Combat Negative Stereotyping of Italian Americans

We the undersigned, supporters of the Campaign Against the Negative Stereotyping of Italian Americans (CANSIA) hereby protest the defamation being perpetrated, propagated, and perpetuated by DreamWorks-SKG through Shark Tale, its full length animated childrens movie, a so-called gangster comedy. The film, as explained below, is insidiously damaging to children.
Shark Tale features sharks and killer whales, in a Five Families syndicate, whose members have Italian sounding names spouting stereotypical Italian gangster movie lingo such as, I am the don, Badda-bim, Badda-boom, fuhgettaboutit, capeesh, and the ominous hes going to get a visit from my boys. Between 1928 and 2002 some 1233 films were released that featured Italian or Italian American characters. In 869 of these films they were portrayed negatively, and 88\% of the crime films centered on fictional, not actual, Italian Americans (www.italic.org; click on Media Watch then: Italic Institute of America Image etc.)
FBI data for 1999 reports that only some 5000 people of various national origins, including Chinese, other Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Russians and Italians were involved in organized crime. This means that even if all 5000 were of Italian ancestry they would only represent less than 4/100ths of 1\% of the nearly 16 million who identified themselves as Italian Americans in the 2000 US Census.
A study of Americas teens found that 44\% associate criminal movie or TV roles with Italian Americans. Worse yet, 46\% if Italian American teens think their heritage is portrayed accurately by the entertainment industry. (www.niaf.org; click on Research & Reports, then on Reports and then Zogby, etc.). Another Zogby International online study conducted in conjunction with the American Italian Defense Association (AIDA), found that 53\% of the 3000 respondents agreed that the medias portrayal of Italian Americans is offensive, i.e., negative (www.aida-usa.org;), despite US Census data that fully 66\% of Italian Americans in the work force hold white collar positions, with income and education above the national norm (www.osia.org; click on Studies in Culture, then on Studies & Reports, and on Profile etc.)
The tendency of the media to harp, inordinately, on the negative aspect of Italian American life, coupled with the stereotypical portrayals by Shark Tale, will implant in the formative minds of pre-teens, denigrating images of Italian Americans. Such images, as reinforced by appealing toys and other merchandizing movie tie-ins, will have serious consequences because they will be assimilated in the opinion forming process of youngster who as adults may well factor them in their employment selection, assignment, promotion or even social interaction decisions. We concur with Mr. Spielberg, one of the principals in DreamWorks, that society needs to take steps to avoid the dangers of stereotyping, [and] the dangers of discrimination (as quoted by Bernard Weintraub, New York Times, Mar. 9, 2004).
Accordingly, we demand that Shark Tale, and its DVD version be edited, preferably to rename all characters that have Italian sounding names, and at a minimum to add a suitable voice-over disclaimer. We further demand that the planned sequel eliminate all negative ethnic stereotypes, and that the marketing partners, take effective action to repair the heritage slur of Italian Americans.