Women and mafia, mafia and women, either one way or another women seem frequently be involved with the Mafia. Throughout the semester, we have seen movies and episodes involving different types of organized crime in Italy and how women have assumed different roles in each. We have seen images from a caring mother, a femme fatale, a disappointed mother, and much more, but how can this compare to the stereotypical image of an Italian America wive?
I will be honest, I had almost no idea of what is an Italian American wife stereotype other than the one portrayed by the Godfather, so I asked a couple of friends. My friends answer with three words, money, tan, and competition. My friends describe the stereotypical Italian American wife (or at least how they portray them in the sitcoms) as loving to spend money, compete among other Italian American wives to see who had the best ring, necklace, purse, etc., and always getting a dark spray tan. The only issue with this is that non of these characteristics resembles those of the characters of any of the Italian mafia films we watched. The women we watched in the movies were much more traditional and conservative to a point, and they were far from being as flamboyant as how the stereotype of an Italian American wife was described to me to least these discrepancies of Italian American vs. Italian, I will use three characters of the semester, Lucia from Galantuomini, Felicia from I cento passi, and Rita from La siciliana ribelle.
In I cento passi, we see Felicia being what a stereotypical ITALIAN mafia mother is. She is very conservative and is in charge of the family. She assumes the role of the kids main tutor. In the scene when Luigi returns from New York, he gets mad and says that she was supposed to teach him well, so in this instance, the woman is seen as the mother who assumes the role of the one in charge of teaching the kids how to properly act–it can be assumed that he referred to how to properly act within the mafia and mafiosi. Although she is supposed to assume this role, she is yet not distance from her maternal instincts when Peppino is kicked out of the house. Felicia goes and helps him live in the small garage they found for him.
Peppino’s mother was very caring even after his decisions of going against the mafia which his own family was involved, but that was not the case for Rita, whose mother was disappotined and aggravated in regards to her decision of snitching about the mafia to the cops. Rita is my second image of an Italia mafia women. She is brave, she is mad, and she is a women of dishonor. Rita shows us the other side of mafia women, one who rebels and goes to the authorities with evidence to incriminate and help Falcone and Borsellino with the maxi proceso. Rita, in this instance, defies the mafia and goes to the cops to get vendetta on the people who killed her father and brother.
Rita was against mafia, Felicia was the typical mafia mother, but Lucia was different. Lucia was the boss of her territory only under the supervision of her uncle. Lucia assumes the role of the femme fatale, one who is going to make you pay for what you have done and put you on your knees (literally) and beg for pardon. Here, Lucia changes the view of women in mafia. Now she has the power and is the decision maker on the clan, but this is not all. Lucia is also shown as someone who can control man and do what she wants. She is free and confident that she can get whoever she wants, which is the case with Ignazio and Infantino, who she made both of them fall in love with her. This emphasizes again in the image of a stron independent women with power and femme fatale, as shown on the scene when she shoots the rapist in the knees.
To briefly conclude, I will leave you with a question. After watching the characters of all the movies and series we have, is there a stereotype of an Italian mafia women as it might exist in the US with Italian Americans, or is there not?
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