What movies accurately depect racism and hostility towards Irish, Italian and Catholic immigrants?

February 19, 2006 10:21 AM

What are some films that show historically accurate racist or bigoted behavior that was directed against Irish, Italian and/or Catholic immigrants to America?

My wife teaches a race awareness class and would like to demonstrate that once, even some people considered "white" today were excluded and treated badly by mainstream society. As part of this, she would like to show some clips from movies that show prejudice against Irish and Italian immigrants and/or Catholics in general.

Some general guidelines:
-She'd like to show mainstream prejudice, not hostility by extremist groups - i.e. movies involving the Klan attacking Catholics are no good.
-The movies should be set before WWII. Some of the people in the class are older, and she wants to show them history that's out of living memory
-Nothing too violent or bloody - which is why she can't show Gangs of New York, which would otherwise be a good fit.
-Finally, the racism should be "condensed" enough to show as a short clip in class. For example, Far and Away, which has a consistent undercurrent of racism in it, has no single scene that captures it.

Any and all recommendations are welcome, thank you!

posted by hobbes103 to Education (22 answers total)

maybe something from here? (I was thinking Gentlemen's Agreement, but that's only us Jews, and more recent.)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has some good pointed moments. And Far and Away has some too, but i've never seen it.

look here too
posted by amberglow at 10:41 AM on February 19, 2006

Look into the Discovery Channel documentary "Real Gangs of New York". Less Hollywood, more history.
If I'm not mistaken, it's included as a feature on the "Gangs of New York" DVD.
posted by paxton at 10:46 AM on February 19, 2006

this is a list of videos on immigrant experiences in America (mostly documentaries tho)
posted by amberglow at 10:48 AM on February 19, 2006

In "It's a Wonderful Life," (1946) Potter refers to George Bailey's practice of issuing housing loans to the Italian community "Playing nursemaid to a bunch of garlic-eaters."
posted by Miko at 10:51 AM on February 19, 2006

i know you asked for a movie, but wages of whiteness is a great book.
posted by yonation at 10:55 AM on February 19, 2006

seconding 'Far and Away'

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104231/
posted by tiamat at 11:19 AM on February 19, 2006

Do the movies have to be made prior to World War II or just take place before World War II?
posted by dgeiser13 at 11:39 AM on February 19, 2006

there's some old looney tunes that indulge in ethnic stereotypes of irish and italian people ... i'm thinking of the cartoon where bugs hides mugsy in the oven and an irish cop comes in ... or the one in which "whatsamattaforyou" is sung ... but those aren't really strong examples

i think that there were enough irish and italian moviegoers in the 30s and 40s that hollywood had to be careful not to offend them
posted by pyramid termite at 11:57 AM on February 19, 2006

Response by poster: They should just take place before WWII - they can be made at any time
posted by hobbes103 at 12:20 PM on February 19, 2006

Prior folks, they've already discounted Far and Away. Though, I could have sworn there's a scene where the main character gets a brief talking down to by another Irish about his chances as an Irish on his own.

In the Brendan Fraser movie, School Ties, the main character who is white, deals with racism for being Jewish. The whole point being, when he first arrived at his school, everyone accepted him as one of themselves, until they discovered his Jewish background. Only problem, it takes place in the 1950's.

In the movie, The Untouchables, Sean Connery's Irish character makes a derogatory racial comment towards Andy Garcia's character, Stone. The scene revolves around Connery getting on to Garcia's character for changing his very Italian name to "George Stone" so as to hide his ethnicity. It'd easily be a short clip of about two to three minutes.
posted by Atreides at 12:30 PM on February 19, 2006

I recall some made for TV movie where the Irish were portrayed as second class citizens. A courtroom scene had the judge calling an Irishman's wife "the female." The man finally spoke up -- "Her name is..."

I also recall the scene in Braveheart where the bad English king tells his general to "Send in the Irish. Arrows cost money."

Besides film, there's always Swift's "A Modest Proposal," where he satirically proposes cannibalism as a means of dealing with the problem of overpopulation among the Irish.

