Articles by: Eleonora Mazzucchi

Italian soccer fans are no doubt still reeling from this week’s significant Euro Cup loss (not in the least mitigated by a subsequent tie with Romania),
suffering it like a death and feeling as disconsolate and “shell-shocked” as the Azzurri themselves. The term “Orange Crush”, as the commentators have dubbed the Dutch national team, may very well put Italians off orange soda for the next year. And although it seems there is no silver lining to this cloud, no turning back from such a humiliating defeat, perhaps Italians could look to a different sort of soccer tournament—one in which winning and losing are not essential to the game. Impossible you say, but at the heart of the world’s smallest independent state is a soccer competition that brings together players from more than 70 countries all over the world, with a mind toward playing the sport ethically and gracefully.

Annually the Vatican hosts priests and seminarians drawn from Rome’s seminary colleges. Divided into 18 teams, they compete for athletic glory in what has been called the “Clericus Cup”. The play-off held at St. Peter’s Oratory from November to May represents nations as diverse as Malta, Zimbabwe, Ukraine and England. The clerical contenders bring a couple of twists to the sport, namely a strict adherence to fair-play and mandatory collective prayer before each hour-long match (it is unknown as to what teams pray for—it could be world peace, or the strength to whoop Zimbabwe in the next round).

The tournament was founded little over a year ago by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope’s Secretary of State and avid Juventus fan, who in his spare time also served as a soccer commentator. Bertone acted in the wake of last year’s Serie A scandals (a slew of incidents that included accusations of match-rigging), when he thought it opportune to restore faith in Italian soccer and bring morality back into the sport. Along with following the rules, many of the priestly players have stressed, more in theory than in practice, the importance of “knowing how to lose”.

Die-hard fans may be heartened—and amused—to hear that however much the Clericus Cup preaches good behavior, the priests are no saints. This year players were told to watch their game after an unprecedented three red cards were handed out (as opposed to the tournament-specific “blue cards” that force a player to take a 5-minute timeout “to reflect on his sins”) and one enraged priest threw his shirt at a referee, yelling invectives. Residents in the vicinity of St.Peter’s also filed several complaints for all the noise generated by the tournament. Each nation had its own method for creating raucous sideline cheers, African teams using reggae music, Mexican teams drums, American teams fight songs and loud choral singing, and Italians megaphones and chants in Latin. Felice Alborghetti, one of the cup’s organizers, told The Scotsman, “The complaints were such that we had to tell the fans not to bring any sort of musical instruments to future games. It just got a bit excessive.”

It’s a relief to hear that our religious messengers are not above short fuses and a spirit of healthy competition. With Pope Benedict, a self-proclaimed Bayern-Munich fan, having formally endorsed the tournament and organizers expressing hopes to form their own Vatican team, maybe we can expect to have a live televised Clericus Cup next year—with all the hysteria and hoopla appropriate to the sport. May our prayers be answered, because it would be less heartbreaking than watching this season’s Euro Cup. 

 

 

If it were possible to die intoxicated by excessive levels of estrogen, then I’d be a goner. The air was laced with hormonal, feminine glee on the opening night of the Sex and the City movie. Outside Village East Cinemas in Manhattan the line of women, plus a smattering of gay men, ran endlessly around the block, trailing a collective, palpable sense of anticipation. Attending the Thursday midnight screening is the proof of true fandom, and at the heart of this city, the hit TV show has its fair share of devotees. Just as Star Trek inspires Trekkies to dress like space cadets, the SATC fans came attired in knock-off Manolos and skimpy summer dresses worthy of a strut down 5^th Avenue. Although here, I can guarantee, there were no straight men to impress.

Inside, the theater was no less rowdy than a sorority house. Groups of girls filled the aisles and some had confused the public space for a slumber party, nestling themselves in the seats and consuming goods clearly not bought on premises—glossy copies of US Magazine and chips and dip. One contingency in the back saw fit to provide all the whoops and hollers you’d hear at a Yankees game. Cue that recognizable opening tune (remixed into a pop song about designer labels), then the series logo lit up in a pink sparkly font, and the audience descended into shrill cries of elation. But their excitement may have been premature, because what ensued was a shockingly painful, pitiful experience.

