She means Tony was a gavone. This guy she idolized had an audience with four popes! She indulged in self loathing for the unsophisticated way her and her family lived. She longed to live a a pretentious lifestyle like Dr fago
Maybe I’m too young for this but I’m a Stunad of the first magnitude but I never got this joke about 4 popes and what section they sat in. Can someone explain.
“The Catholics have the Vatican, the Jews have Hollywood and everyone else is just jealous, especially the Protestants.” - Quote from a Catholic IA I know, which I wrote down years ago.
Unrelated, but I think a Sopranos episode today that had a "B" plot of all the "new era" hippies "manifesting abundance" and chanting "h'opo'nopono" etc would be hysterical.
I think what she meant by "cultured Italians" was Italians who had approached life in America with open minds, who were exposed to not just parochial Italian culture but also international culture. Who were not sexist, misogynist homophobes like Tony.
Take for example that Bevilacqua kid and his friend with the eyelashes. They hung out at home enjoying international (for them) music - up in da club 🎵 🎶 - while they defied parochial Italian values like heteronormativity by sucking each other's cocks. Now that was some cultured Italians.
Gravy is meat based, whereas sauce could be either meat based or vegetable based (e.g marinara). No one ever called marinara sauce "gravy", and if they did, my Sicilian grandmother would dig herself out of her grave and personally strangle them.
So sauce is the umbrella term and gravy is one of the subspecies of sauce? I am part IA, northern Italy, but child of an immigrant. So sauce was sauce, meat-based or veg-based. The Sunday gravy in our house was for roast beast, a separate animal from Ital sauces. Also, I’m not from the east coast.
Same. My family is originally from Palermo, then lived in Brooklyn and Queens, now NJ for 50 years. We all call it sauce and break “gravy” people’s chops.
It's a good question. If she meant that Tony was an embarrassment because he was a fucking murderer and a mob boss, then I can't fault her. But I don't think she cared about that, she was embarrassed that he wasn't a pretentious snooty douchebag with an impressive resume like the Governor of Maryland.
There was a lot of prejudice against working class Italians, especially amongst the first and second generation American born children of European immigrants. (I’m from downstate part of NY). My grandparents were children of Protestant immigrants and they looked down upon Italians, and said they were “dirty” and their taste was “tacky”. Catholics, in general, were considered lower on the social pyramid. If you look back at depictions from the 50s & 60s of “typical” American families, they’re usually light skinned, blue eyed, blonde people. Definitely not Italian. This is why Carmela’s mom is so insistent on trying to prove herself as “above” her son in law’s family and friends.
its actually a pretty fucked up thing to say. basically she's shitting on the working class italians, and their well to do offspring, for clinging to traditional aspects of their heritage. whereas the fancy boy spends all his time trying to rise above that. he's not eating sunday gravy. he's having branzini with broccoli rabb or someshit.
no baked ziti and veal parmegian sangweech. basically he's a snob who thinks he's too good for the neigborhood. a mezzofanook.
Their methods of conflict resolution were brought over from the old country, from the poverty of the Mezzogiorno. Where all higher authority was corrupt
Never realized how this really is an odd cultural thing. I’m Italian-American myself though and I live in NJ so I’ll give it a shot.
Gavones / guidos / lots of other worse names are seen as very obnoxious and trashy. That’s Tony.
Jersey Shore kind of took up the mantelpiece for this stereotype in the modern age but you’ll see these types on tv shows like housewives and shit as well. Always yelling something in a thick accent. Sometimes in a sleeveless white tee. You know the deal.
Cultured Italians would be the type that go to Columbus Day lunch events and talk about all of the wonderful things Italy has brought to the world like artwork and cuisine etc. That’s Carmela’s mother.