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.”
posted by frogan at 1:35 PM on February 19, 2006

Also -- The Molly Maguires

Life is rough in the coal mines of 1876 Pennsylvania. A secret group of Irish emigrant miners, known as the Molly Maguires, fights against the cruelty of the mining company with sabotage and murder.
posted by frogan at 1:39 PM on February 19, 2006

Oh geez, we're completing forgetting The Godfather -- the scene where the Irish police captain slaps Michael Corleone around. That's set in the early 1950s.
posted by frogan at 1:41 PM on February 19, 2006

Ragtime has hostility by racist Irish firemen in turn-of-last-century New York.

But what you're looking for is examples of "No Irish Need Apply." That's gotta be an element of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" but I can't think of any overt demonstrations in the story -- it's more class than race, as they live in the poor part of town. Great movie, though -- book, too.
posted by Rash at 2:22 PM on February 19, 2006

Please pardon the self-link (to a MeFi FPP), but you might find something at the UCSB Cylinder Project , which are early sound recordings (~1890-1920).

It's not film, but there are plenty of offensive character songs that really drive home the stereotypes against Italians, Irish, and any number of others, and it's something a bit more unique than a clip from a film.

Use the search index for "Irish humor" or "Italian humor" and look for potentially-offensive titles.

Otherwise, I'd second looking for movies/pictures with NINA (No Irish Need Apply) signs in the window.
posted by JMOZ at 3:58 PM on February 19, 2006

The second disc of the PBS documentary New York covers this topic.
posted by makonan at 4:06 PM on February 19, 2006

Second Matewan from amberglow's second link. There's a scene where an American and an Italian woman bond over food.
posted by brujita at 10:12 PM on February 19, 2006

An important point: No Irish Need Apply is largely a myth. If it was true, it should have an historical record, but there isn't even a single contemporary book or photograph that tells us it happened, in contrast to other minority discrimination that is well documented. In fact, the myth seems to be tied to a song of that name discussing discrimination against the Irish in England -- not America. It's so well-ingrained that even (for example) Ted Kennedy has expressed his belief that he remembers seeing the signs himself.

The Irish were in actuality a very successful immigrant class. They spoke English, they came from the same political unit from which most Americans were descended until the late 19th century, and they were the dominant political class in most immigrant-heavy cities for decades.

Italians, on the other hand, did not speak English, had a darker skin color, a dramatically different culture (in 19th-century American terms), and other impediments.

All that said, it doesn't fit your requirements especially, but Go For Broke! -- a movie about the much-decorated 442nd Japanese-American regiment -- is a deliberately, stilted-propaganda-style evocation of the attitudes of the Army at the time, the hapless Van Johnson having to portray a blatant (but soft-pedalled) racist who comes to terms with the men under his command.

But I wonder if A Class Divided might be a more practical choice here -- it's about the very famous Iowa schoolteacher who created out of whole cloth the eye-color exercise, where students were separated by eye color and pressed to implement discrimination. It's like a realistic "Fifth Wave".
posted by dhartung at 10:26 PM on February 19, 2006

I wonder if Once Upon A Time in America would have anything that fit your needs? The first half, where the characters are boys and teenagers growing up in Brooklyn, is really gritty and magnificent.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:51 PM on February 19, 2006

I've heard some museum in Boston actually has documentary proof of it, ikkyu2--signs and newspaper classifieds.
posted by amberglow at 6:38 AM on February 20, 2006

They spoke English

Most of them didn't speak English for the first couple of generations after the 1850s.

They came from the same political unit from which most Americans were descended until the late 19th century

From the 1600s until 1850 most of the Irish immigrants were Scots Irish, driven from their Irish (and Scottish!) lands by ethnic cleansing. They harboured a deep, abiding distrust of the Hiberno Irish, who began to arrive as a flood during the 1850s.

And that "political unit" was only created in 1801.
posted by meehawl at 7:06 AM on February 20, 2006

dhartung, the existence of NINA is debated. It's beyond disingenous to point to that one essay and say "Voilà, it didn't." There's definitely more than one point of view.

One of my professors (disclaimer: I'm minoring in Irish Studies) collects that type of artifact. He has a huge collection, and a lot of it has never been digitized, and therefore isn't on teh internets for me to link to. I did previously put some links in a related comment.

hobbes103, are you looking for documentaries, or just for movies that show fictionalized depictions? I can probably get you a list of the former if you're interested.
posted by booksandlibretti at 4:21 PM on February 20, 2006