The Art of Stereotyping Italians
TORONTO – Actors Andrew Rannells and Nick Kroll appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show last month to talk about their new horror movie I Don’t Understand You – a film they shot in Lazio in 2024. The plot follows a married couple, who, while vacationing in Italy, attempt to adopt a child without any knowledge of the Italian language or transportation. While on Fallon’s Tonight Show, the two “joked” about their time in Italy and about the local culture, mocking the Italian crew’s work ethic and razzing Italians about their [lack of] food culture while doing so.
The clip has since circulated on social media, sparking conversations about cultural stereotyping in comedy, among other things. But as someone who grew up watching shows like Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter and Who’s The Boss, seeing Italians depicted as witless morons is nothing new. And these days, trolling Italians and their food is a rampant trend.
“Everyone’s like, oh, you’ve got to go to Italy and get the food. Oh my god, Italian food is so good. You know who else makes good Italian food? Olive Garden”, joked Rannells. He and Kroll continued: “Oh, the pasta. Fresh tomatoes, can you believe it? You can only eat so many caprese salads in a week before you lose your mind. There’s very few vegetables. Nothing is fresh. Everything is fried. We all could have gotten scurvy by the end of it”. Irony and sarcasm abound.
Their anecdote about filming in Italy went a little further. Kroll explained that during “a night shoot”, there was heavy rain and he was covered in mud. But since shooting hours were over, they had to ask the crew if they were willing to work overtime – rather than coming back the next day to do the mud scene again.
“The crew then gets together, spends a half hour voting about whether they’re going to do overtime. And they’re like, nah. So they decide no overtime. So then I come back the next day and have to redo the entire thing”, said Kroll barely able to contain his colloquialism. He continued, “There’s a reason the Roman Empire fell. They have a very solid work-life balance. They don’t like to work”. Ha, ha…
Fallon and the actors continued laughing throughout the exchange, which was presumably all in jest. It’s the type of humour that predated the latest wave of political correctness. Comedians like Don Rickles and Richard Prior were equal-opportunity offenders, for instance. Both exploited racial and religious stereotypes for laughs – and no one was left out.
Contemporary American comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, a popular roast comic, attempted to do just that at Trump’s election rally when he referred to tropes about black people and their love of watermelon; when he called Palestinians rock-throwers; when he joked about Jewish frugality and quipped about Puerto Rico being a floating island of garbage. These were/are all racially offensive jokes which generated nationwide headlines and a massive backlash for Hinchcliffe.
And yet, the “art” of stereotyping Italians remains in fashion.
(Images courtesy of Vertical Entertainment and The Tonight Show)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