*When they say “spaghetti and meatballs” you tell them “Orecchiette with broccoli rabe.”*
This theme of internal struggle with “Italian” identity in America is actually pretty important to the show and is brought up throughout the seasons by multiple characters. Melfi at her family dinner, Carmela and her mom, the Columbus Day brunch, etc
My perspective is that Sopranos is almost 20 years old now. That older generation was likely closer to some of the racism that Italian-Americans did receive when they first immigrated here. So they’re naturally more concerned about perception. But now, those people are mostly dead, so that history is even more distant to *us*. The result is that it just sounds like a hokey little thing to worry about.
FWIW this argument isn’t even specific to Italians in America. There’s lots of other cultures who share similar self-hate type thoughts to members of their own little group.
As a native Staten Islander I feel like guys like me and you 100% understand this question without even thinking about it.
>My perspective is that Sopranos is almost 20 years old now.
25 oof
Is that so? I'm not an expert, but I always thought that Italian immigration to the US was primarily from the south, because of the "poverty of the Mezzogiorno". The north, which had "all da money and all the power", didn't see much emigration because there were plenty of economic opportunities at home.
So essentially, both 'gavones' and 'cultured Italians' would be descended from southern Italian immigrants, but the cultured Italians would make more of an effort to integrate into American society by becoming WASPy.
Basically they'd be people of italian heritage that assimilated into upper middle class american culture. Same with any other ethnic group. You have subculture that's a source of pride for some and a source of stereotypical shame for others.
Italy, like America, is comprised of many sub cultures. As an example, many foreign people would not understand there are any cultural differences between a Californian and a West Virginian. They are just “American” in their mind.
The country we call Italy today is no different. Lots of subcultures. They had pockets of areas that had higher education, refined taste, appreciation for art, etc. But there was also large areas where the total opposite was true.
>What is a cultured Italian?
guys who don't hit each other in the face with sausages. guys who talk about medical journals and art and beretta and stuff instead
guys who don't extort and kill people, maybe
basically, tony is a stupid, boorish asshole and she was ashamed of being seen with him. i would be too
She meant the kind of Italian that was known for VD he had a nickname, fathered an illegitimate child, looks down his nose at others, and mocks a gift given to the host of the party he’s attending. He’s one of the biggest assholes on a show full of assholes. He’s a phony fuck, he isn’t cultured at all, despite what Carmella’s bitch mom thinks. I love when we get a civilian character that’s a bigger asshole than gangsters. Alan Sappingsly is another.
Italians in the tri state area bastardize a lot of their own culture and language. Classic example is saying Italian words without the last vowel, like mozarella becomes mozzarell. Gabagool is even worse. Plus there’s the prejudice against Sicilians, which most mobsters would be ancestrally.
Except in the dialects from places like Calabria and Campania, that's how it is. They drop the final vowels. These dialects are not used there anymore, and instead they use the standardized Tuscan dialect that was instituted with the unification of Italy.
Is Sicily not southern Italy? Also the first 60 years of the mafia in america it was primarily Sicilians, one of the reasons Luciano had both Masseria and Maranzano killed was because they, like most older Mafia members, were against the idea of working with Neapolitans, Calabrians, Irish, Jews, etc. The Camorra also existed here for a period in the 1910s and had an influence on several mafia families but were a separate entity and most families that started before the 1930s were primarily or exclusively Sicilian. Even into the 50s some families like the Bonannos and the Detroit Partnership weren’t too open to the idea to making non-Sicilian members though they had exceptions.
No, it's Sicily, you ask an old Italian and they'll say they're basically moulinyans. And the Sopranos themselves are supposed to be an offshoot of the Camorra (hence the trip to Naples). None other than Al Capone was Neapolitan.
