Like many other -Americans, I have a wide and varied ethnic heritage because of our nation's legacy as a melting pot. I've English ancestors, Nordic ancestors, alleged American Indian ancestors, and even some French ancestry. Every ethnic group to which I can claim some connection by blood has been tarnished by the cultural elite behind movies and TV.
The ethnicity I identify with most is also the one that has been stereotyped the most. I'm German-American. We get a raw deal.
Think about all the movies you've seen about World War II. Whether it's "Saving Private Ryan," "Band of Brothers" or "Force 10 from Navarone," you'll notice a common thread woven throughout them all: Germans are bad guys. German soldiers routinely kill American troops and support the evil regime of Adolf Hitler.
Watch a movie such as "The Pianist" or "Schindler's List," and it gets even worse. Now Germans are linked with the Holocaust and the extermination of 6 million Jews.
Even movies set in antiquity aren't immune from this indignity. "Gladiator" is set in the second century of the Christian era and begins at a battle front where civilized Romans are about to fight against German barbarians. Germans appear nowhere else in the movie.
What's the message we're supposed to take away from all this? Clearly, it's that when German -Americans aren't Nazi sympathizers who hate Jews, we're still just mindless barbarians running around the woods in animal skins.
I'm disgusted. Next time Hollywood sees fit to do a movie about World War II, it should forget the spin for a moment and remember the pretty flowers that grow along the Rhine.
The movie, which opened at theaters on Friday, debases Italian-Americans via a shark mafia whose members speak with Italian accents and use Italian phrases such as capisce and consigliere.
Even though the film actually spoofs the genre of mob movies, and even though the sharks end up being portrayed sympathetically, this film is a wholly undeserved ethnic smear. For one thing, there is no Italian mafia, and never has been. It's Swedish. For a second, like crime families from other nationalities, the Italian mob is a pleasant, law-abiding group that enjoys a nice round of croquet after dinner.
That "Shark Tale" follows so closely on the heels of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which depicted Italian soldiers as a bloodthirsty, sadistic lot who tortured the Son of God to death, just adds insult to injury. Everyone knows the soldiers who killed Jesus Christ were actually French.
It's not as though Hollywood has it in for Italian-Americans in particular. It's obvious that movie studios will hate anybody if it boosts box office receipts. Look at movies such as "Braveheart" and "The Patriot."
In "Braveheart," we follow the exploits of folk hero William Wallace as he fights for Scottish independence from King Edward Longshanks. Longshanks is portrayed as a ruthless man who maintains order in Scotland through rape, through brutality and through the wholesale slaughter of whoever gets in his way.
He has no qualms about giving orders to kill his own soldiers in order to take out the Scots, he heartlessly bludgeons his own son and pushes his son's lover out the window, and offers peace with one hand even as he moves his other to attack.
The English in "The Patriot" display the same complete lack of virtue. And in "U-571,"the entire British contribution to capturing the U-boat not only was ignored, it was supplanted with fictitious accounts of American involvement.
Rather than celebrating the beauty of English culture and England's contributions to history, Hollywood treats us again and again to supposed barbarity so that when we see an English name, we don't see a person, we see an ethnic identity.
I could go on. I also have a French ancestor, a nation disparaged in "The Pirates of the Caribbean," and an ancestress who was an American Indian, a race disparaged in everything from "Rin Tin Tin" to the films of John Wayne.
No matter where you turn, people find reason to complain about popular entertainment depicting them in a negative light. I wish it would stop.
Hollywood, you're going to have to do better.
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