent image of Italians in popular culture is the image of the Mafioso," he said during a lecture at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. "There's an insidious connection popular culture often makes between being a gangster and being Italian." Add being from New Jersey to the list, and "you have a trifecta -- gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey -- wedded in the popular American imagination," he said. He referred specifically to The Sopranos television series, noting that he himself once lived in the same general area where Tony Soprano did. He also mentioned the Godfather books and movies and decried the fact that pizza franchises like Little Caesar's and Capone's are named for gangsters or gangster movies. "I think it's important that the true stories of immigrants be heard," he said.

14/02/2008