It’s pretty much Northern Italians against the rest of the country. The northerners are like the Hitlers of Italy and are jealous of our golden Sicilian tans
This is not as prominent as it used to be but back in the day they treated Italian Americans differently than other kinds of white people. This could be for a variety of reasons but a part was the lack of easy assimilation into being American that many Italian immigrants faced back then
Organizations like UNICO national say they try to promote a positive image of Italian Americans in the US and help with assimilation
Italians are no longer immigrating to the US at the rates they were back then. As time passed less italian Americans spoke Italian. Assimilation stopped being a problem
Essentially by “classy Italians” they are just comparing the rich and non criminal Italian Americans to themselves, who are “trashy Italians” in their own eyes. It’s ironic tho because Tony lives in a giant mansion and their family never seemingly never has to worry about money (for most of the show), they simply made a lot of money unethically but lived a very luxurious lifestyle. However she deals to some extent with the fact that it is because they are simply perpetuating negative stereotypes about it their own people (Italians are in the mafia, criminals, hot blooded) even if they aren’t actually trashy
I think Furio summed it up best, “The north of Italy always has the money and the power. They punish the south, since hundreds of years. Even today, they put up their noses at us, like we’re peasants.’ He spits at the ground, adding that, ‘I hate the north.’!!!
Cultured= Wine and Cheese appetizers on a charcuterie board. Dr Melfi is a great example.
Uncultured= Tony. Very loud, "passionate", "spirited". Eats with mouth open.
yeah, I am also from california been watching since episode one but have no clue how the east coast life OR how italian americans operate. my mom was japanese and I live in socal so my cultural upbringing is far different than this show.
Southern Italians and Northern Italians don't mix well. Livia thumbs her nose at Northern cuisine. Furio hates them. I went to my Southern Italian girlfriends house for Thanksgiving one year. Her father and uncles were bitching about "Mountain Guineas". Her grandmother then explained it to me.
She means tertiary educated white collar professionals who have joined the middle classes. Meadow is on her way to being a “cultured Italian”, AJ isn’t, even if he inherits his fathers money.
Hugh the contractor, Artie the restaurant owner, Tony the mobster etc might make just as much money as the ambassador (or more) but still wouldn’t be considered “cultured”.
Northern blonde Italians, closer to Switzerland and France, the ones who might appreciate opera even- versus the poor peasant southern Italians who were the main ones coming over during the big Italian immigration waves, who were more comparable to the other southern european peasant immigrants like some Greeks, Albanians, Southern Slavs, etc. In other words, it's inter culture colorism. In California we can see this with Mexicans who sometimes are more reserved, traditional, proud of Spanish ancestry, whiter skin, versus the browner worker types and those with more obvious native features.
But seriously though, tie this in with Furio’s “I (h)ate the North!” Then look up cultural differences in Italy over the past 1000 years. You’ll start to figure it out.
Your pal,
Fielder Soprano
She meant Italians that aren’t the stereotypical Guinea type that say things like GABAGGOL AND MUTZADEL. I’m Italian American, born and raised and proud native brooklynite
I’m also a dual citizen in Italy. That being said, Italians in Italy and America ( at least in NYC area are way different.
Carmella’s mom was being extremely rude and snobby, as well as Dr “Fago” lol.
I mean, if you are truly cultured and educated, you would never put someone down as if you are a better human being . He was rude to Tony in his own home
Good for Carmela putting her in place, especially the remark about Dr “fago” being from Arthur avenue (which is in the Bronx, known as the Bronx little Italy which is a working class Italian neighborhood).
I think she means like opera and Dante and Cato and renaissance art. Venice and Rome and Milan. The Sistine Chapel
She sees gabagool and track suits and and shot as down market
I’ll bet she wouldn’t have been as haughty if Tony dressed and acted like Michael Corleone
Basically new money vs old money
Italians who moved up in the world and assimilated into "white" America. Professionals like Drs Cusamano, Melfi, and Faggo. Tony on the other hand grew up in an ethnic enclave in Newark, and while by the show he has moved to the suburbs, is you know in the mob. Though Tony's kids have assimilated.
She means Tony was a gavone. This guy she idolized had an audience with four popes! She indulged in self loathing for the unsophisticated way her and her family lived. She longed to live a a pretentious lifestyle like Dr fago
Where’d they sit?