The SATC movie is not only a departure from the series, but is tasteless and offensive in a number of ways. While on the small screen the show distinguished itself with wry, intelligent dialogue and broke ground for speaking openly about sex, here the sex talk is downplayed. Replacing it is writing that has devolved into a stale version of its former self, even stooping to toilet humor for cheap laughs. Many critics have maintained that the friendship between the girls, that almighty glue, is intact and makes watching the movie worthwhile. But if your idea of friendship is forty-something women screaming like 12-year old banshees every time they see each other, then maybe you’d be persuaded. The bond between Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, critical to the movie’s appeal, is rendered at its best, as trite and unbearably juvenile, and at worst, as completely unrecognizable (an aside: there is a forced rapprochement between Carrie and Samantha, surely in a bid to counter rumors that the two actresses are real-life enemies). The movie has unwisely adopted all the predictable “girlfriend paradigms” and storylines of the chick flick genre, divesting this group of the unique chemistry that made them addictively watchable. Gone is the charm, and in its stead, cheesy montages of Carrie in ‘80s duds set to modern-day tween songs.

Gone also, are the men—at least on screen. Evan Handler as Harry, Charlotte’s sweet putz of a husband, and David Eigenberg as Steve, the cute bartender from Queens, had been a pleasure to watch. They were both well-scripted and loveable characters on TV, but in the movie they’re just sappy and hardly get a word in. Chris Noth as Big, is largely himself, even though he sports an unsettling spray-on-tan.

It’s true that much of the reason audiences flocked to see the girls again was to discover what had become of them. Even that is a let-down. The characters have made obvious life choices and the plot develops as expected. But more disappointing still is how the movie’s creators have decided to define Carrie and co. only in terms of their romantic liaisons. Throughout, these latter-day working girls, who adventured through the city (in chase of tail, yes, but also other pursuits), have been reduced to constant preoccupation over significant others. The story insults the viewer’s intelligence, pandering to what the moviemakers must have thought a female public enjoys: lots of tacky designer product-placement (“Oh my, my very own Louis Vuitton!”) and the appearance that nothing in life matters more than making it with your man. Don’t expect Miranda the eminently professional lawyer and Carrie the writer to make an appearance—in the movie all four women might as well be unemployed teenagers. Which is fitting, since that seems to be their core audience.

But perhaps I should’ve known better. The trailers that played beforehand—“Mamma Mia!” and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”—presaged the disaster to come. It could be easy to forget this movie venture ever happened, if only for the nagging remembrance of what SATC used to represent: a cast of women the average professional gal not only liked, but could identify with. I’ll wager that anyone would be embarrassed to liken themselves to the characters now.

 

 Roberto Saviano could very well be a thug. Next to Antonio Monda, the bespectacled NYU Professor who interviewed him Thursday evening, and who sat with legs crossed and gingerly fondled a book in his lap, Saviano had every bit the appearance of a man rougher around the edges, hardened by a certain experience. It was as though the years he spent embedded in the Camorra were reflected in his every gesture: the way in which he fixes a listener, almost threateningly, sits leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, or licks his lips when he speaks. With his bald head, deep brows and street swagger, he was only at a shade’s distance from an identical portrayal of the rapper Common in “Street Kings”. If the audience who had come to hear him speak for the PEN/Faulkner series hadn’t known better, they might not have recognized him as the best-selling author, household name, or courageous journalist that he is.

Saviano has risen to fame for that very courage (a term that’s being liberally applied to other figures in the Italy of late, namely Beppe Grillo and Walter Veltroni), with the publication of “Gomorra”. The book is an account of the Neapolitan mob’s, or Camorra’s, inner-dealings that controversially straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction—running the author into quite a bit of trouble. Following the wide-spread acclaim and popularity for “Gomorra”, Saviano received a litany of death threats from the mafia and has since been granted a permanent security detail from the Italian government. He spoke to Monda about this and more during an on-stage interview in front of a predominately Italian crowd.

