by Alfonso Colasuonno
"He's an embarassment to Italians! He's an imbecile! He's an idiot!" The words fire out of my Aunt Rosalia's mouth on Easter Sunday after I asked her opinion on Italian-Canadian wrestler Santino Marella. My 12 year old cousin Michael follows up with "He should die." Santino is apparently not seen as quite the ethnic esteem booster to some members of my family. However, my cousin Joseph strikes a dissenting voice from this brew of discontent - "He's OK. He brings life to the show. There's no comedy in it (otherwise). He brings it." My cousin Stephanie remains the most ambivalent of my family - "He's funny (but) stupid."
Italian-Americans, like many other ethnic groups, strive for fair treatment on television and at large. For a while there was a big furor within the Italian-American community over depictions of Italian-Americans on the HBO drama The Sopranos, a chronicle of an Italian-American New Jersey family that just happens to be captained by a mafia kingpin. Ironically enough, The Sopranos was a major hit within the Italian-American community. I wanted to see if the opinions of Santino were just as mixed and while this sample was certainly not the largest, nor random, it did strike up the fact that the reaction from Santino's "famiglia" was not surprising.
Looking over the world of professional wrestling - both present-day and historically - many ethnic depictions can be seen as borderline offensive: Umaga - the Samoan savage; William Regal - the snobby Briton; Slick - the fast talking African-American; Eddie Guerrero - the disreputable Mexican; Vladimir Kozlov - the cold and calculating Russian; Sheik Abdul Bashir - the anti-American Muslim. Some might argue that a lot of the appeal of professional wrestling is in how politically incorrect it is. Santino is no exception. Santino's accent brings to mind the voice of a villain from Johnny Dangerously. He intentionally makes mistakes with the English language ("Cold Stone" anyone?), wears shirts to the ring in imitation of the Italian flag and the Ferrari logo, and frequently belittles the role of women (maybe you should make him a calzone, Beth Phoenix). But is Santino offensive or comic?
It is my opinion that people need to develop thicker skins. How can one take Santino seriously? Wrestling is all about generating heat. The signs you frequently see at ringside - "Santino = Ratings" are no lie. When I took a brief sabbatical from viewing professional wrestling one of the characters that brought back my love of the sport was Santino. Am I offended by Santino? In a word - no. Wrestling is supposed to be a spectacle and Santino is a master of making a spectacle. In short, to those Italians, or any other group offended by an ethnic depiction of a wrestler, lighten up! Do you actually take wrestling seriously? I think that might be a bigger problem than any comical ethnic depiction.
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