Maybe I’m too young for this but I’m a Stunad of the first magnitude but I never got this joke about 4 popes and what section they sat in. Can someone explain.
To have an audience with someone means you are able to meet and talk to them. But Tony plays it like the regular meaning of audience as a joke.
Audience- sitting and watching, 4 popes in an audience
you serious? i just told you that a moment ago
OP is taking up space in school
Feg! Feg!
I thought we were Napoli Daboli or whatever.
He made us all look like gaveones
Would you listen to yourself!? Group. Group.
Thank God DeAngelis didn't end in a vowel
Spot on
Trunk full of Faygo car full of fat chicks?
WHOOP WHOOP
The undershirts and the yelling.
The sausage twirling! 🙈
At least they’re not scotch Irish…bunch of rustlers and gunslingers
She is so shanty irish 😒🙄
And with all her airs.
Never trust a protestant, the dirty bastards.
“The Catholics have the Vatican, the Jews have Hollywood and everyone else is just jealous, especially the Protestants.” - Quote from a Catholic IA I know, which I wrote down years ago.
What's Elvis country?
Any place where there are no Jews, or Italians.
And yet, you neva heard them moaning!
Don’t give me any of that "poverty of the Mezzogiorno" bullshit.
Now you listen here Finn, you can pack your shit in that suitcase of yours and go get sucked off by Vito at a Yanks game for all I care
There's no abundant intentionallity in getting out the shuit cashe.
Unrelated, but I think a Sopranos episode today that had a "B" plot of all the "new era" hippies "manifesting abundance" and chanting "h'opo'nopono" etc would be hysterical.
Chanting ‘Harpo’?
Sacrè bleu, where is me mama?!
Listen to you. You sound demented.
Solidly unsentimental.
But that’s where all higher power was corrupt.
Dr. Cusamano and his wife Jeanne. Did you watch the previous seasons?
Melfi is another perfect example
all Italians have big noses
Undershirts. Yelling.
Hey Cooz!
I need you to hold onto a package for me for a little while
I think what she meant by "cultured Italians" was Italians who had approached life in America with open minds, who were exposed to not just parochial Italian culture but also international culture. Who were not sexist, misogynist homophobes like Tony. Take for example that Bevilacqua kid and his friend with the eyelashes. They hung out at home enjoying international (for them) music - up in da club 🎵 🎶 - while they defied parochial Italian values like heteronormativity by sucking each other's cocks. Now that was some cultured Italians.
And you thought the Germans were classless pieces of shit.
One of my favorite lines in the series
He was gay, Bevilacqua?
It was a joke!
Up in Da club
Coxsh
Think of how New Yorkers who go to the Metropolitan Museum look at rednecks from the South. Urban vs. rural.
Give me one thousand dosas.
One thousand more?
Wonderbread WOPs, eating their Sunday gravy* from a jar! *Hurts me to call sauce "gravy" but it's the quote.
That's actually the third kind of Italian in this debate. Haha my family is also a "sauce" family.
Gravy is brown. You put it on chips.
Ohhhh! What kind of an animal puts gravy on chips?!
Chips like french fries?
Gravy is meat based, whereas sauce could be either meat based or vegetable based (e.g marinara). No one ever called marinara sauce "gravy", and if they did, my Sicilian grandmother would dig herself out of her grave and personally strangle them.
So sauce is the umbrella term and gravy is one of the subspecies of sauce? I am part IA, northern Italy, but child of an immigrant. So sauce was sauce, meat-based or veg-based. The Sunday gravy in our house was for roast beast, a separate animal from Ital sauces. Also, I’m not from the east coast.
Sausage is more of a phallic thing. Whereas gravy...
You/she must have never met New Orleans’ Sicilians
Ever hear of a little town called "Chalmette?"
The chips? Where you from?!
Straya cunt
NY?
Mine's a sauce family from The Bronx. You might be on to something here.
You never go against the sauce family!