Saviano’s explanatory manner was intense. When speaking about his birthplace, Naples and its constellation of outlying towns, he seemed to be saying, with reserved dismay and anger, “you don’t know what it’s really like”. When Monda asked him how he reconciled the beauty of Naples with its hellish dimension, one extensively rendered in his book, Saviano replied that it was naïve to see the city, as an Englishman once said, as merely “a paradise inhabited by devils.” As if suggesting that there were a false distinction between Beauty and Evil, he reminded that within the perceived Neapolitan despair was the pulsating heart of the place’s economy, the drug trade that generates hundreds of thousands of euros a day.

Money, Saviano went on to say, is what drives the Camorra unconditionally. He recalled a telephone conversation between two bosses the day after September 11^th, 2001, in which the collapse of the Twin Towers had been talked about as an opportunity to buy real estate cheaply, or secure contracts for construction work, and never had the tragic nature of the events been mentioned. Indeed, all throughout his interview, the author was skilled at conveying, in a grave and highly articulate manner, the calculated barbarity he encountered in the Camorra men.

That same ruthlessness, murderous and business-like, surfaced in a number of episodes—gangsters proving they were tough enough by killing off their own families, the reckless disposal of trash by Camorra factions in the Neapolitan region , the assassination of a local priest who spoke out just one too many times. And what is potentially scarier than the criminal acts themselves, like in all mafias, is the pervasive nature of the organization’s activities, how the Camorra, similarly to the newly-powerful 'NDrangheta, has its hands in a wide variety of enterprises and a stranglehold on southern Italy. As Saviano described, the Camorra and 'NDrangheta have overshadowed even Cosa Nostra in Sicily because of the structure of their networks: an expansive alliance of powerful families or groups, rather than the pyramidal, hierarchical structure of the Sicilian old guard. The funds that power this new wave of criminal organizations are sometimes born of shadowy business practices whose legality is ambiguous, making it all the more difficult to stop the killings, the drugs, and the perpetual psychological terrorism.

After listening to Saviano speak for an hour, one had the impression of having been led by the hand through a shop of horrors. It was the very personal way in which the writer elaborated the events of his book, embracing and dissecting the depravity, sometimes in awe of it, like a guide who is connected to the place but also in sorrow for it. In the context of his work, and his own upbringing, the quote from Camus with which Saviano answered one of Monda’s questions rang true: “There is Hell and there is Beauty, and as far as I’m concerned I want to remain faithful to both.”

An enduring image from the evening, as told by Saviano, is appropriately infernal and dark. Neapolitan children, he said, had taken to selling skulls they would find laying on the banks of rivers (where the Camorra lawlessly disposes of garbage, including dead bodies), at the going rate of 50 euros for skulls with black teeth, 100 euros for those with white teeth. The notion of body parts for sale as a normal commodity conjured thoughts of a nightmarish underworld in which not only was there perhaps no state, no laws, but also no God. Saviano ruefully concluded that even the religious were beginning to lose hope. The outspoken priest who would later be killed, had once said at a funeral with his townsfolk “I don’t care to know who God is anymore, what I do care to know is what side he’s on.”

 The National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW) will celebrate its gala luncheon on Sunday afternoon. In anticipation of the event, which will honor Rachael Ray, and feature guests Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro and Joy Behar, we asked NOIAW’s Founder and Chairwoman, Aileen Riotto Sirey—for those who are unfamiliar—what her organization is all about. Riotto Sirey is a trained psychotherapist who became involved with NOIAW through her studies on shared ethnic identity.

What kind of outreach does NOIAW have for young Italian Americans?

We’re finding that young people aren’t connected to the ethnic issue until later on. At this stage they’re struggling to find their identity in other areas, like sexual identity. Most of the women who come to us are in their thirties, because that’s when they begin to explore that side of   

themselves and ask themselves questions about ethnicity. Most of our board is made up of women in their thirties.

So people come to NOIAW in search of their roots?

They come for ethnic identification. We have to understand our past in order to build a future.

What do you think about the bipolar stereotype that exists in Italian American culture, where the male is a macho figure and the woman a submissive one?

Those of us of Italian background know that’s not the case. It’s purely a stereotype. I grew up with a very strong maternal figure, a mother who called the shots and scolded my father. I wasn’t treated any differently from my brothers and I think that in my background, the women were powerful.

