Almost White: Cinematic Representation of Irish Americans

Abstract

This research project is an analysis of how the cinematic representation of Irish Americans and their relation to another Catholic group, Italians, has defined and defines Irish identity in society. The thesis is divided in two main parts. The first gives a historical and theoretical background regarding Irish and Italian immigration in the United States, the common traits and features of the two groups as well as their differences, the stereotypes that were attributed to them, and how identity and ethnicity are constructed. In order to analyse these topics, the research has relied both on studies on ethnic identity (Chow, Giles et al., Rustin, Sollors, Wiegman) and specific texts on Irish and Italian immigration (Handlin, Fisher, Ignatiev, Puleo). Data regarding immigration have also been found in encyclopaedias and web sources. The second part consists in the analysis of movies in which Irish identity is defined through the presence of Italian Americans. The basis for the study of those movies has been provided by books like McDannell’s Catholics in the Movies. The films taken into consideration are mainly contemporary ones, and some of them are very well known to the larger public: State of Grace (1990), The Departed (2006), The Boondock Saints (1999) and its sequel (2009), Kill the Irishman (2011) and Last Man Standing (1996). An interesting chronological exception is The Man in Blue, a 1925 film which anticipates many of the themes elaborated in the more recent movies. This movie risks being lost forever, since the only copy seems to be preserved at the Cinematheque of Bologna, and not even the family of the director owns the DVD. Its analysis adds therefore great value to the study of the present topic. The method used is inductive, i.e. the movies have been first analyzed in their common traits, features, and meanings, and the historical and theoretical research about the possible reasons of the characterization of the Irish has been done later, to avoid forced interpretations. The research has shown that the presence of Italians in these movies clearly helps defining Irish identity and that this has an historical reason: when Italians started migrating in the U.S. the Irish, who had been exploited and discriminated, tried and managed to put the new group hierarchically under them in American society. This fact brought the Irish nearer to being considered whites. The clear rivalry of the two groups has only mildly been pointed at in literature or history, whereas, I argue, it has become a real topos in the movies. The thesis tries to explore how Irish identity has been defined and how movies influence, overcome or construct stereotypes and ethnicity.