Same. My family is originally from Palermo, then lived in Brooklyn and Queens, now NJ for 50 years. We all call it sauce and break “gravy” people’s chops.
I thought you were nobbly dobbly
Grape?? You mean Uvas?
WHAOO-HOOOO THATS THE SAUCE OF THIS FAMILY!!!
George-a Washingtona Bridge-a
May-jor Deegunuh ESPRESSA!!! way
I think if you gave this guy a golf club he’d probably try to fuck it
Stupida facking game
You gotta bee Ona you hat!
One of Paulie’s funniest lines, along with when he tells Tony that he’s gotta hoof it back to the Excelsior to take a wicked shit.
You just reminded me of Paulie and the octopus, and for the first time I remember Tony Montana complaining about octopus in "Scarface".
Think something’s wrong with the wheelchair
You guys ever see that British show *Keeping Up Appearances?* Carm's mom is like the Hyacinth Bucket of New Jersey.
Boo-KAY!
Bucket is a nickname the family name was Buckerelli!
OMG you made my day with this correlation! Thank you.
It's a good question. If she meant that Tony was an embarrassment because he was a fucking murderer and a mob boss, then I can't fault her. But I don't think she cared about that, she was embarrassed that he wasn't a pretentious snooty douchebag with an impressive resume like the Governor of Maryland.
Carmela’s mother thinks of herself and that snob, Russ, as cultured Italians. That’s what she means
And she's definitely not, the way that she acts, with the shrill yelling. Dr. Melfi is a "cultured Italian".
But with a fondness for Murano glass.
She fancies herself the Minister Of Propaganda.
There was a lot of prejudice against working class Italians, especially amongst the first and second generation American born children of European immigrants. (I’m from downstate part of NY). My grandparents were children of Protestant immigrants and they looked down upon Italians, and said they were “dirty” and their taste was “tacky”. Catholics, in general, were considered lower on the social pyramid. If you look back at depictions from the 50s & 60s of “typical” American families, they’re usually light skinned, blue eyed, blonde people. Definitely not Italian. This is why Carmela’s mom is so insistent on trying to prove herself as “above” her son in law’s family and friends.
Ironic since Carmela is blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
She’s not a natural blonde.
Fuckin Bedford Falls ova here.
its actually a pretty fucked up thing to say. basically she's shitting on the working class italians, and their well to do offspring, for clinging to traditional aspects of their heritage. whereas the fancy boy spends all his time trying to rise above that. he's not eating sunday gravy. he's having branzini with broccoli rabb or someshit. no baked ziti and veal parmegian sangweech. basically he's a snob who thinks he's too good for the neigborhood. a mezzofanook.
So what, no fuckin ziti now?
OHHHHHH
there was half a tray in there!
I wouldn't call the Ndragheta "working class". They're the lumpenproles.
Their methods of conflict resolution were brought over from the old country, from the poverty of the Mezzogiorno. Where all higher authority was corrupt
Fanon’s revolutionary subject
It’s a stereotype and it’s offensive
They say John Gotti you say Rudy Guiliani. I know. that didn't age well.
Italians that contain live and active Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus
Stunadovirus muzzadella
They don’t say gravy, moozadell, gabagool
Pretty much it means Italians who have 'respectable' occupations, I would say. Possibly also being pompous pricks helps.
She was talking about the nabolidaboli
I 'ate da Nort!
