Word: showings
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...advertiser - Dominos - pulled out, sending MTV's programming president Tony DiSanto on the defensive. He told The Hollywood Reporter that "We actually did pull the word 'guidos' from voiceover and descriptions of the show. However, if [the roommates] refer to themselves that way, we let that exist as is." One of the roomies, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, doesn't see what the big deal is. A Guido, he says, is just "a good-looking Italian guy." (See a story about how to be Italian...
...word among African-Americans, the F word among gays; the C word among Chinese-Americans. Italian-Americans have a similar relationship with a two-syllable word beginning with G that is actually a man's name. And their feelings burst out loud when MTV began promoting its new reality show Jersey Shore, which an off-camera announcer declared would feature the "hottest, tannest craziest Guidos" in New Jersey's beachside communities. Wait, did MTV really just say "Guido...
Most people on the east coast easily recognize the word as a slur against Italian-American men of a certain class and swagger - and there was MTV just letting it rip. As the ramp up to the show continued, Italian-American anti-defamation groups started their drumbeat and the commercial was tweaked ever so slightly: the word "Guido" was replaced with "roommates" - which is more generally the premised cast of the reality show. But that was not the last we heard of Guido, well, because it's all over the show. Indeed, in the first episode of Jersey Shore...
...major key to Italian-American culture is something called 'bella figura,'" says Gardaphè. "It basically means, to put on a show so people don't know the real you. If you're poor, you make them think you're rich. If you're rich, you make them think you're poor." For an immigrant people emerging from a history of foreign conquerors and a lack of a nation-state (till 1870), says Gardaphè, "It's all about protection...
...could be the character-types who populate Jersey Shore who may be aggravating the offense many Italian-American take at the show's use of the G word. For example,a similar controversy arose over portrayals of Italian-Americans with The Sopranos. But while many were assuaged because they felt HBO's award-winning series was artful, they see Jersey Shore as just ugly. Says Gina Barreca, an English professor at the University of Connecticut who edited a collection of essays called A Sitdown with The Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on T.V.'s Most Talked About Series: "The Sopranos...