Italian Americans in Film and Other Media examines the representation of the Italian immigrant experience from D.W. Griffith¿s Biograph Italian Dramas (1908-1913) to the present day. Building on the editors¿ previous volume Italian Americans in Film, this collection broadens their scope to address marginalized aspects of Italian Americanness, including the work of women directors and depictions of same-sex relationships. The book consists of three parts. Part I, ¿The Immigrant Experience¿, focuses on feature films and is divided into two sections: ¿Silent Films¿ (which analyses some of Griffith¿s early films and Barker¿s The Italian, 1915), and ¿Revising Gender Perspectives¿, which includes chapters focusing on single films ¿ such as Dmytryk¿s Christ in Concrete (1949), De Michiel¿s Tarantella (1995), and Bonifacio¿s Amexicano (2007) ¿ and survey essays that discuss the Italian American ¿celluloid closet¿ and some of Savocäs films. Part II, ¿Italian Americans in Other Mediä, offers a wide range of essays informed by different approaches that investigate the immigrant experience in terms of transmediality and transnationality. The types of media examined in this section include television and graphic novels as well as puppetry, Instagram, and Internet memes. Part III contains interviews with Italian American scholars, movie directors, and performers. Together, the contributions to this collection demonstrate the vitality, mutation, and persistence of Italian Americanness in visual media.

Daniele Fioretti is Associate Teaching Professor of Italian at Miami University, USA. He is the author of Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature (2017) and Carte di fabbrica. La narrativa industriale in Italia 1934-1989 (2013). He co-edited the book Italian Americans in Film: Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities (2022).

Fulvio Orsitto is Director of the Georgetown University campus in Fiesole, Italy. He has published more than thirty essays and book chapters on Italian and Italian American literature and cinema, and has edited and co-edited ten volumes, including Pasolini: American Perspectives (2015), TOTalitarian ARTs: The Visual Arts, Fascism(s) and Mass-society (2017), and Italian Americans in Film: Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities (2022).

1. Chapter 1/Introduction 

Daniele Fioretti and Fulvio Orsitto

PART I -

THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE

2. Chapter 2 

Races to the Rescue in an Ethnic Urban Milieu: D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Italian Dramas

Irene Lottini

3. Chapter 3 

The Italian (1915) and the Representation of Italian Immigrants in Silent American Cinema 

Bernard Kuhn 

Revising Gender and Ethnic Perspectives

4. Chapter 4

Italianness and Foundational Masculinity in Edward Dmytryk's Rendition of Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete  

Gloria Pastorino

A Sting from the Past: Femininity and Ethnic Roots in Helen De Michiel's Tarantella (1995)  

Daniele Fioretti

6. Chapter 6

The Celluloid Closet: Sex, Power, and Coming Out Repression of the Italian American Closet in Nunzio's Second Cousin (1994), Kiss Me, Guido (1997), and Mambo Italiano (2003) 

Ryan Calabretta-Sajder 

7. Chapter 7

From True Love (1989) to Union Square (2011): Recovering the Exploded Family in 

Nancy Savoca's Films 

Gloria Pastorino

8. Chapter 8

Claudia Peralta and Fulvio Orsitto

PART II -

ITALIAN AMERICANS IN OTHER MEDIA 

9. Chapter 9

Italian American Gangsters Taking on a New Line of Work in Luc Besson's The Family (2013) 

Rosetta Caponetto Giuliani 

10. Chapter 10

The Transnational Puppet: From Italy and Back  

Federico Pacchioni 

11. Chapter 11

Comfortable and Uncomfortable Fictions: Italian Americans in the First Decades of Television 

Fulvio Orsitto 

12. Chapter 12

Looking Back, Moving Forward: Italian Americans on Television from the 1970s to the 1990s   

Fulvio Orsitto

13. Chapter 13

Italian Americans on Television in the New Millennium: From Small to Smaller Screen(s)  

Fulvio Orsitto

14. Chapter 14

The Goddess and the Huntress: Diana and DC's Helena Bertinelli 

Felice Italo Beneduce 

15. Chapter 15

CNN's Searching for Italy: Stanley Tucci as Foodways Icon 

Alan J. Gravano 

16. Chapter 16

Chef/Cook, Influencer, Mixologist, Travel Host: Stanley Tucci as Everyman 

Alan J. Gravano 

17. Chapter 17

An Unlimited Memeiosis of The Godfather: Diachronic and Synchronic Observations of a Pervasive and Ubiquitous Meme 

Anthony Dion Mitzel 

PART III -

INTERVIEWS 

18. Chapter 18

Interview with Helen De Michiel 

Daniele Fioretti 

Interview with Tony Vitale 

Daniele Fioretti 

20. Chapter 20

Interview with Michela Musolino 

Daniele Fioretti 

21. Chapter 21

Interview with Anthony Julian Tamburri 

Ryan Calabretta-Sajder