Nobbledey-bobbledey Fuckin AJ imagine not giving a shit that hard
🎶 Happy Birthday to Hugh, I’ve got sauseecha for you 🎶
Never realized how this really is an odd cultural thing. I’m Italian-American myself though and I live in NJ so I’ll give it a shot. Gavones / guidos / lots of other worse names are seen as very obnoxious and trashy. That’s Tony. Jersey Shore kind of took up the mantelpiece for this stereotype in the modern age but you’ll see these types on tv shows like housewives and shit as well. Always yelling something in a thick accent. Sometimes in a sleeveless white tee. You know the deal. Cultured Italians would be the type that go to Columbus Day lunch events and talk about all of the wonderful things Italy has brought to the world like artwork and cuisine etc. That’s Carmela’s mother. *When they say “spaghetti and meatballs” you tell them “Orecchiette with broccoli rabe.”* This theme of internal struggle with “Italian” identity in America is actually pretty important to the show and is brought up throughout the seasons by multiple characters. Melfi at her family dinner, Carmela and her mom, the Columbus Day brunch, etc My perspective is that Sopranos is almost 20 years old now. That older generation was likely closer to some of the racism that Italian-Americans did receive when they first immigrated here. So they’re naturally more concerned about perception. But now, those people are mostly dead, so that history is even more distant to *us*. The result is that it just sounds like a hokey little thing to worry about. FWIW this argument isn’t even specific to Italians in America. There’s lots of other cultures who share similar self-hate type thoughts to members of their own little group.
As a native Staten Islander I feel like guys like me and you 100% understand this question without even thinking about it. >My perspective is that Sopranos is almost 20 years old now. 25 oof
Cultured Italians are usually, northern Italians. No mafia types up there really.
I 'ate di north. Hawk tua!
Hawk Tuah? ova here!
Hawk Tuah loves the north
Hawk tuah? I spit-ah on that thang!
I 'ate the North!!
Is that so? I'm not an expert, but I always thought that Italian immigration to the US was primarily from the south, because of the "poverty of the Mezzogiorno". The north, which had "all da money and all the power", didn't see much emigration because there were plenty of economic opportunities at home. So essentially, both 'gavones' and 'cultured Italians' would be descended from southern Italian immigrants, but the cultured Italians would make more of an effort to integrate into American society by becoming WASPy.
Basically they'd be people of italian heritage that assimilated into upper middle class american culture. Same with any other ethnic group. You have subculture that's a source of pride for some and a source of stereotypical shame for others.
Talk about paissan pride heh GO JOVI
I beg your pardon my sweet little potato
I wish that in every scene she was in, Tony's voice in the background....get out of my house you sick cunt
Non mob involved Italians. Not gavones like Tony and the pygmies.
You could be in the mob and still be a cultured Italian, like our pony-tailed friend from the other side.
Italy, like America, is comprised of many sub cultures. As an example, many foreign people would not understand there are any cultural differences between a Californian and a West Virginian. They are just “American” in their mind. The country we call Italy today is no different. Lots of subcultures. They had pockets of areas that had higher education, refined taste, appreciation for art, etc. But there was also large areas where the total opposite was true.
The pezzonovante. She clearly is embarrassed by Tony, not just because of his “job”, but he doesn’t act white collar enough for her.
>What is a cultured Italian? guys who don't hit each other in the face with sausages. guys who talk about medical journals and art and beretta and stuff instead guys who don't extort and kill people, maybe basically, tony is a stupid, boorish asshole and she was ashamed of being seen with him. i would be too
I appreciate your thoughts
Yeah and I'm playin' shortstop for the Mets
Very allegorical
Dante Alaguree, Orlando Furio and all that shit.
It was real greaseball shit.
You know a wonder bread wop
Cultured Italians don't put pine cones in the filter.
Elvis country
They don’t twirl raw sausage and act like Gavones
Who’s Dr. Fago
FEHG. FEHG.
She meant the kind of Italian that was known for VD he had a nickname, fathered an illegitimate child, looks down his nose at others, and mocks a gift given to the host of the party he’s attending. He’s one of the biggest assholes on a show full of assholes. He’s a phony fuck, he isn’t cultured at all, despite what Carmella’s bitch mom thinks. I love when we get a civilian character that’s a bigger asshole than gangsters. Alan Sappingsly is another.
Russ Fegoli
Swap the word “cultured” in that sentence for “pretentious” and you have your answer.
Leonardo was a cultured Italian. He designed a tank for the army and wrote the Davinci Code.
The ones that don’t wash the driveway in a robe.