Do you think there’s a lack of organizations like yours that serve the Italian American community?

There aren’t that many organizations with a focus. You know, there are the ones that get together and eat and celebrate holidays. We have a more serious mission. We don’t do any anti-defamation work—that’s something we specifically wanted to avoid—and instead emphasize putting out the best role models. We honor these women with special programs. We also have a mentorship system that links up successful professionals with young people who are entering the working world. We’ve always found that Italian Americans have money, that they’re financially prosperous, but that younger generations may lack guidance, especially if their parents aren’t college-educated.

Aside from the mentorship program, how else does NOIAW interact with young people?

I had an idea that came to me in the middle of the night. I was thinking about the image that Europe has of the U.S., post-9/11 and the war in Iraq, and I thought, why don’t we bring Italian kids over here to show them what American life is like? So we had 18 or so young Italians come here and live with Italian American families and they had a great time, did a lot of fun things around the city. We’re trying to do the same thing with Italian American kids and have them stay with families in Rome. Unfortunately we’re encountering some bureaucratic difficulties and as it stands, we’ve set them up in a hotel and they’ll stay with families on the weekends.

What’s the feeling of connectivity between the women here like?

My friend said it’s like coming in on the second act of a play and everyone knowing what the first act was like. There are a lot of common experiences and similarities.

What are those similarities?

Family dynamics for sure. When Italians left their country years ago and then had to assimilate, they held on to certain things to anchor them, and they passed those on to their children and grandchildren.

Do you feel there’s a reluctance to identify as Italian American?

It’s funny. Tomorrow we have a singer coming in, Michael Amante, who’s going to perform a song for Rachael Ray’s mother. And the moment we announced that I got all these angry emails saying he’s not a real Italian, that he’s masquerading and that he’s really Polish! But I thought, I don’t care—after all he wants to be identified as Italian American. So in the past maybe there was a reluctance, but not now. We’ve had great role models, and I think that in some small measure we’ve contributed to that.

What do you think about a woman possibly becoming president?

Nothing would excite me more. Of course, our organization isn’t political and we’re not behind any specific candidate, but I’m a supporter of Hillary’s.

Do you have any experience with Italian politics?

Actually, in Italy politics got in the way of things. We tried to hook up with some women’s groups there but they’re all political, in line with a particular party. We would meet with one group and then another one from some other political affiliation would get offended. We try to avoid any political affiliations.

Do you bring attention to the immigrant story?

We absolutely do. We’ve brought attention to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, where most of the women who died were Italian or Jewish immigrants. I feel close to that story because my grandmother was a seamstress. She stayed very Italian her whole life. She basically transplanted her village and its culture from back in Italy to Brooklyn. She barely spoke English, and that was actually pretty tough for my mother growing up. My mother told me she remembers crying when her mother would send her to the drugstore to get something, but couldn’t tell her the word for it in English. She would have to show up there not knowing how to explain what it was she had to buy. When I asked my mother why she named me Aileen, she said it was because it was an English name.

Your organization has a funny acronym. I’m sure you know that in Italian “noia” means boredom, or an annoyance.

Yes, I know! And I view it as a positive thing. I see us as a necessary annoyance to men in the Italian American community, especially their male-centered organizations. I boycotted the Italian American Museum’s gala last year because they had a whole list of speakers, and not one woman. I was upset, and I called them up and told them I will find you a woman to speak. I thought it was unacceptable.

There are lots of Italian American organizations where the women just fetch the coffee and the men run the show. I’m glad that we’re a contrast to that. Those organizations also tend to focus their efforts on protesting the Sopranos, a show which, personally, I love. I think people’s fascination with that show wasn’t about crime, but about the Italian American family. It could be natural that men are more sensitive to that issue because for the most part, they’re also the ones that fall victim to prejudice.

And what are your thoughts on being Founder and Chairwoman of an organization like NOIAW?

I was the Vice President, and Vice Chair, of NIAF (National Italian American Foundation) for 12 years. But never the President, never got that cigar. That should tell you something. I love being the President here; the only unfortunate thing is that it’s twice as hard for us to raise money. All the big bucks always come from the men.