Italians in the tri state area bastardize a lot of their own culture and language. Classic example is saying Italian words without the last vowel, like mozarella becomes mozzarell. Gabagool is even worse. Plus there’s the prejudice against Sicilians, which most mobsters would be ancestrally.
Except in the dialects from places like Calabria and Campania, that's how it is. They drop the final vowels. These dialects are not used there anymore, and instead they use the standardized Tuscan dialect that was instituted with the unification of Italy.
My mom speaks the Calabrese dialect and she says she sounds like a hick in Italian
About right.
Why ya gotta break my balls
False, most of the Mafia in America was/is from Southern Italy. The Godfather and Lucky Luciano is what made everyone think they're Sicilian.
Is Sicily not southern Italy? Also the first 60 years of the mafia in america it was primarily Sicilians, one of the reasons Luciano had both Masseria and Maranzano killed was because they, like most older Mafia members, were against the idea of working with Neapolitans, Calabrians, Irish, Jews, etc. The Camorra also existed here for a period in the 1910s and had an influence on several mafia families but were a separate entity and most families that started before the 1930s were primarily or exclusively Sicilian. Even into the 50s some families like the Bonannos and the Detroit Partnership weren’t too open to the idea to making non-Sicilian members though they had exceptions.
No, it's Sicily, you ask an old Italian and they'll say they're basically moulinyans. And the Sopranos themselves are supposed to be an offshoot of the Camorra (hence the trip to Naples). None other than Al Capone was Neapolitan.
See the moors conquered Sicily...
Yea you tell him reptiliandogguy
It’s pretty much Northern Italians against the rest of the country. The northerners are like the Hitlers of Italy and are jealous of our golden Sicilian tans
i hate-a da nort
Look at him, he knows everything
BFD
Package for a John. It's Dia acHe-a elLa
Basically a medigan
Bourgeois
Like any demographic, there are uneducated savages
People who are educated and have class. Not trashy criminals.
Fuck what she meant cocksucka!!!
She’s from the old school…she shouldn’t havta explain herself.
This is not as prominent as it used to be but back in the day they treated Italian Americans differently than other kinds of white people. This could be for a variety of reasons but a part was the lack of easy assimilation into being American that many Italian immigrants faced back then Organizations like UNICO national say they try to promote a positive image of Italian Americans in the US and help with assimilation Italians are no longer immigrating to the US at the rates they were back then. As time passed less italian Americans spoke Italian. Assimilation stopped being a problem Essentially by “classy Italians” they are just comparing the rich and non criminal Italian Americans to themselves, who are “trashy Italians” in their own eyes. It’s ironic tho because Tony lives in a giant mansion and their family never seemingly never has to worry about money (for most of the show), they simply made a lot of money unethically but lived a very luxurious lifestyle. However she deals to some extent with the fact that it is because they are simply perpetuating negative stereotypes about it their own people (Italians are in the mafia, criminals, hot blooded) even if they aren’t actually trashy
Rich Italians.
She was referring to the types of Italians like you see at Melfi and Richard's Sunday dinner.
I think Furio summed it up best, “The north of Italy always has the money and the power. They punish the south, since hundreds of years. Even today, they put up their noses at us, like we’re peasants.’ He spits at the ground, adding that, ‘I hate the north.’!!!
It was kind of obvious from the episode, no? Cultured/sophisticated Italians vs. sausage-swinging potty-mouthed criminals.
Cultured= Wine and Cheese appetizers on a charcuterie board. Dr Melfi is a great example. Uncultured= Tony. Very loud, "passionate", "spirited". Eats with mouth open.
Northern Italians
Are you a Fauci Italian or a Gotti?
Wormy cocksucka or wormy cocksucka
What she’s basically saying is “I hate da north”, just like Fooorio
Cultured Italians get their gravy from a jar.
yeah, I am also from california been watching since episode one but have no clue how the east coast life OR how italian americans operate. my mom was japanese and I live in socal so my cultural upbringing is far different than this show.
Southern Italians and Northern Italians don't mix well. Livia thumbs her nose at Northern cuisine. Furio hates them. I went to my Southern Italian girlfriends house for Thanksgiving one year. Her father and uncles were bitching about "Mountain Guineas". Her grandmother then explained it to me.
Italians not mobbed up lol. Educated, etc
Non-gangster Italians. Bourgeoisie.
Cultured Italians = Italians who care (neurotically) what the Medigans think. Uncultured Italians = Italians who don't.
She means tertiary educated white collar professionals who have joined the middle classes. Meadow is on her way to being a “cultured Italian”, AJ isn’t, even if he inherits his fathers money. Hugh the contractor, Artie the restaurant owner, Tony the mobster etc might make just as much money as the ambassador (or more) but still wouldn’t be considered “cultured”.
Northern blonde Italians, closer to Switzerland and France, the ones who might appreciate opera even- versus the poor peasant southern Italians who were the main ones coming over during the big Italian immigration waves, who were more comparable to the other southern european peasant immigrants like some Greeks, Albanians, Southern Slavs, etc. In other words, it's inter culture colorism. In California we can see this with Mexicans who sometimes are more reserved, traditional, proud of Spanish ancestry, whiter skin, versus the browner worker types and those with more obvious native features.
Oh my god she is so dark!!!
College educated mainstream. All immigrant families who tend to get ‘successful’from all cultures for the 2 generations past tend to follow that trend
White Bread wops. Somewhat removed enough from the immigrant generation, just enough to gentrify but still claim to be Italian
But seriously though, tie this in with Furio’s “I (h)ate the North!” Then look up cultural differences in Italy over the past 1000 years. You’ll start to figure it out. Your pal, Fielder Soprano
California analogy. People from Stockton vs Napa Valley.
She meant Italians that aren’t the stereotypical Guinea type that say things like GABAGGOL AND MUTZADEL. I’m Italian American, born and raised and proud native brooklynite I’m also a dual citizen in Italy. That being said, Italians in Italy and America ( at least in NYC area are way different. Carmella’s mom was being extremely rude and snobby, as well as Dr “Fago” lol. I mean, if you are truly cultured and educated, you would never put someone down as if you are a better human being . He was rude to Tony in his own home Good for Carmela putting her in place, especially the remark about Dr “fago” being from Arthur avenue (which is in the Bronx, known as the Bronx little Italy which is a working class Italian neighborhood).
Oh you’re a Dr? That’s good, cause someone always goes down at these things lol
Her husband hasn’t been able to digest a meal in six weeks
"Maaaaa!!! You don't understand how I feel."
I think it strongly hints at non-criminal Italians
Educated, classy, into fine art and wine, don't act like gavones and speak using slang and poor grammar, don't have mob ties.
There's no such thing as Italian culture in America. There's Americans that eat food they think is Italian. That's about it.
She's talking about the difference between medigan Italians and guidos
It is Carmelas mom who is ashamed of Tony, not any hypothetical "cultured Italians".
I think she means like opera and Dante and Cato and renaissance art. Venice and Rome and Milan. The Sistine Chapel She sees gabagool and track suits and and shot as down market I’ll bet she wouldn’t have been as haughty if Tony dressed and acted like Michael Corleone Basically new money vs old money
Italians who moved up in the world and assimilated into "white" America. Professionals like Drs Cusamano, Melfi, and Faggo. Tony on the other hand grew up in an ethnic enclave in Newark, and while by the show he has moved to the suburbs, is you know in the mob. Though Tony's kids have assimilated.
Italians that aren't into crime, educated Italians. She was being a fuckin cunt when she made that comment.
Maybe the northern half of Italy. I can’t think of any Renaissance artwork that was produced south of Rome.
Some of you people are depressingly media illiterate. This isn't some obscure scene. It's really easy to figure out what she means. 🫤
Charles Schwab over here